Paralegal Work – What Is A Paralegal And What Is Their Job Description?
Do you have an interest in paralegal work, or want to pursue a career in the legal field? Well you’re in great company – many individuals across the country are seeking a lucrative and rewarding career as a paralegal. The paralegal profession is in high demand and is projected to experience tremendous growth through the year 2014 as indicated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We intend to address these questions in this article: what is a paralegal? What are the daily activities of paralegals? What kind of salary should I expect as a paralegal? And what kind of paralegal degrees or credentials are required to be a paralegal?
Paralegals are sometimes called legal secretaries or legal assistants. However, unlike secretaries or executive assistants, paralegals have a knowledge base rooted in the law, and are much more specialized.
On any given day a paralegal may be involved with any of these activities: legal research, reading and reviewing articles on the law, file administration, document preparation, preparation for litigation activities, data retrieval, collection of judicial decisions, and many more activities not mentioned. They are basically responsible for everything and attorney would do on a daily basis — other than offer legal advice or represent clients.
Paralegals are in high demand not only from law firms, but also the government, corporations, real estate firms, labor unions, and banking institutions, and many more types of organizations. With this being the case, the job demand of the paralegal can be varied heavily depending on their position and the needs of their employer.
If you’re seeking a career in law, paralegal work can be a great stepping stone and allow you to actually pay the bills if you can’t afford going to law school full time. Most community colleges offer a two-year degree in paralegal studies, which can be taken at night after work. There is an estimated 1000 organizations, colleges, and law schools offering training for paralegals.
The pay grade for paralegals can vary heavily, like with any other field. This also depends on the responsibilities held by the position, past experience, education level, and many other variables. For someone just starting out as a paralegal, you can expect to earn $25,000-$30,000 or so, however this increases dramatically for the more experienced, as well as what area of the country you live. More experienced paralegals take home from $80,000-$100,000 in some cases. Paralegal degrees range from a simple certification after a few months of study to bachelors degrees and post grad degrees.
One of the benefits of paralegal work over a traditional assistant or secretary is the fact that you will never be bored, and always be carrying out different tasks throughout the days, weeks, and months of the year. Since attorneys obviously have lots of different clients with different situations and needs, the nature of these cases are quite unique, and thus, the role of the paralegal is this way as well. Paralegal work is never a boring or monotonous. As a result, most paralegals are very satisfied with their jobs and tend to have a high morale.
For more information on becoming a paralegal and paralegal work, visit http://www.ParalegalWork.org.
Processing your request, Please wait....
