ABA Approved Online Paralegal Programs
There are many online paralegal programs available so why it is important to study at one approved by the ABA? Some employers will only employ those legal assistants who qualified from a program that was accredited. But that isn’t the only reason.
There are many courses online whose study materials are not of sufficient quality to allow you to pass your certification exams with the marks you deserve. Why waste your time, hard work not to mention the financial expense of a course that may not live up to your expectations.
The American Bar Association while well known for supporting attorneys isn’t always associated with the paralegal profession. In fact some paralegals have refused to join the ABA because they feel the association doesn’t give their professional status the same recognition as that accorded to attorneys.
But the American Bar Association has been actively supporting paralegals as an important part of the legal team for almost 40 years. The ABA believes very strongly that well trained legal assistants can assist Attorneys in delivering a much better service to their clients.
Their aim is to support all types of applicants who wish to become paralegals by providing access to quality education. They recognize that just as there are many different roles that paralegals occupy, there are also many different types of applicants i.e. those who have recently left school and those mature students who wish to go back to college to retrain.
The ABA is aware of the growing numbers of would be paralegals with plenty of life experience combined with relevant legal experience but who might not meet the usual educational requirements. They will look at educational programs trying to meet the needs of these students as well as the more traditional colleges.
It should be noted that there are about 1000 educational programs designed to train you as a paralegal and currently only about a quarter of these have been approved by the ABA. This doesn’t mean that the other courses offer poor quality tuition although some of them do.
Applying for approval by the American Bar Association is voluntary and has a financial cost so some educational providers don’t bother trying to get approved. Some may have been approved in the past but for whatever reason no longer meets the criteria of the ABA.
There are very strict rules on what colleges must do when approval is withdrawn and these include notifying the current students and removing all accreditation notices from paperwork and websites but these are not always adhered to.
You should always check the American Bar Association website to make sure your course is still approved if this is an important factor in your decision on where to study.
To qualify as ABA approved paralegal programs, the educational provider will have to show that their course meets the relevant criteria. In particular the ABA requires that a certain number of credits be taken via traditional classroom instruction. The use of interactive video sessions can satisfy this requirement.
The online program must also provide a way for students to interact with each other and their tutors. The tutors must accept and answer any questions students may have in a timely fashion. There must be full back up services so that any technology problems don’t stop students accessing the study materials for long periods of time.
If you are an online training provider and interested in being approved by the American Bar Association, you should study their requirements and speak to someone in their approvals department for more guidance.