Paralegal Job Description
A paralegal job description will depend very much on the area of law in which you choose to work as well as the type of practice you work in. For example if you work for one of the government departments your job description will be a lot more defined than if you were working in a small legal practice. Government jobs do not pay as much as the salaries on offer at the larger law firms but they offer more security. If you value good benefits and job security, you may prefer this role. If you are looking to work in litigation where the law changes on almost a daily basis, a government job is not for you.
Paralegal assistant job description in a small firm
If you like variety in your work, you may prefer to apply for a legal assistant position in a smaller firm. Your job description as a paralegal will be quite broad as you will be expected to take on a little bit of everything. In the same week you could be interviewing witnesses, preparing briefs and filing court documents depending on how busy your lead attorney is.
No matter where you work as a legal assistant, your job description will expect you to have certain skills. All paralegals need good writing skills as the job involves a lot of document preparation. Strong communication skills, both written and verbal are essential if you want to excel in this role. Not only will you be working with qualified attorneys but you may also have to explain legal issues to clients.
Legal assistants must be well organized. Regardless of the area of law you choose to work in you will have to work to tight deadlines, and being disorganized could cost you your job. Depending on where you work, you may have to manage working for a number of different attorneys who will have slightly different working practices. They are all likely to consider their work the most important so you will have to juggle your diary to accommodate their requirements.
The job description for a paralegal depends on the position being applied for.
The actual paralegal job description will depend on the level of the position you are applying for. Some attorneys like to train up their own legal assistants. This tends to be the older attorneys who like things done in specific ways. The younger ones just want someone else to do the mundane work while they concentrate on the areas they perceive to be more exciting. If you are applying for basic position your education and not your previous job experience will be more relevant and should be what you highlight on your paralegal resume.
If you wish to work as a paralegal but have no experience you may wish to consider working as legal secretary initially. In most legal practices you will find your employer will be prepared to train you as a paralegal, if you have shown that you are committed to the firm, willing to work hard and have the ability required to do this job.
How to improve your paralegal job description and salary
If you are applying for a senior position, your paralegal job description and salary will be commensurate with the position you are applying for. It is more likely to include similar tasks to those performed by an attorney and you may be expected to supervise more junior legal assistants. The more experience and specialization you have the more likely you can pick and choose which parts of the paralegal position you want to spend the most time working at. Recent and relevant work experience together with your paralegal certification will help you to secure this position.
If you work in the civil law, you will find yourself spending a lot of time preparing documents for civil litigation. Most law firms will use standard checklists to make sure that the documents prepared cover all necessary angles. There is no need to make up your own checklists unless the firm has yet to introduce standard documentation. The checklist will list all the questions and items required in a particular type of case.
Your time as a paralegal is precious and is very easy to get distracted when working on files. It is imperative that you fully understand what your lead attorney is asking you to do so you don’t waste time chasing dead ends. When you are starting out in your paralegal career you will probably waste a lot of time especially when doing research. Don’t worry, the skills you need to become a competent paralegal will be developed while you are working. Some things simply can’t be learned at school!
Regardless of the area of law you work in, as a paralegal you will perform legal research. The research takes up a lot of time and is one job that attorneys are happy to delegate to a competent paralegal. In the old days this meant that paralegals would spend a lot of time in the library looking up past cases, but now the research is done mainly via your computer. This doesn’t mean you will spend less time researching material though. You still have to find the relevant cases and apply the principles to the case in hand. Your legal argument will depend on the correct interpretation of these facts.
The job description for a paralegal may also include the ability to interview witnesses. This is particularly relevant if you work in litigation. If you are employed by a firm specializing in criminal litigation you will interview witnesses and potential victims or perpetrators depending on the side you represent.
If you work in corporate litigation you may be involved in interviewing witness in trademark cases. In family law, you may have to deal with victims of abuse or children in child custody cases.
As an interviewer you will have to have the ability to remain impartial and non judgemental. Your job is to gather the facts of the case to help the attorney you work for to represent his clients properly. You are not there to cast judgement regardless of how abhorrent the crime may be.
What about those requirements not included on a paralegal job description?
Although your job description for a paralegal position may not list resilience as a required skill or characteristic, it is one worth developing if you intend to work in this career field. You will make mistakes and one day an error may cost someone extra time in jail or they may lose their case. You cannot afford to let past mistakes take over your career but must be able to learn from them and then put them behind you.