Legal Assistant Training Prepares You To A Paralegal Job

2007-04-12 11:34:06

( Education )



Due to the bulk of their work, lawyers hire legal assistants (also known as paralegals) to do research, prepare pleadings and briefs, and other substantial tasks that an attorney may delegate and supervise. However, legal assistants cannot perform the tasks that exclusively belong to an attorney. These include appearing in court, giving legal advice to a client and those that are part of the practice of law.

Because of the nature of legal assistants' work, they are required to meet certain educational and legal assistant training qualifications. Some law firms are quite lenient in the legal assistant's qualification. They may hire college graduates without any legal experience and will just allow their assistants to acquire legal assistant training on the job. Other firms require that applicants for a legal assistant position must have undergone a formal legal assistant training from some institutions that offer legal assistant programs.

If you are interested to become a legal assistant, you may want to enroll in some legal assistant programs. Institutions offering legal assistant courses vary in their requirements for admission. You may encounter some that require you to have a bachelor's degree, while others accept those with actual legal experience or high school graduates.

The quality of legal assistant training also varies. But most of the programs offer internship where you will have to work in some legal-related offices like a law firm, a bank or a corporate legal department, and a public defender or attorney general's office for a certain period of time. Your experience from any of these offices will be an added plus over other applicants for a legal assistant job. Although there is no law that requires you to be a certified legal assistant to qualify for the job, it will look good on your resume and will certainly improve your chances of being hired.


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