The Legal Assistant Course

2007-11-05 15:10:11

( Education )



Almost a Lawyer's Job

As a legal assistant or paralegal, you provide support for the lawyers you work for. You have a wide variety of duties, ranging from reminding clients about paperwork or court appointments, to preparing and reviewing documents for final signatures and notarization.

In fact, you will feel almost like a lawyer with all these responsibilities. About the only functions of a lawyer which you cannot undertake are to advise or represent clients in court hearings and to sign documents on their behalf. A legal assistant training program is not as rigid or long as that of a law degree. You don't need to pass a state bar examination nor have to take additional refresher courses to update your legal knowledge.

Even non-legal firms hire legal assistants to assist in their documentation requirements or in handling claims. With a legal assistant course certificate, you do have an edge in today's highly competitive job market.

The Legal Assistant Training Program

To become a legal assistant, you need to take an associate degree course in legal assisting, which will normally take only about two years. Once you finish this legal assistant course, you can take a two-day certification exam, and you earn a certificate after passing it. You also have the option to study further and earn credits for a law degree.

Almost all legal offices require you to have completed such a certificate course before they will hire you as legal assistant. This is because you have to be able to understand legal vocabulary and proper wordings of documents, as well as to know all the requirements that come with filing court cases or lawsuits. This type of knowledge can only be available through a legal assistant course or through many long years of experience in handling such functions.

The legal assistant training course itself already contains some law basics, especially for the most important matters, such as divorce, employment, or public liability. You have to be familiar with how cases are filed for each of these, as well as where to research the basic laws that will back up your case.

Where to Enroll in a Legal Assistant Course

You will never run short of finding a legal assistant course, since there are countless ones available right in your own town.

You can inquire with your local community college or university about the legal assistant training program. Aside from the traditional schools, there are also independent legal assistant training centers and institutes. You can also look up sites that may offer the course on a distance learning basis.

When inquiring about the course, you should also find out from the school or training center whether it has any job placement program, which can refer you to excellent employment prospects after you become a certified legal assistant.


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