Legal assistants are important contributors to a law firm’s success and are integral to its day-to-day operations. Their roles include preparing legal documents, managing case files, and ensuring everything stays organized behind the curtain. Because of their effective organizational skills and knowledge of law, they affect the dynamics of the ever-dynamic legal world.
Legal assistants, also called litigation assistants, mainly perform ancillary work and work at the strategic and administrative levels to support the legal profession.
Below, we will break down exactly what it means to be a legal assistant, including some educational and training requirements of the position, as well as what sort of expectations legal assistants should have for pay.
What is a legal assistant?
A legal assistant is a person who implements clerical and administrative services for lawyers and other legal personnel. Legal assistants may perform tasks such as sorting or filing documents, preparing appointments and calendars, including trail schedules, and contacting clients and all other parties to lawsuits. A legal assistant may also help with legal research, writing legal papers, and more, not whatever is required. However, a legal assistant usually has a certificate or degree in legal studies or related fields and may be designated in a specific legal field.
In general, the work of a legal assistant is oriented toward supporting the organization and administration of a law firm. Some tasks of a legal assistant may include answering telephone calls, making appointments between partners, associates, clients, and other related individuals, and preparing documents required in some litigation.
What does a legal assistant do?
A legal assistant supports legal professionals such as lawyers and offers a variety of clerical duties. This can include preparing or handling legal papers and even assisting an attorney in court. While their duties vary depending on the size and type of the firm, legal assistant responsibilities might be.
Clients’ communication and handling of the clients and their needs. Legal assistants may make a law firm’s communication more responsive, whether that is answering phone calls and emails, responding to a live chat, or even greeting clients.
Calendar coordination: Legal assistants can manage their own and their lawyer’s appointments with clients, including appointments, meetings, and interviews.
Legal research and writing: The legal assistant may be permitted to undertake research on legal matters and assist in the preparation and review of legal papers and letters.
Clients’ billing and accounting: Legal assistants can assist the lawyers in managing invoices and help in handling any dispute with clients over billing.
Documents organization and management: This could include tasks such as compiling the documents that a lawyer requires for a case or filling as well as arranging the documents.
What is a legal assistant vs. paralegal?
The terms legal assistant and paralegal may be used interchangeably, but the jobs of the contemporary legal assistant and paralegal differ. Moreover, the American Bar Association (ABA) still only changed the definition of paralegal, which specifies that one cannot use the term legal assistant in 2020.
Paralegals and legal assistants are other types of legal professionals who help attorneys; they both add value to a law firm. But they are not the same.
Legal Assistant Focused on Administrative Support
Legal assistants perform simple work for attorneys. The employment of legal assistants makes law firms to run smoothly since they provide specific services that do not need a lawyer. This saves time and permits the lawyers to spend most of their working hours on charge-generating activities instead of administrative tasks.
Qualifications and Requirements for Legal Assistants
Here are a few requirements that legal assistants can fulfill before starting their careers.
Is a Degree Required to Become a Legal Assistant?
There are no academic requirements for those legal assistants, but often they must have a high school diploma or GED. But of course, in a competitive employment environment, law firms are always on the lookout for applicants who also have some extra certification or experience as an additional edge. Therefore, it is customary for most legal assistants to either have their legal education or gain legal experience while in practice; consequently, more legal assistants acquire a two-year associate degree or a legal assistant certificate than any other degree.
Essential Training for Legal Assistants
Some law firms give on-the-job training to recent college graduates or anyone who has never practiced law or had any form of education before being trained as a lawyer. Employing legal assisting software, a legal assistant could be trained to sort and input legal and court documents.
Legal assistants also might train in other aspects of the legal system, including legal research, writing of documents, and filing courts. They can achieve this through online studies, workshops, or attending seminars. This can assist legal assistants in gaining knowledge in the areas of law and fluently accomplishing their roles.
Certifications for Legal Assistants
Certification is not necessary, but some law firms may prefer a candidate to have a Certified Legal Assistant (CLA) certification, which focuses on paralegal duties. Becoming a CLA involves showing that you have a degree in legal paralegal studies and then passing an exam through your state bar association.
The following areas are covered in this exam:
Legal ethics, communications, legal research, and judgment. Having listed the courses that can be taken to further one’s education, some states do conduct and demand additional tests before one can practice in the legal line. After certification, it is possible to be required to redo the certification every two to three years.
Key Skills of a Legal Assistant
While legal assistants are knowledgeable about the legal processes and terms that assist them in accomplishing legal research and writing tasks. They often perform best under pressure; they also have good focus as they deal with sensitive legal papers.
Document management systems, legal databases, and filing systems, which are legal technologies, are also important to a legal assistant. Others are legal awareness that the employee or the lawyer understands various laws or legal requirements that are required in the business.
Communicating with clients
Legal assistants utilize communication in writing legal papers and also presenting facts to the lawyers. It means verbal and written communication with the clients, like phone calls, emails, memos, etc. They also regularly have contact with external organizations, clients, and courthouse representation for the setting of court dates and hearings.
Conclusion
Carries out certain tasks in cooperation with legal specialists, as well as engages in administrative and research work and management tasks related to cases.
To become one, you require formal education, certification, as well as practical experience. The position requires good organizational skills, attention to detail, and sound knowledge of how legal processes work. This is a fulfilling job for people who like to work in a changing legal landscape.
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