Exactly what are responsibilities of a para legal?

Question

W hat exactly is a para legal & what are the responsibilities? I am considering para legal as a career,but do not know much about para legals. Can you help?

Answer 1

Overview of Paralegal Profession
In the United States, a paralegal works in the legal profession, typically as an assistant to a lawyer. They are needed in all areas where a lawyer is necessary - criminal trials, real estate, government and estate planning, among other. Paralegals are often responsible for researching, analyzing and managing the daily tasks of cases. While they work closely with cases, paralegals are limited in their duties and must be supervised by a lawyer, who will be ultimately responsible for the paralegal's work.


[edit] Competing Official Paralegal Definitions
Legal organizations in the USA define "paralegal" with slight differences.

From the American Bar Association: "A legal assistant or paralegal is a person qualified by education, training or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible." Under this definition, the legal responsibility for a paralegal's work rests directly and solely upon the lawyer. [1]
From the National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA): "A Paralegal is a person, qualified through education, training or work experience to perform substantive legal work that requires knowledge of legal concepts and is customarily, but not exclusively, performed by a lawyer. This person may be retained or employed by a lawyer, law office, governmental agency or other entity or may be authorized by administrative, statutory or court authority to perform this work. Substantive shall mean work requiring recognition, evaluation, organization, analysis, and communication of relevant facts and legal concepts." [2]
From the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA): "Legal assistants, also known as paralegals, are a distinguishable group of persons who assist attorneys in the delivery of legal services. Through formal education, training and experience, legal assistants have knowledge and expertise regarding the legal system and substantive and procedural law which qualify them to do work of a legal nature under the supervision of an attorney." In 2001, NALA adopted the ABA's definition of a paralegal or legal assistant as an addition to its definition. [3]
From the American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE): "Paralegals perform substantive and procedural legal work as authorized by law, which work, in the absence of the paralegal, would be performed by an attorney. Paralegals have knowledge of the law gained through education, or education and work experience, which qualifies them to perform legal work. Paralegals adhere to recognized ethical standards and rules of professional responsibility." [4]

[edit] Educational Background
In the United States, paralegals have taken many different paths to their careers. These paths comprise an array of varying levels of education, different certifications, and on-the-job-training. They work in government, for law firms, for corporations, for real estate firms, and for nonprofit organizations. Where they work and what they do often depends on what mixture of experience, skills, education, and certification they possess.

There is no specific educational requirement in most U.S. states for legal assistants or paralegals. Some paralegals have only on-the-job experience, while some paralegals have completed a two-year course or bachelor's degree in paralegal studies. Others have completed a bachelor's or even a master's degree in another field, and quite a few of these people have also completed a regular or post-baccalaureate paralegal certificate. Many paralegals have completed all of their training before entering the profession, while others have completed their education while working their way up from the mailroom in a law firm. Many Paralegals take Continuing Legal Education credits to fulfill the requirements of their firm, state, or association.

U.S. Paralegal or Legal Assistant courses of study have long been available in associate's degree or certificate programs at community colleges and private universities. However, similar programs exist at four-year universities and have expanded over the years. More and more prestigious universities offer bachelor's degrees and post-baccalaureate certificates in the subject. One guess to the increasing trend might be that as law responds to rapidly changing technological, social, and business environments, the workload of law firms and even their way of doing business changes as well.


[edit] Certification
In the United States, "paralegal" is not a licensed profession*. (However, in California since 2000, the Business and Professions Code Sections 6450 and 6450 have required that a paralegal obtain training of at least 21 "law-related" semester units from either an ABA Accredited School or a Community College. California therefore requires paralegals to become "certified")

Certification is voluntary, increases a paralegal's skill sets or prepares him or her to enter the profession, often increases the likelihood of a paralegal's hire or promotion, and serves to identify a person as capable of work that is on par with certain standards. Certification is accomplished by taking and passing one of several privately administered tests from one of several paralegal associations. Graduation from a certificate program does not certify a paralegal; passing an exam administered by a recognized entity is the only benchmark generally considered to be a "certifying" event.

Alternatively, one may work under the supervision of an attorney for one year and will still be certified as a paralegal in the state of California.


[edit] Career
In the United States the median yearly salary for a paralegal in the private sector is $50,000. Paralegals working for the US federal government average over $53,000 per year while state and local government paralegals earn around $34,000. Larger law firms may pay as high as $80,000 annually with benefits.


[edit] The Economics of Paralegalism
The heart of the Paralegal phenomenon is a legal-economics argument. According to the laws of the United States, there are five specific acts which only a licensed attorney can perform:

Establish the attorney-client relationship
Give legal advice
Sign legal papers and pleadings on behalf of a party
Appear in court on behalf of another (i.e. the client)%
Set and collect fees for legal services
% Where this might be true in a majority of cases, there are a limited number of jurisdictions, including but not limited to Social Security Cases, wherein a non-attorney (Paralegal) can appear on behalf of the client

Outside of those five specific acts reserved for an attorney only, the Paralegal can perform any task, including legal research, legal writing, preparation of exhibits, as well as the mundane day to day tasks of case management. The key is that the attorney is entirely responsible for the actions of the Paralegal and by signing documents prepared by the Paralegal, the attorney makes them his own.

Law schools and state bar associations, through admissions and licensing, control the number of licensed attorneys and, as economic theory would predict, generally act to restrict that number in order to increase salaries over what a truly free market would produce (and, in the case of law schools, allow an increase in tuition by increasing the financial reward of obtaining a law education.) While the strenuous education and bar exams arguably increase the quality of attorneys at the same time as the cost of employing one, there remain many legal tasks for which a full legal education is unnecessary but some amount of legal training is helpful.

As the cost of litigation has risen, insurance companies and other clients have increasingly refused to pay for an attorney to perform these certain kinds of tasks, and this gap has been filled in many cases by Paralegals. Paralegal time is typically billed at only a fraction of what an attorney charges, and thus to the Paralegal has fallen those substantive and procedural tasks which are too complex for legal secretaries (whose time is not billed) but for which attorneys can no longer bill. This in turn makes attorneys more efficient by allowing them to concentrate solely on the substantive legal issues of the case, while Paralegals have become the "case managers."

The increased use of Paralegals nationwide has slowed the rising cost of legal services, and serves in some small measure (in combination with contingency fees and insurance) to keep the cost of legal services within the reach of the regular population. However, as John T. Brodrick, Jr. warns in his article "An Emerging Model: Legal Assistant as Colleague" (Chapter 7 of Leveraging with Legal Assistants), "However, our profession makes a serious error if it uses legal assistants only as economic tools."

Paralegal Nurse Consultants

An estimated 25% of U.S. attorneys work in medical malpractice or personal injury litigation. However, most attorneys have only a limited knowledge of healthcare and medical concepts and terminology. Therefore, in addition to Legal Nurse Consultants, a certain number of Registered Nurses have become fully trained as paralegals in the manner described above, and assist behind the scenes on these cases, in addition to serving as expert witnesses from time to time. There is an extremely high demand for nurses to begin with, so the demand for nurses with paralegal skills is expected to remain very high in the near future.


[edit] Paralegals and Notaries Public
A large percentage of paralegals and legal secretaries are also commissioned as notaries public.

Being a notary is not required to become a paralegal, and only very rarely is it required for employment as a paralegal. The only paralegals that require a notary public commission are those who work for certain banks and financial institutions. For most other paralegals, becoming a notary public can be a form of career enhancement, but not a regular part of their work. Besides banks and financial institutions, the next most common group of paralegal-notaries public are those who work in wills and probate, and in real estate transactions.

Answer 2

let me do what i can for you..i am a paralegal in the military. What we do is draft up offenses and punishment possibilities for the command when a soldier is alleged to have committed misconduct not serious enough for courts-martial. We also research for the command possible means of administrative separations for soldiers who are unable to maintain Army standards. Those are both done on behalf of the command's prosecution team. You could also work in Criminal Law dealing with final actions and drafting a LOT of paperwork for people to sign and then mailing and filing all necessary documents. There are a few times when you may help out the command or clients with advice, but this is normally left up to the attorneys.
By the way, civilian paralegals may have a more detailed job description because the military moves us often and therefore we don't spend too much time doing one aspect of our job. And we also spend a lot of other time in briefings, cultural awareness classes, the rifle range, training to fight, training to survive and we deploy....so that being said....good luck in all you do!

Answer 3

In the United States, a paralegal works in the legal profession, typically as an assistant to a lawyer. They are needed in all areas where a lawyer is necessary - criminal trials, real estate, government and estate planning, among other. Paralegals are often responsible for researching, analyzing and managing the daily tasks of cases. While they work closely with cases, paralegals are limited in their duties and must be supervised by a lawyer, who will be ultimately responsible for the paralegal's work.

Average paralegal salaries
Average paralegal salaries range from $25K to $100K+ depending on all sorts of things ranging from experience to location. There is no set parameter for determining paralegal salaries; it just depends on what the company is willing to pay for paralegal services. This having been said, you can count on bigger companies paying higher paralegal salaries because they have the biggest workloads and expect the most from their paralegals.

Although $100K a year may sound tempting, it is important to note that entry level starting paralegal salaries fall on the low $30K range of the scale depending on where you live and what type of company you work for. However, it's not as bad as it seems, paralegal salaries rise dramatically with the proper education and skills.

Don't be deceived by the average paralegal salary figures, there is plenty of opportunity to make extra money with overtime. In fact, you may be required to work up to 90 hours a week during the crunch time before a trial or whenever the legal office is really busy. Prepare yourself to make sacrifices, but sacrifices that will pay off in terms of a larger paralegal salary.

Maximize your paralegal salary
There are a few ways to maximize your paralegal salary. The best thing to do is find a high quality school that offers a good paralegal certificate program. Hiring firms take into consideration the quality of education you have received as a paralegal so choose wisely.

You will also increase your chances of finding a higher paralegal salary by completing your bachelor's degree and a paralegal certificate program. With such fierce competition for the high paralegal salaries, you have to demonstrate how dedicated you are to the profession and yourself. Completing your bachelor's degree can only help you.

Paralegals salaries are worry free
As a paralegal, you will be working under the supervision of a lawyer. Keep in mind that a lawyer goes to school for a very long time and is required to have a wide knowledge base. You may become discouraged to find yourself doing work for him for regular paralegal salary and the lawyer in turn billing the client hundreds of dollars an hour for which he only owes you a fraction of.

Although this can be dispiriting, don't forget that you have the luxury of doing the work and forgetting about it. Your paralegal salary is worry free. Your salary probably includes benefits, wages and other incentives. Out of the "extra" money you have to remember that the attorney has to pay for not only your paralegal salary, but also the overhead, including rent, utilities, computers etc. as well as any errors and omissions insurance, employee benefits and other expenses a company incurs.



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good luck

Answer 4

The American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE) defines a paralegal as someone who "performs substantive and procedural legal work as authorized by law, which work, in the absence of the paralegal, would be performed by an attorney.

Answer 5

They do all the work for the lawyer, but are not required to have the board certification to be a lawyer. They do all the research, scheduling, and any thing else the lawyer wants so they can go to court prepared.

Answer 6

paper work , paperwork ,paperwork