Sunday, August 23, 2009

What Opportunities Are Available To Paralegals?

By Kelvin Hubbard

Because the economy is hard right now, lots of people think there are no growth opportunities for business. This could not be more untrue in the case of paralegals because of the growth their industry has seen over the last few years. The reason they are in such demand right now is because the work they do has not seen a decrease in need. They do what some might call the dirty work behind the scenes for lawyers, but important work nonetheless.

Because it costs so much to have a good lawyer around, their services can go unwanted when financial times start to get hard and people can't afford them. In these times, lawyers have to get more out of every dollar, just like everybody else. This is exactly why they would use a paralegal more often to make their office more efficient.

To put it simply, paralegals handle all behind-the-scenes work that needs to be finished. Among these duties we might name investigating case facts, preparing legal briefs, finding case laws, drafting things like motions or pleadings, and a host of other things that might arise. Additionally, paralegals can draft up contracts like mortgages, separation agreements or other documents used in situations where taking the case to court isn't necessary.

Although paralegals can do all these things, they are officially barred from doing any activity that could be interpreted as practicing law. For those law activities, only an official lawyer can do them legally. An example of this would be offering legal advice, setting legal fees, or presenting an actual case in court.

Opportunities for paralegals are more varied that most people think. A degree in paralegal studies will give a student the necessary background to work in litigation preparation, document supervision, legal research, and client or witness interviews. These are skills that can be applied in a more industries than one might expect.

Most people considering work as a paralegal will obviously gravitate to private law firms. This is the most common type of paralegal work and most people in the industry will be at a firm. But in fact, paralegals can qualify for a number of jobs in various fields that might not seem obvious at first. It could be a state or federal agency, a bank, consumer group, or in the legal department of some large corporation.

Getting a paralegal degree is not a difficult process either. There are a few options for the potential student from online certification to a complete master's degree. Different employers will require a different level of education, but one can get started in this field with as little as a few months of training.

It is correct that lots of firms and corporations are requiring more experience from paralegals lately, but the reason is because lawyers are going to have to give paralegals more sophisticated duties to complete. The important thing is that it's easy to get going in the profession and it is very rewarding as a career.

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