Paralegal
From ArticleWorld
A Paralegal is a lawyer's assistant, a person with legal skills who works under the supervision of a lawyer. Paralegals are qualified through education, training or work experience to carry out legal work and may be employed by a lawyer, law office or a government agency. Paralegals cannot represent clients in court or give legal advice; their jobs generally consist of carrying out research, preparing legal documents and effecting client interviews.
Dubious titles
Many paralegals now prefer to be addressed as legal assistants. It is true that paralegals have evolved from legal secretaries of the 1960s, and while legal secretaries have continued to barely survive, paralegals have broken away and risen to certain dubious higher level. This is primarily because a legal secretary’s work is not billable while clients are billed for paralegals hours. Since certain law firms use the term legal assistant interchangeably between legal secretaries and paralegals, some paralegals prefer to be called by their former name. Some firms in America also like to call paralegals - legal technicians which is confusing because to most people technicians are people who deal with machinery and repairs.
Paralegal Organizations
There are many national level American organizations that guard the interests of paralegals.
- In 1968 American Bar Association (ABA) recognized the importance of paralegals to the legal profession and formed a Standing Committee on legal assistants.
- National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA)
- National Federation of Paralegal Association (NFPA)
- American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE) seeks to raise the standard of paralegal education and introduce consistency.
- American Alliance of Paralegals (AAPl) has individual membership of those paralegals who meet certain basic education standard.
Qualification
A Paralegal may have one or more of the following:
- On the job training
- Associates’ degrees or undergraduate paralegal certificate programs.
- 4 year bachelor’s degree program in paralegalism
In America Paralegals do not need Certification, which is voluntary. These days quite a few doctors and nurses also opt to have a parallel paralegal profession.