Legal Assistant Vs Paralegal: Is A Legal Assistant The Same As A Paralegal?
Legal Assistant Vs Paralegal: Is A Legal Assistant The Same As A Paralegal? Understanding the differences between paralegal and legal assistant roles can help you determine which of these career paths is the right choice for you. Paralegals can specialize in certain areas of the law, such as family law, criminal law, real estate or immigration law. Their specific responsibilities can vary depending on the area of the law.
Legal assistants do more administrative work than paralegals, such as scheduling meetings or organizing client files, however this can vary based on their employer and job responsibilities. A legal assistant’s job includes maintaining files, scheduling appointments, and preparing correspondence. On the other hand, paralegals are more involved in their employers’ actual legal work.
Is a legal assistant the same as a paralegal?
No, a legal assistant is not the same as a paralegal, although there are some similarities. Both the legal assistant and the paralegal assist lawyers. However, the main difference between a legal assistant vs. a paralegal is that an assistant performs administrative tasks, while a paralegal is tasked with helping the lawyer deal with law-related aspects of a case.
What is a legal assistant?
A legal assistant is an individual who’s responsible for performing administrative and customer service duties within a law office. While they may help the lawyers research cases in the same way that paralegals do, they generally perform more secretarial work. egal training can be useful for transcribing attorneys’ notes or typing up documents. In other workplaces, though, legal assistants do similar jobs as paralegals.
What is a paralegal?
A paralegal is someone who works in a law office, with a lawyer or at a government agency and who performs various legal tasks. They prepare documents, investigate the facts of cases and write reports. They’re prohibited from completing tasks like representing clients, offering legal advice or other activities that are considered practicing law. Lawyers depend on paralegals, and clients may appreciate their input too. For example, paralegals can walk clients through legal documents to explain what each part means.
Certifications
Although an aspiring assistant to a lawyer isn’t required to acquire certification, those with one will get more job opportunities. Some of the best certificates for legal assistants include:
- Professional Legal Secretary (PLS) by the National Association for Legal Support Professionals (NALS).
- Certified Legal Assistant (CLA) by the National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA).
What does a legal assistant do?
Legal assistants help with administrative and customer service tasks, including:
- Collecting and organizing evidence and legal documents for the lawyer to review.
- Communicating with witnesses and clients to schedule interviews, depositions and meetings.
- Drafting and proofreading legal documents and correspondence.
- Offering general administrative support, such as making travel arrangements for the lawyer and maintaining their calendar.
- Managing client billing by preparing and sending out bills and resolving billing issues.
- Organizing and maintaining documents in filing systems, both paper and electronic.
What does a paralegal do?
Paralegals offer technical support for lawyers and often help with a variety of client-related tasks. They are often the secondary point of contact for clients once the lawyer accepts a case. Some typical responsibilities of a paralegal include:
- Attending legal proceedings with lawyers.
- Locating and interviewing witnesses.
- Compiling and demonstrating exhibits used in court.
- Conducting interviews with the client and maintaining contact with them.
- Creating and signing correspondence that doesn’t contain legal advice or independent legal opinions.
- Billing clients for their work.
- Performing legal research.
- Drafting documents, pleadings and correspondence.
- Summarizing testimony, depositions and interrogatories
- Filing appeals with opposing lawyers.
Legal assistant vs Paralegal: Education requirements
One of the primary differences between legal assistants is the education needed to qualify for each position. Most paralegals have either a two-year associate degree or a four-year bachelor’s degree. A legal assistant may not need any additional education after completing high school.
Whether you’re considering a career as a paralegal or as a legal assistant, the first step you’ll need to take for either is determining what education you need. According to the U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS), paralegals need at least a Paralegal Associate’s degree. Legal secretaries do not need a post-secondary degree. Forty-one percent of legal secretary jobs only require a high school diploma.
Paralegal vs. legal assistant: Salary and Job outlook
Paralegal and legal assistant jobs will see a steady growth as law firms look to cut costs; this is because paralegals bill at a much lower rate than lawyers and can do many of the same tasks as a newly graduated lawyer, but they are a more appealing hire to firms. Both legal secretaries and paralegals will always be in high demand.
The average salary of a paralegal varies between $53,340 and $105,040 per year. This depends on their job type and location, years of experience, skills, educational background, etc. The salary of a legal assistant also varies according to their competencies, education, and company. The average annual legal assistant salary ranges from $45,235 to $60,325.
Legal Assistant vs Paralegal: Client Contact Expectations
As a legal administrative specialist, most of your contact with clients will be transactional in nature. For example, you might schedule appointments or take notes about a new client’s needs. You might also answer basic questions about the services provided by your firm. For in-depth queries, though, you’ll take messages and pass them on to other members of the legal team.
As a paralegal, you can handle more communication with clients concerning legal topics. For example, you can explain the parts of a legal document to someone. You might also participate in client-lawyer meetings or interview witnesses during case preparation.
Paralegal vs. legal assistant: Experience
In order to get hired by a law firm as either a paralegal or a legal secretary, often times some type of experience is required. Your personal strengths might play a role in whether you should become a legal assistant or a paralegal. A legal assistant, or litigation assistant, may perform administrative duties as well as legal tasks.
A paralegal focuses more on legal duties and research to assist lawyers. Both positions require an understanding of legal terminology and procedures. Since these positions can have some overlapping duties, they also have some overlapping skill sets.
Legal Assistant vs. Paralegal Roles and Responsibilities
Paralegals and legal assistants serve on the same team to keep law offices functioning efficiently, but they can go about that mission in different ways. Legal assistants handle more administrative duties, and paralegals get to be more closely involved with legal matters.
A paralegal in a small firm might be a generalist who covers many responsibilities. In a larger setting, each paralegal specialist might focus on just one aspect of the practice, such as filing motions or conducting research. Whether you work as a legal assistant or a paralegal, your specific duties may depend on the size of your law firm.
Paralegals Roles and Responsibilities
- Interview clients and witnesses.
- Prepare evidence for cases
- Answer clients’ questions
- Consult on legal strategies.
- Research laws and court cases
- Draft legal documents.
Legal Assistants Roles and Responsibilities
- Maintain filing systems.
- Schedule appointments with clients.
- Type transcriptions, documents, and correspondence.
- Send and pay bills.
- Coordinate office tasks.
- Gather documents, evidence, and other case materials.
Highest-Paying Paralegals And Legal Assistants Jobs
1. Intellectual Property Paralegal
With social media brimming with everyone’s creative property, the issue of protecting intellectual property rights is more important than ever. Certainly, that’s one of the main reasons intellectual property ranks as the third highest paid paralegal field. Responsibilities of an intellectual property paralegal include assisting rights holders with patents and trademarks, and pursuing litigation against anyone who infringes upon another’s rights. These paralegals typically work under the supervision of an attorney.
2. Government Paralegal
Known also as government legal assistants, government paralegals make an average of $78,478 per year and are typically employed by federal, state, and local government law offices. Typical job duties of a government paralegal include: drafting advocacy communications and testimony, researching legislation and regulations, helping to develop policy positions.
3. Corporate Paralegal
Another of the highest-paid paralegal positions is a corporate paralegal. Corporate paralegals usually work in the legal departments of large companies. They help attorneys make sure the organization’s business and hiring practices all adhere to the law. Typical responsibilities include: drafting memos and reports, assisting in interviews, drafting documents, conducting research.
4. International Law Paralegal
Another on our list of the highest paying paralegal jobs is international law paralegal. Some international law paralegals work for private law firms that specialize in trade law, treaty law, and other international law. The main task of an international paralegal is to assess legal claims and other issues related to international law. While some employers prefer a paralegal to have a bachelor’s degree, most require only paralegal certification.
5. Paralegal Manager
The top paralegal salary belongs to a paralegal manager which is the paralegal in charge of all the other paralegals. To become a paralegal manager, one must have: about five years of experience as a paralegal, preferably 1-3 years of supervisory experience, a bachelor’s degree and paralegal certification.
6. Nurse Paralegal.
Nurse paralegals are registered nurses who have also passed the American Bar Association’s paralegal training and the American Legal Nurse Consultant Certification Board exam. Typical responsibilities of a nurse paralegal include: sometimes even testifying in court about medical-related issues, interpreting medical jargon, preparing medical summaries for attorneys, hospitals, and insurance companies.
7. Court Clerk
A court clerk works at a courthouse, where they are responsible for the many non-judicial tasks. These include: issuing summonses and other official documents, swearing in jury members, to name a few, preparing dockets of cases. Officially, only a high school diploma is required to become a court clerk. That being said, many employers prefer candidates with at least an associate’s degree.
8. Senior Paralegal
Senior paralegal positions are usually found in the legal departments of large corporations, or in larger legal practices. These paralegals have: more expertise than entry-level paralegals, 3-5 years of experience as a legal assistant or office administrator, a Bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university. Senior paralegals are the ones trusted with sensitive documents. They must high levels of responsibility, organization, and discretion.
9. Family Law Paralegal.
Family law paralegals make an average of $59,000 a year, enough to land them in the #12 spot on our list of the highest-paid paralegals. Family law paralegals are usually employed by attorneys specializing in: adoption, any other issues related to families, the law, child custody, divorce.
10. Legal Assistant
While “legal assistant” and “paralegal” are often used interchangeably, there is one major difference between these two paralegal careers. Paralegals work extensively with clients and are therefore able to bill these clients for their time. Legal assistants cannot. Otherwise, legal assistants and paralegals perform a number of similar duties within a law firm. Such duties include: composition of contracts and leases, anything else a lawyer would have to do if he or she didn’t have an assistant, legal research, draft pleadings.
11. Paralegal Assistant
The role of paralegal assistant is very similar to some of the other “assistant” positions named on our list. Usually, a firm will have one or the other. Paralegal assistants are mainly responsible for helping lawyers prepare for meetings and trials. They do this by discussing appointment times and expectations with clients, maintaining a steady supply of office products, among other things and ensuring all required paperwork is filled out correctly. An associate’s degree is usually required, though more and more employers are preferring bachelor’s degrees. A certificate from a paralegal program is also beneficial.
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