According to Annetta Smith, "A typical day for me begins at 7:45 a.m. and ends at 7:00 P.M. I perform support services for three attorneys at my firm and docket, organize, and prioritize my assignments and the schedules of the attorneys. My assignments include: handling all aspects of discovery, including document production, interrogatories, and requests for production; review of factual documents pertaining to cases; locating witnesses for interview; drafting pleadings and motions; review of depositions; and preparation of direct and cross-examination questions. I handle all aspects of cases from initial client contact to trial preparation and participation."
Getting In and Moving Up
Computer technology has decreased the time required for legal research. Instead of poring over volumes of research material in law libraries, you can access the same information more and more efficiently as technology advances. You should be able to increase your computer and research proficiency along with technological advances in order to advance in your profession as a legal assistant.
Many legal assistants enter the profession after completing American Bar Association-approved college or training programs, or are trained on the job by legal employers. Although most legal assistant programs are completed in two years with the acquisition of an associate degree in Arts or Science (A.A. or A.S.), a growing number of colleges and universities offer four-year bachelors degree programs with a bachelor’s degree in Arts or Science (B.A. or B.S.) in paralegal studies. The Certified Legal Assistant (CLA) designation conferred by the National Association of Legal Assistants will greatly enhance employment opportunities. In order to move up in your career, you should continue to acquire education, if you have not already done so. Certain practical skills courses should be taken by legal assistants. These include Pretrial Practice and Procedure, Trial Practice and Procedure, Appellate Practice and Procedure, and Research and Writing. Other substantive legal courses in your firm s area of specialization will also increase a legal assistant’s value to a firm and help a legal assistant to get ahead.
If you are detail-oriented with a creative flair at just the right moment, you may be well suited for a legal assistant career. A legal assistant must exercise sound discretion and judgment when exercising creativity in brief writing. Creative flair is not always appreciated but judges who are bored reading the same old briefs, appellate courts that want to know why they should change precedent, or clients with great convictions about their cases, may appreciate it. Your ability to creatively address issues will also be directed by your employer’s preferences. You should not get too creative at first until you learn the ropes and your employers preference.
If the position is one that may require the submission of a writing sample, you should review and revise your collection of samples, paying particular attention to logic flow, citations, and sentence structure. Do not hesitate to use boldface, italics, and underlining in legal briefs and other writing samples. You should have several writing samples that will appeal to a variety of different employers.
Internships
Time
Time and expenses should be recorded on a pad at least once an hour or directly into a program such as Timeslips. No one who records eight billable hours in an eight and one-half-hour workday is being honest; six or seven bill able hours is more likely. A list of deadlines should be carefully maintained and referred to daily in order to prioritize assignments. Legal professionals should create memorandums of discussion points with others and clients should be added in a timely way of all developments in a case.
In assigning work, a partner may seem indifferent to the time needed for its completion and may fail to specify a deadline. It should be assumed that every assignment of work requires immediate or almost immediate performance.
Local court rules should be consulted to ensure timely filing of pleadings. The first two years after entry into the legal assistant profession are most critical. In order to get into this profession you should be willing to work up to 90 hours a week, if necessary, for at least two years. After five years' experience, a legal assistant should have significantly more responsibility and less supervision, possibly even supervisory responsibilities, with fewer work hours. If a legal assistant is confined in career opportunities with the employer, he or she may find better advancement opportunities by changing employers.
Employment Forecast
Much of the groundwork now covered by the legal assistant was once within the attorneys’ domain. The work of the legal assistant allows attorneys to focus more on case strategy and the resolution of legal problems. Traditional legal assistants usually work for law offices, corporations, government agencies, or other legal entities. Contract legal assistants perform paralegal work on a case-by-case basis and usually possess many years of paralegal experience or specialized expertise. Independent legal assistants generally perform work directly to consumers in such matters as uncontested divorces.
A Few Key Points to Remember
- The work of the legal assistant is the most demanding of careers discussed in this text because their work most closely resembles that of an attorney.
- Be where you want to be in terms of your employment. If you must, change positions to find the right employer for you who will recognize your achievements.
- You should be able to perform despite exposure to high-stress challenges and be precise and on time.
- You should be able to juggle several tasks at once.
