Basically, the job involves much serious responsibilities than before which require legal secretaries to master skills that can help them to survive and succeed in today's law office or corporate law department. Here are some skills that can facilitate legal secretaries to give the needed boost to their careers:
- Note-taking: Getting into the habit of taking down notes assists in two ways. First, it helps to record important information. Second, it serves as a reminder to key points and allows for a better understanding of information provided during a discussion on reading over.
At times legal secretaries do not have the time to think or get to the essence of facts when a good discussion in progress. Making a note of all that's heard and observed enables them to think over it later, with a composed mind.
- Observation: Good observation skills can help to analyze and solve cases faster. While legal secretaries are not lawyers, sharp observation skills can help them climb the ladder. They can bring significant details to the notice of lawyers they are assisting.
- Defusing: Nowadays, legal secretaries come in contact with clients frequently. They often meet up clients even before the lawyers they are assisting do so. In line with this, it is essential that they possess the ability to cleverly de-escalate the hostile behavior of a client. Legal secretaries must learn to stay calm, be good listeners and set boundaries politely yet firmly.
- Communication: Legal Secretaries must hone their communication skills. These days communication is no longer limited to the way one person communicates to another. It incorporates the manner in which a response in given, body gestures including facial expressions, voice modulation and more.
- Research and Investigation: A legal secretary should have the ability to provide up-to-the-minute information that is relevant to the case. In addition to the conventional methods of legal research, they should be adept at downloading information off the net and know their way round legal databases like Lexis. Legal Secretaries must also spend enough time investigating information relevant to cases that they are assisting with. This could help unearth important facts.
- Technical Skills: Some of the most common technologies that legal secretaries must master include - word processing, preparing spreadsheet and presentations, document management, time and billing, transcription, videoconferencing, desktop publishing, and calendar and docketing.
While many of these skills can be acquired working on field, training programs offered through technical schools and local colleges help out considerably. Recently, there has been a rise in legal secretarial programs and certifications on offer. Coaching and training gives participants a leg up over competition and get preferred legal secretary jobs and compensation.
Without these must-have skills, legal secretaries can definitely be seeing downhill because the legal industry is ushering a new generation of lawyers who can multi task and conduct business by Email.
