Top 10 Skills for Legal AssistantsOrganizational skills, writing skills, technical skills, detail-oriented, interpersonal skills, understanding legal terminology and documentation, multitasking, adaptability. For anyone with a paralegal diploma, attention to detail is an essential skill. Legal assistants handle important legal documents on a regular basis and can handle drafting documents, transcribing audio recordings for official use, and more. All of these responsibilities require a high level of attention to detail in the legal world, even a simple mistake could have serious implications.
Effective communication is fundamental to the practice of law and is constantly taught in Blackstone Career's online paralegal programs. In fact, up to 80% of the day is spent communicating with other people. This could be interviewing a new client, contacting an expert, taking a witness statement, scheduling a court stenographer, or discussing a deal with your supervising attorney. As the right hand of the lawyer, paralegals serve as a liaison between clients, experts, vendors, opposing lawyers and other parties to litigation or transactions.
Therefore, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively network are essential paralegal skills. Technology skills are one of the most sought-after paralegal skills in today's legal market and are the cornerstone of Blackstone Career Institute's paralegal certification programs. As technology infiltrates all aspects of legal practice, paralegals must master a growing range of word processing, spreadsheet, telecommunications, database, presentation, and legal research software. Paralegals are often in charge of making technology purchases within their law firm or legal department.
Legal technology has also given rise to new paralegal niches: litigation support and electronic discovery. Paralegals who bring an advanced technology skill set have a competitive edge in the legal marketplace. Legal secretaries must go beyond the conventional functions of writing and answering phones to supervise high-value activities between lawyers and clients and with respect to legal proceedings. Legal secretaries are often responsible for drafting routine correspondence and filing memos, as well as reviewing legal documents for pleadings, briefs, discovery, and transactional purposes.
A paralegal can help draft legal documents, collect investigations, schedule meetings and interviews, and provide other means of assistance to lawyers during and before trials. Not only do paralegals coordinate appointments, schedule interviews, and compile documents, but they also spend much of their time conducting legal research for cases. If you are a highly organized person, you will ensure that you are successful both in paralegal training and in the legal world. If you are considering starting a transformative career as a paralegal, your skills will be crucial to helping lawyers and other legal professionals perform their tasks in a timely, efficient and accurate manner.
With such a variety of responsibilities in the legal arena, a good paralegal must be equipped with a wide range of skills to keep everything running smoothly. In all practice environments, from large corporate legal departments to individual professionals, legal secretaries must work as a team with attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, filers, vendors, and others to effectively provide legal services. Paralegals play an essential role in the day-to-day operations of the law office or legal department. Since legal secretaries are the lawyer's “right hand”, organizational skills are essential to efficiently running a law firm or corporate legal department.
Paralegals are part of a larger legal team within your organization that may include associates, partners, fellow paralegals, legal secretaries, and others. Legal secretaries also prepare legal documents and correspondence, including subpoenas, complaints, motions, and subpoenas. Many law clerks, particularly those working in small law offices, also perform paralegal duties, including legal research, appointment verification, and case law tracking. .
.
Leave Reply