Hi friends,
You want to start a career in the legal field, you enjoy working with lawyers and judges, and you are naturally friendly and helpful. Expectantly, you are thinking about becoming a legal secretary. But where do you start? Follow the best step-by-step guide out there that takes you from conception to reality.
The Job:
Legal secretaries perform many of the same tasks as other secretaries, such as answering telephones and typing letters. Many of the documents they prepare must follow strict guidelines, so legal secretaries need to know the specialized formats for legal documents.
They also perform many critical office functions, including maintaining supplies and equipment, receiving, preparing and transmitting communications, planning conferences, receiving clients and instructing staff.
Legal secretaries prepare correspondence and legal papers such as summonses, complaints, motions, responses and subpoenas under the supervision of an attorney or a paralegal. They also may review legal journals and assist with legal research – for example, by verifying quotes and citations in legal briefs.
The Upsides:
• An opportunity to be challenged. “I find my job to be exciting, since I learn something new on the job every day,”.
Lawyers often have specialties, such as finance or real estate, so you can narrow your career goals by targeting a firm that matches your interests.
• Interaction with clients.
• Room for advancement if you go from a small to a large firm, or one area of law to another.
• A wide range of settings to work in. “A number of corporations have legal divisions,”, "There are also many public sector jobs with courts and government agencies.
• It’s a natural stepping stone to a career as a paralegal or even an attorney. In addition, it provides networking opportunities within a law firm, meaning you’ll have a leg up on being hired as a summer associate, should you end up in law school.
The Downsides:
• The environment is intrinsically nerve-racking. “Maybe there are some law practices that aren’t that stressful, but the majority of them involve a lot of stress due to so many deadlines,”, “Everyone also wants his work done yesterday.”
• “Law schools don’t stress public or human relation skills,” Sometimes lawyers know the law well, but they don’t know how to be good employers.
• Every minute you waste costs money. Lawyers live or die by their annual billable hours to clients. Although as a legal secretary your hours aren’t generally included in their billing, the office may turn into a pressure cooker during busy times as lawyers stack up the hours to justify taking a vacation.
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