Job description

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• LSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐

  February 2018 13286 karma

  There are a few types of "legal assistant" jobs, and I'd say they vary widely in what they entail.

  • Paralegal - these guys are the hard hitting back-ups to the attorneys. They do a lot of the foot-work, research, and writing. Some states require you to have a certificate to be considered a paralegal. Think of these guys/gals as one step down from a lawyer.

  • Legal Assistant - these guys/gals can do some of what the paralegals do, but tend to not do the research as in depth. They will make phone calls, fill out forms, schedule interviews, depos, etc. They are sort of like the office aids/secretaries. They handle more of the office day to day stuff and are less involved with the cases.

  It's important to note that depending on the;

  1.) type of law
  2.) size of firm
  3.) type of firm

  all these jobs can vary widely in what they do. This is sorta just a brief summary.
• J.CHRIS.ALST Alum Member

  February 2018 edited February 2018 399 karma

  LSATcantwin is very much so correct, from my experience. I'm currently a legal assistant at a small firm in a medium-sized town. Because of our location, we practice many types of law: family, criminal, real-state, employment, probate, injury, medical malpractice, civil litigation etc. The town we are in simply is not big enough to practice in a niche area; we would not have enough clients. Legal assistants are a type of support staff to the attorneys. What a firm's support staff is composed of, again, depends on the firm. We have a paralegal who basically runs the place it seems. There are often times that it is just myself, the paralegal, and the bookeeper who are the only ones in the office while the attorneys are running around to meetings, depositions, and court proceedings. As far as what a legal assistant does, it entirely depends on how the firm operates. Some legal assistants do everything a paralegal does, some legal assistants manage accounts/billing (bookkeeper work). In some ways the terms legal assistant and paralegal are used interchangeably. Our paralegal often calls herself a legal assistant, along with the attorneys calling her an assistant as well. Yet, she has a certificate to be a paralegal and does almost everything but appear in court.

  For my job, there is some overlap between what I do and what the paralegal does, although I'm undoubtedly a step lower. I am, so to speak, on the front lines with the front door and answering the phone; that would be the biggest difference between a legal assistant and a paralegal at our particular firm. Often I just need to transfer the caller to the attorney (more likely their voicemail, lol), or I try to answer all questions that I can so as to not bother the attorneys, other times it is an intake and I have to go through the process of asking them about what they need help with. On top of that, I typically have tasks that I need to complete throughout the day: filing, drafting pleadings, and drafting correspondence. These tasks are all things that the lawyers tell me to do. Our paralegal doesn't do much filing. Sometimes I'm asked to do research, other times I'm asked to organize some of our larger files. For instance, our firm just got done with a murder trial, and I played a significant role in organizing the file and even going through the evidence to discern a timeline and other little things that the lawyers needed to know but simply did not have time to wade through the mountain of evidence to find.

  As for the difference between a lawyer and a legal assistant, the difference is quite large. Your job is basically to make the attorneys lives as simple as possible and make sure that they don't have to do the work that eats up a lot of time and is something that is not billable, since they are the ones who are bringing the money into the office. Legal assistants are rarely in the courthouse; if you are, it is to pick something up or drop something off. You do not get to practice law, as that obviously requires a law license. So, in short, legal assistants are precluded from giving legal advice and representing people in court.

  Oh! and the partners (the attorneys that are my bosses) at our office probably make approximately $80,000 more in salary than I do. lol

  On a less cynical note, this experience has been nothing short of a great learning experience. I'd highly recommend doing something like this during undergrad or after college simply just to learn. The legal field is a very learned profession, so the more you know about the basics, the more you can focus on harder stuff i.e. the law once you are eventually start out as a lawyer.
• _oshun1_ Alum Member

  February 2018 edited February 2018 3652 karma

  Some bits from my resume as a legal assistant:

  Responsible for creating trial binders, coordinating document productions, drafting correspondence to clients, e-filing, organizing case files, calendaring case deadlines, managing attorney billable hours, managing clients’ monthly payments, arranging subpoena services, contacting witnesses to be on-call for trial. retyping and formatting Discovery responses, calendaring attorney meetings, calling banks and lenders for debt settlement, compiling loan modifications and submitting to banks.
  + lots of court runs to drop shit off that attorneys forgot

  Depends what firm you’re at and the size of the firm. Legal assistant might essentially be a personal assistant — coffee, errands, some admin duties like managing the attorney schedule.

  At a personal injury firm I worked at for a day and then quit my job just entailed contacting insurance companies and checking on settlements and updating clients on their case status.

  Honestly if anything says “pre litigation” don’t do it bc it’s boring as hell

  Also, a legal assistant gig almost has nothing to do with being an attorney. You will likely become familiar with legal documents as in what each category is like what discovery/pleadings/arbitration is, if you’re involved in e-filing/filing. Depending on the size of the firm and what your job entails you may be in close contact with the attorneys and get a glimpse of what it’s like to be an attorney.
• Leah M B Alum Member ⭐

  February 2018 8392 karma

  All good descriptions above. I will say that I was a legal assistant at an in-house department and it skews much more toward administrative work. It was mostly all transactional, so I also got to be very hands-on with our contracts and did some light editing and drafting of them before the attorneys took over. I did a lot of typical assistant duties though, like answer phones, lots of filing, expense reports, tracked deals in progress, and I tracked CLE credits for the attorneys. It can vary widely but legal assistant are more administrative work, and paralegals do more actual legal work but are a notch below attorneys.