Paralegals: A Career As A Certified Legal Assistant

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Paralegal: The beginning and a field choice Paralegals are not just in the office to run errands for the lawyer or file paper work. They have many duties and task depending on the field that the paralegal has chosen to take part in assisting. Starting off the beginner paralegal will probably do some research on wages, any types of certifications, and the type of offices that they end up working for or furthering their education to work for a prosecutor or in criminal justice. All these factors are needed to know when pursuing a career as a paralegal. The basic definition for a paralegal is a group of distinguishable people who assist attorneys in the delivery of legal services. Through formal education, training and experience, legal assistants…show more content…
Each certificate has its own requirements. Not all are the same. Some have organizations that they are associated with and others have no exam or organization. National association of legal assistant (NALA) began sponsoring a certificate exam in 1976. They also now offer specialty advanced exams. The designation for the certificates is Certified Legal Assistant (CLA) or a Certified Paralegal (CP). There are over 12,000 paralegals that have earned the use of NALA registered mark “CP” instead of “legal assistant” (Kane, 2014). To be eligible for these exams, a legal assistant or paralegal must meet a list of requirements. The paralegal graduated from a program that is approved by the American Bar Association, have an associate degree, a post baccalaureate certificate program in legal assistant studies, or have a minimum of 60 semester hours of which at least 15 semester hours are substantive legal courses. They also can have a bachelor’s degree in any field plus one year’s experience as a legal assistant. The third part is having a high school diploma or equivalent. Partaking in seven years of experience as a paralegal and being supervised by a member of the Bar. Also having some type of proof that the paralegal completed a minimum of 20 hours of a of legal education credit. This has to be completed within a minimum of a two year period before the exam date. The exam for CLA/CP is a two day comprehensive based completely on…show more content…
Criminal justice is not just a field for police officers and forensics, this field is open to anyone with a law degree or more. Criminal law has defined as a body of rules and statues that defines a conduct that the government prohibits because it threatens the harm of public safety. These rules establish the punishment that fit the type of criminal act as well as the procedure of how suspects are investigated, charged and tried (Aips, 2014). The role of a paralegal in the workplace for criminal law can vary. Task often consist of preparing reports, help draft legal documents, organize all documentation, simplify texts, emails and calls from clients. A legal assistant is not allowed to represent a client in court, set legal fees or give advice in criminal law cases. Private firms may use a paralegal to help reduce fees for a client since paralegals get paid lesser than a lawyer (Super pages,

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