Moscotte, 38, said she wanted to be a legal secretary since she was a little girl. On TV and in movies, there were always glamorous women urgently typing important documents for attorneys. The typewriters fascinated her. I could do that, she said. Her father bought her an old typewriter when she was in high school, and her mother gave her a more modern electronic typewriter soon thereafter. "The typewriter was a big thing back then. To me, it was the coolest thing to learn how to type, to type a letter in a typewriter," she said. "I like to write, so it was always something I was interested in." Both are now stored in her Los Angeles garage, and Moscotte has mastered the modern world of computers. But she said she had a pang of regret that the world was shifting to computers just as she was entering the work force. Moscotte, who speaks both Spanish and English, took legal secretary and paralegal studies classes at Los Angeles City College with the intention of transferring to USC. The classes bolstered her interest in the law, and she eventually graduated from the City College with a legal secretary certificate. "But I have never worked as a legal secretary. My first job was as a paralegal. And this is my second job, and I have been here 15 years," she said. Her brother had been working at a law firm in Los Angeles and said it needed a receptionist. Moscotte got the job when she graduated. In 1988, she was promoted to paralegal. She handles cases all over the country, mainly involving major commercial transport crashes. Most recently, she was assigned to the Glendale train wreck. A suicidal man parked his car on the tracks, causing a commuter train collision in Glendale, CA, which killed 11 people. No one has been sued in that case yet, but Baum Hedlund has three clients and will likely file suit against the commuter line, Metrolink, she said. Much of her job involves research to decide where to file a suit. "We pull jury verdicts to see what jurors have awarded on similar cases in the past," she said. "We have cases all over the nation. A small percentage of our cases are here in California. A lot of the cases are out of state, so we fly everywhere." Her Spanish skills have helped her career, and she is assigned to most cases involving Spanish-speaking clients. "It has helped me tremendously in that I have been able to pretty much handle all the cases here in the office that have Spanish-speaking clients, and I have traveled with the attorneys to Mexico, New York, and other places to meet with clients who only speak Spanish. So speaking two languages really, really helps," she said. The firm works as a team, she said, so it is generally not one attorney and one paralegal assigned to a case. The teamwork is good for the clients because they feel their cases are being handled, she said. In her old firm, Moscotte said clients used to call, complaining that the attorneys never called them back. "You're helping these people who are arranging funerals, paying outstanding bills that were left, and they have so much going on in their lives," she said. "And having a paralegal and a lawyer that can understand what they're going through and really lend them a hand I guess really makes a difference in their lives. That's why I have stayed here for as long as I have. Because I think I have made a really big difference in a lot of people's lives." Moscotte, who is also a notary and notarizes all the firm's documents, said she receives Christmas cards and phone calls from clients who settled their cases years ago. She said she views her job as a way to make changes to help the community. She often works on airline crashes and said the caseload is incredibly complex and very interesting. "It's very rewarding to see when these cases are done and people are actually able to move on with their lives and try to put this behind them and you know that you have helped them move on. So it is very rewarding," she said. Moscotte said she would urge anyone to become a paralegal or attorney in a plaintiffs' firm. "If you don't mind the headaches that come with trying to understand the law and you really want to make a difference in somebody's life, I would definitely recommend that you become a paralegal or go to law school and become a lawyer," she said. "It's amazing what you can do for people, especially plaintiffs."

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