Career Alternatives for Paralegal Training and Experience

There are many paralegals working in the public, private, or nonprofit sectors, who intend to stay in their positions and will be looking forward to job security and financial rewards. However, some people who graduate from paralegal programs eventually decide to use their training in careers other than the legal profession.

In Education Educators frequently take paralegal courses and apply the law and legal concepts in their social studies, American history, or sociology classes. Their legal training will supplement and enhance their subject area knowledge and teaching experience. He/she can bring into the classroom such learning strategies as voir dire, moot courts, and writing briefs. Attorneys, judges, and police can talk to the classes to help students understand how lawyers and law enforcement people participate in the criminal justice system.


Such classes are part of the curriculum in many school districts. People with paralegal training may find employment as administrators or teachers in a paralegal studies program. Experienced paralegals may find positions as program directors, placement directors, and instructors. The number of available positions may be limited since there are approximately 300 paralegal programs in existence. A program director who trained and worked as a paralegal is very familiar with the profession and can provide assistance to a new and developing program.

A director is responsible for the advertising of the program, the recruitment and interviewing of the students, and overseeing the other administrative details in program management. A placement director is responsible for employment orientations, job development, and may act as a liaison between the employer and the paralegal graduate seeking a position. A paralegal instructor is responsible for teaching paralegal students the legal procedures used by paralegals in law offices.

Corporate Legal Services Paralegals are also employed in companies that provide corporate legal services to law firms and corporations. These companies serve the legal profession throughout the United States and in some foreign countries. Paralegals have daily contact with the companies' clients, the lawyers. There are few such companies in existence. One is the Prentice- Hall Corporation System, Inc., located in all fifty states, Puerto Rico, Liberia, and Panama. Its executive offices are in New York City.

The Prentice-Hall Corporation System furnishes services enabling lawyers to organize, maintain, dissolve, consolidate, or merge corporations. It furnishes the statutory agent for domestic or foreign corporations in any state. These processes involve on-going relationships among law firms, corporations, and the Prentice-Hall Corporation System. Paralegals assist in providing complete and up-to-date corporate information to the clients. A paralegal seeking a position with a company that provides corporate legal services will find that they offer a congenial atmosphere not always found in large law firms, and his/her training and experience in corporations and securities will be fully utilized. Salaries vary for entry-level paralegals. Currently the figure is close to what is being paid in medium-sized law firms.

Legal Publishing Houses Legal publishing companies are another source of employment for paralegals. They use paralegals to assist the general counsel in the company's legal department with the areas of law that affect publishing, such as contract law and copyright law. There are also positions in other parts of the company for persons who possess paralegal training or experience and who also have strong writing and oral communication skills. Paralegals may work as consultants or advisors to legal publishing houses. They may assist the legal publisher in planning new kinds of books to be written either about the paralegal profession or the procedures utilized by paralegals in law offices.

Paralegals may also serve as recruiters of authors for new materials to be published. Paralegals with college degrees in English may also be used as proofreaders and editors. Their background and knowledge of legal terminology would prove helpful when reviewing the content of law-related manuscripts. Persons with paralegal training and sales experience can work in the marketing division of legal publishing companies. An exposure to law and legal thinking as well as sales experience can enable marketing representatives to earn high commissions when selling law-related books.