The Importance of Communications and Computer Skills for a Student Paralegal

When I took the bar exam in 1993, it consisted of two and a half days of writing essays. I passed the first time I took it, but some of my classmates had to take it again, and even again and again, before they passed. In most cases, I believe they may have been as prepared legally as I was-but I was able to write well. They may have even known more law than I did, but I knew how to tell what I knew. There are really two points to this story:

1. you need to be able to communicate effectively to be successful in the law and
2. as a paralegal, you may find yourself working for a lawyer who doesn't know how to write or speak well.

There's not much you can do about your boss's speaking ability, but whether it's fair or not, your boss may depend on you to make sure that the documents that leave your office are well-written.

Not only may it fall to you to edit your boss's work, but also as a paralegal you will write many of the documents, and some of them will go out in your name.


It is difficult to be honest with yourself about your communication skills. Most of us think that we manage to speak and write just fine, thank you very much. But the truth is, communication skills are not stressed a great deal, especially in high school and in certain college programs.

In the professional world of the law, you must be able to do more than make yourself understood. You must be able to express yourself accurately, succinctly, and correctly.

Look back over the grades you received in English and any other classes in which you had to write or speak. Think back over comments you received about your work. If you need to, ask a teacher or school counselor for an assessment of your communication skills. If you feel they are lacking, it is imperative that you choose a program that will help you in this area. And if you feel that your communication skills are pretty good, well, we can all use a little more practice, right?

Choose a program with adequate resources and facilities to hone your computer skills

Most paralegal programs require, or at least make available, computer training. Keep in mind that there are two skills you need to master. One is the ability to use computer-keyboarding and common business software; the other is the ability to perform legal research on a computer. Both of these are vitally important.

If you run across a paralegal program that doesn’t teach computer assisted legal research, don't attend. It won't adequately prepare you for a career as a legal assistant. The ideal paralegal training course will

1. offer you the opportunity to learn/improve your basic keyboarding skills;
    
2. introduce you to commonly used computer software (legal-specific programs include: Abacus Law, Summation Blaze, and Time Slips); and
    
3. Offer you training in West Law and LEXIS, computer legal research programs.

West Law and LEXIS are subscription services; there are other research services on the Web, such as V. Law. A good computer research class will introduce you to several of these services and allow you the opportunity to practice using them.

Much of the drama in television and movie depictions of lawyers occurs in the courtroom. In reality, most attorneys spend little time in the courtroom. One important rule of questioning a witness is to never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. One way an attorney knows an answer is through questioning a witness before the trial, in a deposition. If the witness should say something different in court from what she or he says in a deposition, it can cast doubt on the witness's entire testimony. But you have to be able to find that discrepancy in the deposition.

One of the really interesting things that we do is take videos of depositions, and we match them with the stenographer s transcript, and we put them on CD-ROM. As the person is talking on the video, as the questions are being asked and they're answering, you see that in one-third of the screen. And then in another third of the screen you see the reporter's text, with the actual words typed. A highlighting bar highlights the words on the text as the person is talking....The lawyers take their laptops into the courtroom, and if they want to challenge somebody, they can, within a couple of seconds, do a search and find the portion of the text they're interested in and high light it.. .and play it back. What the jury sees is the [video] clip on the screen of the person saying, 'Oh, no, I never did that.'

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