Law Firms as Employers of Paralegals

Most paralegals work in private law firms. However, law firms may be comprised of a few lawyers or several hundred. Paralegals also work for corporations, the government, nonprofit employers, and a variety of other places. Almost every agency of the federal government employs legal assistants; the majority of them are at the Departments of Justice, Treasury, Interior, and Health and Human Services. Many state and local government departments employ paralegals as well. Where you work has a large impact on what kind of work you do. The specialty of the firm or agency will determine your specialty. In addition, different workplaces have different cultures. The local Legal Service Corporation office or environmental action group will no doubt offer a much more casual work atmosphere than a large firm or a court. It's wise to keep in mind some of the different kinds of work settings as you embark on your paralegal career.




The Large Law Firm

The relative size of a large law firm depends on the city in which it is located. In Chicago, for example, a 100-lawyer firm is probably considered medium-size, while in Springfield, Illinois, that same firm would be large indeed. In most places, however, a firm with more than 100 lawyers is considered a large firm. In some large law firms, there will be even more paralegals than lawyers!

Large law firms are generally divided up into departments, such as litigation, probate and estate planning, corporate and business organizations, and international law. This specialization allows the paralegals who work for these firms to specialize as well. A large firm may also contain a structured paralegal "department." This doesn't affect the specialization of the work you do, but rather provides you with a paralegal supervisor and, possibly, paralegal assistants. This structure usually also means that there will be an in-house training program and regular staff meetings. All of this can be very helpful, both in keeping you apprised of the latest developments in the firm and in the law, and in providing you with a intermediary between you and management. This structure also provides you with opportunity for advancement as a paralegal.

The attorneys in large firms will be either partners (although there may be senior and junior partners) or associates. Associates are usually hired right out of law school, although they may have clerked for a judge for a year or two before joining the firm. It used to be that most associates expected to become partners of the firm in about seven years. During the time I was job hunting, though, in the mid-1990s, there was a glut of lawyers on the market, and some were finding themselves unemployed after a few years, rather than gaining the key to the partner restroom. Things have calmed a bit in the last few years, but even very competent associates are not guaranteed partnership.

Generally speaking, paralegal training is more practical than law school. Even as a newly hired paralegal, you may find you know more useful legal information than your recently graduated associate boss! On the other hand, at a large law firm, your new boss probably graduated from a prestigious law school and has now been hired by a large, important firm and is no doubt feeling pretty pleased with life. This creates a situation in which your boss may not want to hear that you know something he or she doesn't. This kind of situation can lead to clashes among the personnel of law firms, and when it's a large firm, there are more chances for disputes to arise.

Logging Hours on the Job

Firms of any size generate their income via billable hours. These are the actual hours of work that can be billed to a client, and they include the time that the lawyers and paralegals spent working for that particular client. They don't include things like taking a break or learning how to unjam the copy machine. As a firm paralegal, you'll have to keep track of your time and be accountable for it. In 1995, according to the National Federation of Paralegal Associations, billing for paralegals ranged from $41 to $80 per hour.

In any firm, no matter what the size, the length of your workday will vary. Although it doesn't usually affect paralegals as much as the new associates, when there is a looming court date, it's not unusual to find the lights burning in the law office long into the night. And you can bet it's usually not the senior partners who are losing any sleep!

The stereotype of large firms is that they tend to be stuffy. As with many generalizations, this is both true and not true. Traditionally, the largest firms have been considered the slowest to change: the slowest to hire women associates, for example, and the last to consider changing their workplace conditions to meet the needs of their employees. Large firms tend to be more hierarchical and structured; they are places where things are done a certain way because that's how they've always been done. Some people like that; some people prefer more flexibility.

Large firms offer many advantages as well. First of all, the salaries they pay paralegals are among the highest. They also may be more willing to hire new graduates, since there will be other paralegals at the firm who can train and mentor them. Large firms have more resources than smaller firms. Their in-house library will probably be fairly complete, and they will have access to a variety of the latest technology in research. The physical equipment in a large firm-computers and the like-is more apt to be state-of-the-art than in smaller firms. All in all, a large firm can be a very rewarding work environment for a paralegal, particularly one who has recently graduated from school.

The Small to Medium-Size Firm

When you work in a small to medium-size firm, you will have to take on a greater variety of duties than in a large firm. Although some smaller firms, and even solo practitioners, specialize, most are general practitioners. Even if they specialize, they often supplement that work with an extensive general practice. Your work on any given day depends a great deal on who walks through the door. Small firms do a lot of criminal law, usually for more minor offenses such as traffic violations.

Family law is also a large component of a small practice. Real estate law and probate and estate planning are two more areas that come up often in small firms. In addition to a variety in the areas of law practiced, there is also variety in the work assigned to people who work in smaller firms, including the attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries. When there is a lot of business, everyone has to be willing to pitch in to run the copy machine. When it's quieter, everyone can afford to stick to their own job descriptions more closely. As a result, a paralegal in this setting may easily become an important and trusted member of a team rather than just one among many paralegals in a large firm. The environment of smaller firms is usually more relaxed and more open to change than larger firms.

On the down side, smaller firms usually have fewer resources. This means that their law library may be quite small, and you may have to go to the local law school or courthouse to do your research. Computer research possibilities will probably be limited, possibly nonexistent. It is also not unusual for paralegals to be expected to perform some clerical duties in a small firm. As I said, in frantic times, everyone should be willing to pitch in, but make sure that your duties are clearly defined when you are hired. Not all attorneys are really aware of the differences between paralegals and legal secretaries. Many of them can t afford to have all the clerical staff they would like. In addition, as computers become more and more a part of our daily life, many of us are doing more clerical work than before. Working in a small firm can be a great experience; just make sure that you and your employer have an understanding about your job duties.

A Few Words about Small to Medium-Size Firms

Smaller law firms, maybe five- or ten-partner firms or sole practitioners, tend not to use paralegals at all. They don't want to spend the money, and they also rely a lot on their legal secretaries to perform what are really paralegal duties. Large firms have the majority of paralegals because they have the overhead to pay the people to have assistants. When you get to the smaller firms, a lot of times you'll see secretary/paralegal jobs. But, it can be advantageous to go to a small firm because you get a lot of paralegal skills; even though your title is legal secretary, you're really doing paralegal work. A lot of the larger firms have pools of paralegals, whereas maybe a moderate firm has one or two to handle multiple attorneys"

If, as you finish your training and begin job hunting, you are still unsure whether or in what you want to specialize, working in a small to medium-size firm will give you the opportunity to dabble in many different areas of the law. Many paralegals and attorneys prefer to remain generalists throughout their careers; exposure to a variety of legal areas will help you decide if you want to specialize and in what.