Getting to Work as a Paralegal

A number of career alternatives are open to a paralegal, from getting a job under and employer to alternative career tracks. In the first part of this article, we briefly mention alternative career tracks to a full job, and in the second part, we talk about finding your first job as a paralegal.

Contract Paralegals


Contract, or freelance, paralegals are hired by attorneys or companies to work on a case-by-case basis. It is quite rare for a newly graduated paralegal to attempt such a career, but it may be something you'll want to consider after you have several years of experience. The benefits of self-employment include the freedom to structure your own time and to choose the projects you want to work on. The disadvantages include uncertainty about your income and the necessity of paying your own business expenses. In addition, you must be able to market yourself.
 

Temporary Paralegals

Some paralegals prefer to work through temporary agencies. Some are placed by companies such as Kelly and Manpower that place a variety of workers in a variety of jobs. In a few larger cities, legal temporary agencies are sprouting up. These agencies place attorneys, paralegals, and legal secretaries in temporary positions. Many people enjoy temporary work; it gives you more control over your own time than full-time employment, with a bit more security than freelancing. If, as you finish your paralegal training, you're still unsure about the kind of paralegal work you'd like to specialize in, temporary placements give you an opportunity to try out a variety of positions. But it is less secure than full-time employment. You may have periods in which the agency has no assignment for you, and at times, you may have to take positions that you aren't interested in.

Independent Paralegals

Independent paralegals work directly with clients; their work is not directly supervised by an attorney. Independent paralegals help consumers; for example, fill out forms for bankruptcy, estate planning, and taxes. However, they still cannot give legal advice. So your clients need to know before they come to you which bankruptcy chapter they should file under, for example, or whether they should set up a trust. Once these matters have been determined by the client in conjunction with a lawyer, however, the client can save money by hiring a paralegal rather than a lawyer to fill out the forms.

I don't think you should consider being an independent paralegal until you have several years of experience. You will find, even as you attend your paralegal training that all your friends suddenly have legal questions they want to ask you. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between giving friendly advice and practicing law. You'll find your stock answer to certain questions becomes "You should check with an attorney practicing in that area." In every state in the U.S., it's illegal to practice law without a license, and you must be completely certain about what you can and cannot do.

How Do I Find My First Job?

As you can glean from the above job descriptions, most employers prefer to hire paralegals with some formal training. On the other hand, many employers, particularly large employers, want to train their own paralegals. Most often, this in-house training is in addition to your paralegal education; occasionally, these employers want to hire someone with a bachelor s degree (but no paralegal training), or they promote a legal secretary from within the organization. Sometimes people with a background that is particularly desirable to a law firm or company, such as nursing or tax preparation, will be hired and trained in-house as legal assistants. But most people enter the profession after receiving formal paralegal training.

Many paralegal training programs offer or require an internship for their students. This is an excellent entree into the profession. Many lawyers were hired by their firm after interning there, and the same is true for paralegals. After all, firms don't take on an intern unless they have some work that needs to be done, and the internship period allows them to see if they like you and you like them before either of you contemplate making the arrangement permanent. And even if your internship doesn't result in a job offer, or you decide to decline the offer, an internship provides valuable experience that will help get you your first job. Most paralegals who don't get their first job through an internship will hear about openings through their paralegal school's placement program. It's very important to find out as much as you can about a placement office before you decide whether to attend a particular school.

Will There Be Jobs When I Start Looking?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of paralegals should continue to grow much faster than average. Most of these jobs will be newly created positions as companies and law firms continue to learn about the benefits of adding paralegals to their staffs. Of course, as more and more paralegal jobs open up, more people will enter the job market as paralegals, and the competition for available jobs will continue. This is why, if you want to become a paralegal, you will want the best possible training to be competitive.

The paralegal profession is affected by economic factors such as recessions, just as other occupations are. But paralegals can usually ride out any economic impact by being creative. In a recession, for example, people might put off spending money on estate planning, but more people will be filing bankruptcy. Also, I can see no sign that Congress or anybody else is considering the possibility of making fewer laws in the future; as long as they keep churning out laws, we will all need legal professionals to help us deal with them.

Where Will Paralegals Be Working?

Most paralegals will work in private law firms in the future, just as they currently do. Private companies, such as banks, real estate firms, insurance companies, and other corporate legal departments, will hire more paralegals in the future as well. Government agencies and departments on the federal, state, and local levels will also hire more paralegals in the future. Nonprofit organizations will probably continue to hire more paralegals as well, especially if the tide continues to move entitlement programs away from the government into the private sector. And as long as Legal Services Corporation manages to be refunded every year, it will continue to hire more paralegals in an effort to help keep costs down.