Paralegal

A paralegal is a non-attorney who works under the supervision of a lawyer whose work is usually billed to clients. Paralegals have many job duties, including drafting motions and subpoenas, document review, and filing papers with courts. Paralegals have traditionally dealt more with procedural law than with substantive law.

Paralegals in Television and Literature

Unlike nurses and physician's assistants (the rough medical profession equivalent of the paralegal), paralegals have not caught the popular imagination and rarely are seen or mentioned in fictional or non-fiction legal television programs, or in legal fiction in print. But they are there, hovering quietly in the background. When opposing counsel on the television program Law & Order dramatically produces a motion and brief from his or her coat pocket or briefcase at the proper moment, rest assured, some team of unnamed paralegals, law clerks, and/or junior associate attorneys had a lot to do with it (the format of Law & Order vastly distorts the actual time that passes during each case and the staff work required to prosecute each case). When an attorney in a trial movie produces a blow-up exhibit, or examines or cross-examines a witness on the stand, or brings documents to court to introduce as evidence, any and all of that would involve the work of one or more paralegals who prepared the exhibits, or interviewed and prepared the witness, or obtained the documents by subpoena or by locating and copying public records.

Related Topics:
Physician's assistants - Law & Order - Law clerks - Exhibit - Cross-examines - Witness - Subpoena - Public records

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