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.

The Battle of Terminologies

Related jobs that share boundaries but are often not clearly delineated or share synonymous titles are legal secretary and legal assistant. These professionals have been discussing how to define their professions. Recently, the main issue in discussion seems to be whether the terms "paralegal" and "legal assistant" are synonymous and if not, what the definitions of these terms are.

Related Topics:
Secretary - Legal assistant

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The heart of this issue is one of professional pride and distinction. Even though paralegals evolved from legal secretaries in the 1960s and 1970s (a fact readily admitted by all of the involved national organizations), the paralegal profession has long struggled for distinction and recognition within the legal profession and court systems of the United States, and as a

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

class, paralegals regard themselves as something different from legal secretaries. Generally, paralegals have more general or legally specialized training than legal secretaries, and perform more legally substantive work that is "billable," while legal secretaries are more proficient at typing, editing, and other office tasks, and are considered administrative staff whose time is not "billable" to the client.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In some parts of the United States, such as the Washington, D.C. area, the term "legal assistant" is used instead of or interchangeably with "paralegal," while in other parts of the country, legal secretaries are often called legal assistants, just as secretaries are sometimes called an "executive assistant" if they work for an officer of a corporation or an "administrative assistant" if they work for a manager. Thus, the issue in this case is that while the term legal assistant is ambiguous as a job description, the term paralegal is distinctive and not easily confused with the profession of legal secretaries. While it is difficult to tell for certain, it appears that the term paralegal is slowly gaining acceptance nationally as opposed to legal assistant.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In addition to the paralegal vs. legal assistant controversy, there are a few rare firms in the United States that have begun using the term "legal technician" instead. There is one firm in the Pittsburgh area that goes further and rates its "legal technicians" by grade (i.e. Legal Technician I, Legal Technician II, etc.). The term "legal technician" for paralegal is not sanctioned by any of the organizations and is considered by many to be derogatory to the paralegal profession, as an attempt to reduce paralegals to "technicians." It also seems somewhat inappropriate, as the term "technician" commonly refers to someone trained to repair, operate, or set up equipment, such as an X-ray technician, which does not describe well the tasks normally performed by paralegals.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~