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Paralegals, also called legal assistant’s help law firms by performing a wide variety of office duties, help organize attorneys for court appearances, and many other responsibilities. Truth be told, most highly seasoned legal assistants can perform almost all the day to day activities of attorneys, with the exception of meeting with clients and making court appearances. More paralegal duties consist of office management, filing documents, putting together reports, phone communications, drafting legal contracts, legal researching, legal writing, and examining legal forms.

Paralegals must understand how to acquire many skill-sets for example clear and concise written ability, communication skills, prioritizing, and reaching deadlines assigned to their duties. Further, paralegals should obtain excellent computer skills to complete a number of the above functions.

There aren’t any official training requirements for paralegals, but the majority of law offices call for a bare minimum of a paralegal certification, associates degree, some working experience, or even an unrelated four year college diploma. Most paralegals possess an associates degree in paralegal studies, and approximately 30% to 40% possess a four year degree in paralegal studies or something else.

One of the top means to join the paralegal field is to obtain a paralegal certification from an American Bar Association (ABA) certified paralegal school. The National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) and the National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA) are two of the most common paralegal training resources.

NALA has conducted it’s certification programs since 1976, and since then, over 12,000 paralegals have been awarded by the CLA and CP designation. There exist three conditions that establish eligibility to take the exam, dependent on education and working experience. In other words, even if you don’t have a degree in paralegal studies, you may make up for that through prior experience. Several law offices furnish on-the-job training without the necessity for a formal degree, then again most don’t. It’s a lot of hassle for employers to train new hires considering a great number of existing paralegals are between jobs and are available in numbers.

The exam duration is two days and is made up of five sections, including questions on communications, ethics, legal research and the specific facets of legal practice.