So what is a paralegal? The American Bar
Association has a definition for paralegals. It has several parts. First of
all a paralegal is someone who is qualified by education training or work
experience. So there's a number of ways a person can become a paralegal and learn
how to do the tasks of a paralegal. The next part of the definition is a
paralegal is retained by a lawyer or a law office or a corporation, that would
be a corporation law office called in-house counsel, or by government or by
other entities like maybe charitable groups, labor organizations, and so
forth. Then probably the heart of what a paralegal is is this last part. A paralegal
is someone who is performing substantive, specific delegated, substantive legal
work. And notice that I've emphasized this word delegated because the lawyer is
going to be responsible. The paralegal can only do those things that the lawyer
instructs the paralegal to do. So what are the tasks that a paralegal
would typically do? Well this of course is going to depend on the type of
setting the office, the type of business that the office is engaged
in. And even then that depends a lot on the lawyer that is supervising the
paralegal. Paralegals, we are information people. That means we gather information.
We process information, and then we report and organize that information. And
so at the top of the list is gathering information. Paralegals will gather and
organize factual information, lots of records.
Sometimes it's doing internet research. Paralegals will also draft legal
documents for lawyers. Now, it will be the lawyer that gives the instructions to
the paralegal what goes in those documents, what those documents
need to be doing. But paralegals are frequently frequently involved with
drafting legal documents for the attorney. Sometimes paralegals will
conduct legal research. Once again this will depend on the office, the particular
office that the paralegal is working in. Many lawyers prefer to do their own
legal research. Other paralegals would be highly accomplished so that the lawyer
would be comfortable and having the paralegal do that legal research.
Paralegals need to know how to do legal research in any event. Paralegals
frequently assist at hearings and depositions and trials. It's always handy
for an attorney to have another set of eyes and ears and hands at trial to
assist him or her in the presentation of a case, to handle the documents, to keep
track of the testimony and the exhibits and what's been admitted and
what hadn't been admitted. And then sometimes even just babysitting the
client or a witness. So it's not unusual at all for a paralegal to
go to court or to a deposition with their attorney. Paralegals frequently
have the responsibility for overseeing the scheduling of the events in the law
office. Hearings, depositions, client appointments, deadlines, all of those
things have to be kept track of. More on that later. And it's frequently the
paralegal that's going to be doing that rather than the attorney. And then of
course finally the paralegal is a vital communication link between the
attorney and the client and others. That's a lot of what paralegals are
doing, is gathering information from others, reporting information back to
others. UPL, unauthorized practice of law. Something very very important for
all paralegals to have an understanding of. What are the things that a paralegal
may not do? Well, a paralegal may not provide legal services directly to the
public without attorney's supervision. This gets back to that part of the ABA
definition that speaks about specifically delegated tasks that are
supervised by the attorney. A paralegal may not give legal advice. That's
practicing law without license. A paralegal may pass on
information that the attorney has given, but that information, that advice is the
attorney's advice not the paralegal's advice. So the attorney so the paralegal
on his or her own may not give legal advice.
That's unauthorized practice of law. Thirdly, a paralegal may not represent a
client in court or in it in front of what we call a tribunal, frequently these
might even be administrative hearings. A paralegal may not do that
unless they're specifically authorized by law to do so. And there are several
instances where paralegals are authorized to speak for and represent a
client before some of these tribunals primarily it's going to be administrative hearing officers and things like that.
But once again it depends on the law, whether it's the federal law or a state
law involved. Otherwise a paralegal is engaging in UPL. You can't do this unless
you're authorized by law. And then the fourth thing I have up here is the
paralegal cannot set a fee. Now it's just not a matter of setting a fee, but it's
also accepting a case for the firm. Now a paralegal can give information off of a
set fee schedule. If the lawyer says "If someone calls in wants to know how much
I charge for an uncontested divorce with no children no property you can tell
them this is what the my fee would be." All right, that's all right
but what's because once again that's coming from the attorney not the
paralegal. So the paralegal cannot set a fee. If the attorney is out of the
office for an extended period of time and the client calls up and says "I'm up
at the hospital with my loved one and we need a will done right away,"
well paralegals can prepare wills that they've been properly if the paralegal has
been properly trained to do that. But a paralegal on her own or his own cannot
say to the person yeah "I'll come right up to the hospital and we'll fix you up"
because that's the paralegal accepting that business. Only the the attorney can
do that. So the paralegal cannot accept the case or set a fee. So, well, what can a
paralegal do? Everything else if the task has been delegated by the attorney and
if the attorney is supervising. That's assuming that whatever the paralegal's been
asked to do, told to do, is legal in the first place. But the paralegal may do
everything else as long as there's supervision and it's
delegated. Ethical responsibilities. Paralegals have ethical responsibilities
just as attorneys, and in fact our responsibilities as paralegals are going
to be pretty much the same as the attorneys. Paralegals cannot get
disbarred. Attorneys can. But with what a paralegal does that's improper or
fails to do, there can be bad consequences for the attorney, some sort
of sanction or maybe even disbarment if the attorney has not been properly
supervising that paralegal, or did not properly train that paralegal on the
the limits of what a paralegal can do. I have a saying it's it's paraphrasing
something from one of Clint Eastwood's movies a good paralegal has to know his
or her limitations. And that's what ethical responsibilities are all about.
Paralegals have pretty much the same duties and responsibilities, standards
that attorneys do. Each state, each state has its own ethical standards for
attorneys and most of those many of those are based on the American Bar
Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct. These rules may
differ slightly from state to state, but they're all pretty much the same. And
paralegal associations also have very very similar rules for their own members
that are, I won't say modeled after, but are pretty much the same as
what the attorney rules are. And those rules have a lot of commonalities first
of which is confidentiality. This is the heart of the law office. The attorney has
to, the paralegal has to maintain the confidences and secrets of the client
just as an attorney does. Paralegal has to be honest with all people that the
paralegal deals with, whether it's the court or other attorneys, certainly clients. Honesty in all dealings. We must be mindful of any
conflicts of interests that may arise between the the paralegal and the
clients matter. Loyalty at all times to the client. That means a paralegal can't
be engaged in any business that would be adverse to the client. The paralegal may
have worked at a law firm that represented the the clients spouse ex
spouse or some other party that is now adverse to the client, and now the the
paralegal finds himself or herself at a different law firm now representing the
client and perhaps having adverse information. So anything like that you
need to bring immediately to the supervising attorney's attention. So we
have to avoid at all every step of the way conflicts of interest. Then
malpractice. Malpractice is really not an ethical matter other than that we're not
careful. We have to avoid malpractice. We must be avoid carelessness in in
everything we do that means attention to detail. Paralegals are detailed people.
That means that we if we don't know something, then we ask. Don't ever guess.
Always ask. Ask another paralegal. Ask your supervising attorney. If your
supervising attorney is not available, and there's another attorney in the office,
ask that person. Always ask. Never assume. And then the other part of
avoiding carelessness is using systems. A law office will have a number of systems
in place that help us do things as a routine, thoughtful process. And those
systems will be regarding the filing of our client papers, or the docketing of
events that we need to be aware of. Court hearings, deadlines, client
conferences, depositions. And then of course using systems
for communications. One of the things that deals with confidentiality is, what
about the role of advanced and changing technologies now and in keeping our
client's secrets safe. We have to be aware of that and use systems that
protect that. And so this, in a nutshell, is what a paralegal is.
