Becoming a Paralegal - Career Progression & Development for Legal Support Staff

There are a lot of different roles within the legal support profession, such as:

• Receptionist;

• Mailroom assistant;

• Admin assistant;

• Personal assistant;

• Paralegal;

• Team leader; or

• Office Manager.

As you progress in your career, you may find that you want to explore different roles within legal support. This series of blog posts will provide further information about the different roles you may be able to pursue in legal support, and provide some advice about next steps for pursuing these roles.

In this post, we discuss the paralegal role. Our blog author Gemma is a qualified paralegal who is currently working as a personal assistant / paralegal within the Lander & Rogers family & relationship law team.

What is a paralegal?

Unfortunately, there are no standardised job titles & descriptions for legal support roles. As such, the term "paralegal" may mean different things within different organisations.

Typically, a paralegal will be a legal support staff professional who assists a lawyer with legal tasks, rather than administrative tasks. A paralegal might assist a lawyer with tasks such as:

• Drafting correspondence and Court documents;

• Inspecting documents produced by the other party by way of discovery or under Subpoena;

• Preparing briefs to Counsel;

• Assisting at Court.

A paralegal cannot give legal advice or appear in Court as a legal representative for a client.

In some law firms, a personal assistant may have a combined title of Personal Assistant / Paralegal, which means that they continue to assist Solicitors with admin tasks whilst also assisting with more in-depth legal tasks.

Because there is no standardised role description for a paralegal, the qualifications and experience required to become a paralegal vary from firm to firm. In my experience, a paralegal may be:

• A person who has successfully completed an Associate Degree of Law (Paralegal Studies) or equivalent paralegal qualification;

• A person who is currently undertaking a Bachelors Degree of Law (to become a lawyer) but has not yet completed their studies or who has not yet been admitted as a lawyer; or

• A person with over 5+ years of experience as a personal assistant, usually within a specific area of law, which gives them appropriate knowledge of the area of law in which they work in order to assist with more in-depth legal tasks.

Next steps

If you are interested in becoming a paralegal, there are several things you will want to consider and steps that you will need to take. These may include the following:

1. Speak to your supervisors to obtain feedback about becoming a paralegal within your existing firm. Think about asking questions like:

   • Is this the right career path for you, at this time?

   • What extra training or qualification would the firm require for you to be appointed to a paralegal role?

   • Will the firm be able to support you with this progression, ie:

     • Assigning you paralegal tasks;

     • Permitting you to take days off for study and assignments;

     • Financially supporting you by paying for any extra training or qualification required; or

     • Hiring you as a paralegal, once you have completed any additional training or qualification required.

   Be clear about how your firm will support you, prior to committing to any extra study - don't just assume that you will be promoted or given a title as soon as you have completed extra training as this may not occur.

   If your firm will not support your progression towards a paralegal role, you may need to consider whether you would be willing to change jobs in order to pursue this career.

   Be aware that some firms may not be able to offer you a paralegal role, as they may prefer graduate or junior solicitors undertake the tasks that a paralegal may assist with.

2. Start getting experience with paralegal tasks. Initially, we suggest: 

   • Reviewing files, taking note of the drafting of documents and correspondence;

   • Becoming familiar with the practice rules and procedures for the area of law in which you practice - research Court Rules, practice guides (which can be found on databases like CCH), Court brochures and precedents from your firm; and

   • Asking your supervising solicitor for more paralegal level tasks.

3. After you have ascertained what extra training your firm may require in order for you to be appointed to a paralegal role, you can sign up and start studying!