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Is anyone familiar with these courses, most taken via 'net or textbook at home? I'd be curious to hear views on if it helped you in an entry level legal secy position... or, if anyone had gotten/needed/encouraged to get one after securing a job?
When I was a partner in a law firm and we hired legal secretaries, we cared about experience most of all. If we considered someone without experience, then we considered work ethic, smarts, ability to work independently, flexibility. A certificate? No we would not care about that at all. The only legal secretaries we hired with less than 5 years solid related experience were people who temped for us first and impressed us in the four areas above. There may be some exceptions where we hired someone's daughter or nephew, but for the most part the only way someone would get in without experience was temping.
Is anyone familiar with these courses, most taken via 'net or textbook at home? I'd be curious to hear views on if it helped you in an entry level legal secy position... or, if anyone had gotten/needed/encouraged to get one after securing a job?
I've seen some jobs recently that will take a certificate in lieu of 1-yr experience.
If you have secretarial skills already then I would just get an entry level job at a law firm. Trust me, if you are sharp and have potential, they will be more than happy to teach you everything you need to know.
There are all kinds of schools out there selling certification programs but if it's not actually required for a job, I'd reconsider it and instead of spending the money, I'd try to get experience. How much does that program cost? I looked at the website but didn't see it.
When I was a partner in a law firm and we hired legal secretaries, we cared about experience most of all. There may be some exceptions where we hired someone's daughter or nephew, but for the most part the only way someone would get in without experience was temping
How long ago was that CJ? When I was 17, I was a receptionist / floating secy at a 35 lawyer firm in Boston, for a couple of years, but that was back when OTJ training was par for the course, no matter the field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 20yrsinBranson
If you have secretarial skills already then I would just get an entry level job at a law firm. Trust me, if you are sharp and have potential, they will be more than happy to teach you everything you need to know.
I have decades of office skills, including mngmt & have written my own legal docs, but I haven't been employed by a law firm for 30-yrs. I'd like to return to it asap, because I really enjoyed it & need a career change. There are things I don't know, like electronic filing of docs & formatting (just going from job postings)... in my day, it was electric typewritter & dictaphone. Just need to be shown once, but like many of us have seen, job listings are asking for experience... a few are saying a Legal Secy cert will be accepted in lieu of 1-yr's exp. I'm not seeing anything that says they'll train. I thought the Legal Secy cert might get me over that bump??
Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla
There are all kinds of schools out there selling certification programs but if it's not actually required for a job, I'd reconsider it and instead of spending the money, I'd try to get experience. How much does that program cost? I looked at the website but didn't see it.
You have to click on the school links to see the cost & they're all the same, from the dozen I've clicked on... $645-729 for online & $645 for text only... you're given 7-wks to finish the course. Of course, there might be other costs... like $89 for Westlaw legal research access & 3 other books are suggested, although perhaps they're available at the library? I haven't used Westlaw either. Way back when, I used to file the new law pages into the registers (forget what they were called), as everything was done manually. Again "getting experience" is the bear... who will hire sans experience?
Here's 1 such example of fees & you can click on the other links for syllabus:
Upon looking at it, it looks like it's fairly simple & sophomoric, tbh. But, if it will help me get a job, I'll do anything I can.
I'll be steadfastly working at home to take some free courses to learn advanced Word & Excel. Haven't had to do more than type letters & docs into Word, but I'm also a former programmer & have written entire systems, so learning new software is always interesting & fun for me. I also just found out that Lynda.com courses are free at the library. I don't know much about it... most "courses" look like simple YTube vids to me, if you need simple instruction, but again, I'll join this wk & see if there's anything that can help me in the legal realm.
Have you thought about doing legal transcription to get some experience? There are some companies that advertise on job sites for people who can transcribe police interviews, etc. and although the pay is low and is working from home, it would be something to put on your resume.
$700 isn't that expensive but I wonder about reviews of the program.
Thank you for the advice. It looks like I could just skim a book, such as below & feel more confident in what I'd need to know. The library might have something similar... I'll find out tomorrow.
Does anyone know if Ruthier (if it's still around) is the go to place for legal secy jobs? I'm in Indy 'til Dec, but hope to return to San Diego once my lease is up... temp work would be a good place to start.
How long ago was that CJ? When I was 17, I was a receptionist / floating secy at a 35 lawyer firm in Boston, for a couple of years, but that was back when OTJ training was par for the course, no matter the field.
I went in house three years ago.
I do not think the fact that legal assistant and paralegal certificates do not mean much has changed. The schools cannot teach you the focused learning you need. They do not know what practice area you will work in and they cannot make you meaningfully knowledgeable in every possible area. A corporate transnational legal secretary who knows all about filling out SEC forms is not of much use to a Bankruptcy attorney. A business lawyer practicing mostly in State court litigation, has little use for a secretary versed in Bankruptcy procedure. A T&E lawyer has little to no use for any litigation experience. Workere's comp is another altogether different world. A good legal secretary has to do a lot more than typing and filing. It is a complex and highly specialized job and the only way to get that specialization is OTJ.
If you get a 2 year certificate from a CC, that is maybe 20 three hour a week classes. You will take some gen eds. and some classes that end up having no application to what you will be doing. Many kids right out of high school also need ot take classes in using word, excel, databases, and specialized law firm management systems. OTJ you are getting 40 plus hours a week of specialized training. I would rather hire someone with 2 years experience working in my general practice area than the top of the class certificate holder any day. However what really matters are work ethic smarts and flexibility - oh and organization, especially for me. You cannot teach that. Anything else can be learned. Hiring and training a young legal assistant (you are not supposed to use "secretary" anymore) is a big investment. You have to invest carefully. Ten once the become competent, you have t pay and treat them well to keep them. Most firms know it is far cheaper to let someone else train them and then pay them a bit more to woo them away after they are already competent. Competency comes from experience and personality traits, not from a certificate and sitting in a classroom.
It is not unusual for someone to start as a receptionist or clerk or legal assistant assistant and eventually become a secretary. A good receptionist always looks for things to do to help during downtime. Through that, they gain experience and knowledge. If they prove to have a good work ethic, smarts and flexibility. we were happy to move them to legal secretary. A good receptionist can be hard to find and keep, but a good legal secretary is pure gold. When we lost someone we would go through as many as eight people hired and fired in the effort to find someone truly good. When you found them you paid and treated them well enough to keep them. Unless you are stupid. The last firm I worked with had some difficulties understanding this.
Often how you treat people is as or more important than what you pay. At my prior firm, when people left for more money, 80% of the time they ended up begging to come back within a year or two.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 09-06-2018 at 07:23 AM..
If you have decades of office work experience I would be looking for whether you seem to be a good fit for the office, how well you can pick up our complicated database and other systems, document assembly and office organization skills, and not at all for whether you have some bogus-looking certificate.
I don't know what life is like in law firms, but I suspect that another thing that isn't going to get you the job is super fast typing. Most attorneys I know do pretty much all our own typing/writing at the computer; it's a novelty to watch a secretary type 100+ WPM but it's not that important in actual application.
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I also just found out that Lynda.com courses are free at the library. I don't know much about it... most "courses" look like simple YTube vids to me, if you need simple instruction, but again, I'll join this wk & see if there's anything that can help me in the legal realm.
