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I'm 22 years old and have recently acquired my B.A. in Communication this past May. Upon graduating, I had no professional work experience/internships (only held minor retail jobs prior). Also, I am clueless as to what I want to do with the rest of my life (which is why I majored in Communication for how broad it is). I recently obtained an entry level receptionist/assistant position at a law firm (this job was literally handed to me because I know one of the lawyers). One of my bosses here recently told that I could eventually move up and become a paralegal once I gain more familiarity and experience.
My question: Is my current position a bad one for having my degree? And if I do become a paralegal relatively soon, would that be something that could potentially turn into a quality career?
I am honestly so confused about my future at the moment and would sincerely appreciate some insight from those who are experienced with this matter. Thanks!!!
Paralegal is a competitive job. Lots of people seem to think it sounds like an ideal position. There are lots of people out there calling themselves paralegals. Most have a paralegal certificate from a CC. Without experience, paralegals are essentially worthless. With experience and. more importantly good work ethic, good organizational skills, drive and intelligence, they are more valuable to many firms than young lawyers are. Thus, if you get good experience, and have the other qualities, it can be a good career path.
Paralegal is a semi-professional position. Some firms treat paralegals as professionals and others treat them as staff. Some are paid hourly and some are paid salary. You have to be prepared to work hard and long hours on short notice. There will be weekends where you are told on Friday, they need you to work through the weekend and you have to cancel your plans. It is not a 9-5 type of job, it is a get the job done type of job. Most of the time, it will be 9-5, or 8:30 - 6, but often it will require you to work as long as it takes to meet a a deadline.
You are expected to take care of things, not just do what you are told. In other words, if the attorney tells you to get some documents copied and sent to a witness, it is up to you to locate the documents, make sure they are the correct ones, get the copies made, get them in the Fed Ex envelope, find and confirm the address, draft a cover letter or ensure the attorney provides one and make certain the package gets into fed ex (which may mean walking to the box yourself), and then call the witness the next day to ensure they got the documents. No one will tell you to do any of these steps, it is all assumed in "get these documents to the witness." You may have a secretary to do some of these things, or you may have to do them yourself, but it is your job to ensure that no matter what the documents are in the witnesses hands by the date needed. That is just a simple example so you understand what is expected/involved.
Paralegals do all sorts of things. Review and sort documents, draft subpoenas and get them served. Answer discovery requests. incorporate new companies, draft simple wills or trusts, put together closing documents (usually not draft them, but assemble the packages and make certain everyone has all the needed copies, make sure a notary is present, make sure the correct number of original signatures is obtained, etc). What you do will depend in part on the type of practice you are supporting and on your demonstrated abilities. I have worked with paralegals who can write motions or take responsibility for finding, scheduling subpoenaing 20 or more witnesses for deposition; and I have worked with paralegals who are next to useless for anything but the most simple tasks.
Like lawyers Paralegals are billable assets. In other words, you have to keep track of your time and it is billed to clients. If you bill 1800 - 2000 hours a year (which basically means 50 hour weeks on average (some will be 30 hours and some 70), you will usually make pretty good wages.
If you do not have really strong work ethic, dedication and intelligence, you can still be a paralegal but a different type. some paralegals simply fill out forms all day. They do not make as much, but it is easy (and mind numbingly boring).
The best way to get experience is to work as a legal secretary (assistant, admin, whatever the PC terms is now). the paralegal classes can help with a general understanding of legal procedure. Reading some books on your won will help too. Then you can choose an area that interests you. Transactional paralegals are different than litigation paralegals. Workers comp paralegals differ from construction law paralegals. Paralegal skills are somewhat interchangeable, but I would not want a transactional paralegal trying to fill in as a litigation paralegal. So, you kind of need to choose a path. A communications degree is a decent background for a paralegal, but it is not required nor directly related. All else being equal, I would choose a paralegal with a communications degree over a paralegal who only had a paralegal certificate, but it is rare that all else is equal.
Also depending on your attorney, good organizational skills may be critically important. I depend heavily on my paralegals and admin (secretary) to help me keep organized. I also rely on them to keep their portion of the case organized. A lot of their work is sorting, coding and then finding various documents. Sometimes they keep track of millions of pages of documents and they need to be able to find all documents relating to a specific subject matter quickly. Computer database skills are also important. Often paralegals also serve as a firms IT person.
As far as a communications degree, my wife had BAs in communications and English. She started working as a bank teller. Then she went through a temp agency and worked for a time as an accounts payable person at a development company. then she worked in customer service at a business bank (pretty different from a regular bank teller). Then the development company offered her a permanent job and they and the business bank had a salary war to keep her (good for her). The development company won. Later she had a job as th director of evangalism at a church (she loved that job). More recently substitute teacher and finally assistant librarian. She is now in a masters program so she can become a full librarian (not much pay, but she loves the job). So it did open some pretty broad doors for different types of work. Not all of the jobs requried a college degree, but it helped get the job and helped her move up within the job.
A lot of insurance companies hire liberal arts grads for adjuster positions.
What you really need to do is find something you enjoy doing and chase it.
Good luck.
I'm 22 years old and have recently acquired my B.A. in Communication this past May. Upon graduating, I had no professional work experience/internships (only held minor retail jobs prior). Also, I am clueless as to what I want to do with the rest of my life (which is why I majored in Communication for how broad it is). I recently obtained an entry level receptionist/assistant position at a law firm (this job was literally handed to me because I know one of the lawyers). One of my bosses here recently told that I could eventually move up and become a paralegal once I gain more familiarity and experience.
My question: Is my current position a bad one for having my degree? And if I do become a paralegal relatively soon, would that be something that could potentially turn into a quality career?
I am honestly so confused about my future at the moment and would sincerely appreciate some insight from those who are experienced with this matter. Thanks!!!
Don't really worry too much about what your degree says. I originally went for a degree in music composition before realizing I really didn't want to be an academic--not to mention how narrow and competitive of a field it is. So I switched to Communications just to get myself out of school and into the job market. I ended up in marketing for several years after that. One of my best friends has a poli sci degree from UCI and he's an advertising copywriter. The degree means little unless you're going into a specific field, like IT.
I think you're young enough that it's ok to not really have your future figured out. People go through career shifts all the time. Another good friend of mine was a sommelier for years, with a degree in history. He got bored, went back to school and is now a lawyer in Newport Beach.
Paralegal is a competitive job. Lots of people seem to think it sounds like an ideal position. There are lots of people out there calling themselves paralegals. Most have a paralegal certificate from a CC. Without experience, paralegals are essentially worthless. With experience and. more importantly good work ethic, good organizational skills, drive and intelligence, they are more valuable to many firms than young lawyers are. Thus, if you get good experience, and have the other qualities, it can be a good career path.
Paralegal is a semi-professional position. Some firms treat paralegals as professionals and others treat them as staff. Some are paid hourly and some are paid salary. You have to be prepared to work hard and long hours on short notice. There will be weekends where you are told on Friday, they need you to work through the weekend and you have to cancel your plans. It is not a 9-5 type of job, it is a get the job done type of job. Most of the time, it will be 9-5, or 8:30 - 6, but often it will require you to work as long as it takes to meet a a deadline.
You are expected to take care of things, not just do what you are told. In other words, if the attorney tells you to get some documents copied and sent to a witness, it is up to you to locate the documents, make sure they are the correct ones, get the copies made, get them in the Fed Ex envelope, find and confirm the address, draft a cover letter or ensure the attorney provides one and make certain the package gets into fed ex (which may mean walking to the box yourself), and then call the witness the next day to ensure they got the documents. No one will tell you to do any of these steps, it is all assumed in "get these documents to the witness." You may have a secretary to do some of these things, or you may have to do them yourself, but it is your job to ensure that no matter what the documents are in the witnesses hands by the date needed. That is just a simple example so you understand what is expected/involved.
Paralegals do all sorts of things. Review and sort documents, draft subpoenas and get them served. Answer discovery requests. incorporate new companies, draft simple wills or trusts, put together closing documents (usually not draft them, but assemble the packages and make certain everyone has all the needed copies, make sure a notary is present, make sure the correct number of original signatures is obtained, etc). What you do will depend in part on the type of practice you are supporting and on your demonstrated abilities. I have worked with paralegals who can write motions or take responsibility for finding, scheduling subpoenaing 20 or more witnesses for deposition; and I have worked with paralegals who are next to useless for anything but the most simple tasks.
Like lawyers Paralegals are billable assets. In other words, you have to keep track of your time and it is billed to clients. If you bill 1800 - 2000 hours a year (which basically means 50 hour weeks on average (some will be 30 hours and some 70), you will usually make pretty good wages.
If you do not have really strong work ethic, dedication and intelligence, you can still be a paralegal but a different type. some paralegals simply fill out forms all day. They do not make as much, but it is easy (and mind numbingly boring).
The best way to get experience is to work as a legal secretary (assistant, admin, whatever the PC terms is now). the paralegal classes can help with a general understanding of legal procedure. Reading some books on your won will help too. Then you can choose an area that interests you. Transactional paralegals are different than litigation paralegals. Workers comp paralegals differ from construction law paralegals. Paralegal skills are somewhat interchangeable, but I would not want a transactional paralegal trying to fill in as a litigation paralegal. So, you kind of need to choose a path. A communications degree is a decent background for a paralegal, but it is not required nor directly related. All else being equal, I would choose a paralegal with a communications degree over a paralegal who only had a paralegal certificate, but it is rare that all else is equal.
Also depending on your attorney, good organizational skills may be critically important. I depend heavily on my paralegals and admin (secretary) to help me keep organized. I also rely on them to keep their portion of the case organized. A lot of their work is sorting, coding and then finding various documents. Sometimes they keep track of millions of pages of documents and they need to be able to find all documents relating to a specific subject matter quickly. Computer database skills are also important. Often paralegals also serve as a firms IT person.
As far as a communications degree, my wife had BAs in communications and English. She started working as a bank teller. Then she went through a temp agency and worked for a time as an accounts payable person at a development company. then she worked in customer service at a business bank (pretty different from a regular bank teller). Then the development company offered her a permanent job and they and the business bank had a salary war to keep her (good for her). The development company won. Later she had a job as th director of evangalism at a church (she loved that job). More recently substitute teacher and finally assistant librarian. She is now in a masters program so she can become a full librarian (not much pay, but she loves the job). So it did open some pretty broad doors for different types of work. Not all of the jobs requried a college degree, but it helped get the job and helped her move up within the job.
A lot of insurance companies hire liberal arts grads for adjuster positions.
What you really need to do is find something you enjoy doing and chase it.
Good luck.
Excellent post (an understatement!). Paralegal is not for me. If I put that same time and energy into my business I would be uber rich.
Great post from ColdJensens. I would only add my two cents that in this competitive job market the offer to work as an admin assistant with the prospect of converting to a paralegal in a year or two is not a bad deal for a newly minted college grad. It's a full time job and you can always evaluate later if you like your career prospects with that employer. Heck, you may later choose to go to law school based on your experience at the firm (or run the other direction). Bottom line, hard work can take you far, no matter what the position is.
You've been given great info already! I just wanted to say I would stay where you're at and work your way up, if you're still unsure what you want to do... It doesn't have to be forever and at least this way you are gaining valuable work experience that will definitely count towards whatever career you decide to pursue later on.
I've got a BA, and went to UCI's ABA approved Paralegal certificate program, well-respected in OC. I started out as a legal clerk in a big name law firm for $35k, and was promoted the first year, and earned $40, and in 3.5 years was making $50. I took a smaller salary for resume building and experience. it paid off. a job change jumped me up to $55k, and I was at $65k within 4 more years. I recently made the switch from law firm to in-house at a large international company with a base salary of $75k. Keep in mind that I've earned annual bonuses on top of these salaries. Bonuses are negotiable as well, and the more you learn, the more you can negotiate. A first my buns was about $1000/yr. It grew in job 2 to $3000. At my new job, it's 8%, which puts me over $80k/yr in less than 10/yrs.
I have to say, you have to be willing to start at the bottom, do anything, learn everything, not worry about recognition, and NOT work in one place too long if you want to grow and develop your experience and earn more. I learned so much at my two different law firm jobs, and I never would have been prepared to do my current job if I hadn't grown that way.
Be professional, attend professional association meetings (OCPA, and any practice-related groups), know your specialty in and out, and believe in yourself. It's a great career, and challenging too. I work in Intellectual Property, which is a small community in OC, and very competitive. But lucrative. Don't burn bridges, and make contacts. My current job has me traveling all over the US and Europe now, and I love it!
I, and NOT work in one place too long if you want to grow and develop your experience and earn more.
True to a point but do not over do it either. A paralegal with 5 or more prior jobs on their resume is not going to get an interview at our firm (unless it is 5 jobs in 20 years and perhaps they changed jobs quickly 2-3 times int he first few years). We do not want to make the massive investment in training someone who is just going to leave.
A career as a paralegal is not for everyone. You have to enjoy research, analysis, and problem solving. If you are working in a law office, there are probably paralegals there you can talk to. Or you will encounter paralegal from other offices as you do your work. Speak to them to learn more about the profession and whether it is really something you want to get into.
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