Paralegal

A paralegal, also known as a legal assistant or paralegal specialist, is a legal professional who performs tasks that require knowledge of legal concepts but not the full expertise of a lawyer with an admission to practice law. The market for paralegals is broad, including consultancies, companies that have legal departments or that perform legislative and regulatory compliance activities in areas such as environment, labor, intellectual property, zoning, and tax. Legal offices and public bodies also have many paralegals in support activities using other titles outside of the standard titles used in the profession.^{[citation needed]} There is a diverse array of work experiences attainable within the paralegal (legal assistance) field, ranging between internship, entry-level, associate, junior, mid-senior, and senior level positions.

In the United States in 1967, the American Bar Association (ABA) endorsed the concept of the paralegal and, in 1968, established its first committee on legal assistants. In 2018, the ABA amended their definition of paralegal removing the reference to legal assistants. The current definition reads as follows, "A paralegal is a person, qualified by education, training, or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible."

The exact nature of their work and limitations that the law places on the tasks that they are allowed to perform vary between nations and jurisdictions. Paralegals generally are not allowed to offer legal services independently in most jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, paralegals can conduct their own business and provide services such as settlements, court filings, legal research and other auxiliary legal services. These tasks often have instructions from a solicitor attached.

Recently, some US and Canadian jurisdictions have begun creating a new profession where experienced paralegals are being licensed, with or without attorney supervision, to allow limited scope of practice in high need practice areas such as family law, bankruptcy and landlord-tenant law in an effort to combat the access to justice crisis. The education, experience, testing, and scope of practice requirements vary widely across the various jurisdictions. So too are the number of titles jurisdictions are using for these new practitioners, including Limited License Legal Technician, Licensed Paralegals, Licensed Paraprofessionals, Limited Licensed Paralegals, Limited License Paraprofessionals, Allied Legal Professionals, etc.

In the United States, a paralegal is protected from some forms of professional liability under the theory that paralegals are working as an enhancement of an attorney, who takes ultimate responsibility for the supervision of the paralegal's work and work product. Paralegals often have taken a prescribed series of courses in law and legal processes. Paralegals may analyze and summarize depositions, prepare and answer interrogatories, draft procedural motions and other routine briefs, perform legal research and analysis, legislative assistance (legislative research), draft research memos, and perform some quasi-secretarial or legal secretarial duties, as well as perform case and project management. Paralegals often handle drafting much of the paperwork in probate cases, divorce actions, bankruptcies, and investigations. Consumers of legal services are typically billed for the time paralegals spend on their cases. In the United States, they are not authorized by the government or other agency to offer legal services (including legal advice) except in some cases in Washington State (through LLLT designation) in the same way as lawyers, nor are they officers of the court, nor are they usually subject to government-sanctioned or court-sanctioned rules of conduct. In some jurisdictions (Ontario, Canada, for example) paralegals are licensed and regulated the same way that lawyers are and these licensed professionals may be permitted to provide legal services to the public and appear before certain lower courts and administrative tribunals.

Various professional organizations offer varying definitions of a paralegal.

A legal secretary is generally a secretary who has a basic understanding of legal terminology and the specific formatting required by a particular court or government agency. Legal secretaries are also typically responsible for keeping case files organized and indexed, often taking on the duties of a file clerk. Although legal secretaries may be trained to prepare some basic legal papers and letters, they generally have little or no knowledge of particular legal doctrines, statutes or regulations, and typically have no training or experience in conducting legal research or drafting legal documents, pleadings, motions, briefs or other court papers. On the other hand, a typical paralegal in the United States can perform all of these tasks under an attorney or law office. Paralegals bill for their time at a higher rate than legal secretaries. In Canada the title Legal Secretary is outdated. The recognized title of that position is Legal Administrative Assistant, or Legal Assistant.

Though not required in most jurisdictions, many paralegals have completed a formal paralegal education program. Formal paralegal education programs may result in a diploma, higher diploma, advanced diploma, vocational education, associate degree, bachelor's degree, master's degree, or graduate certificate programs in the academic discipline of legal management and paralegal studies, or a paralegal professional certificate of continuing education. Others may enter through adjacent fields of study such as bachelor's, academic minors, master's, or graduate certificate degree programs in criminology and the sociology of law, political science, public administration, legal studies, sociology, literature and creative writing, history, philosophy, other fields in the social sciences, humanities, and liberal arts, or proof of higher education in any field of study or academic discipline. Many paralegals have completed all of their training or obtained a higher education degree in an adjacent field before entering the profession, while some, mostly those of the Baby Boomers Generation and some older Gen Xers unlike many Millennials, Gen Zers, and younger Gen Xers, have only on-the-job training entering only with a high school diploma and no formal higher education which was a common phenomenon during that time, with others later on completing their education while working their way up from some administrative assistance or secretarial positions in law firms, in-house legal departments, or government agencies where depending on the type of work completed may or may not have required a bachelor's degree level of specialized knowledge in a given field. Many paralegals take Continuing Legal Education (CLE), Continuing Education Unit (CEU), or Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses to fulfill the requirements of their firm, employer, government-appointed regulatory body, association, or to obtain and maintain a professional certificate or license to practice.