If you like law and want to help people with legal problems, but don't want to become a lawyer, then the paralegal position is for you. So, if you are interested or curious about the paralegal job, then this article is for you. You will find all the information you need to understand who the paralegals are and what they do. Such as, how you can become a paralegal, where paralegals work, how much they get paid, and what kind of tasks they can perform.
As a paralegal, we have to deal with a lot of stress. In this kind of profession, there is no place for mistakes. Any minor mistake can cause big financial damages to the company or to the physical person that our lawyer represents. Therefore, it is crucial to be detail-oriented to succeed in this type of profession. We work with many deadlines, so meeting them is extremely important. The organization is the key ingredient in order to not miss any deadlines. The most important thing is patience because we have to do a lot of research and it takes time to find the right information for our situation. So, to make this time-consuming activity more enjoyable, you have to adore reading.
Usually, paralegals work in collaboration with lawyers or notaries. The paralegal is the right hand of the lawyer as the nurse is the right hand of the doctor. If the lawyer goes to the court, meets clients, and tries to find the best solution for his clients. The paralegal does a lot of paperwork. He is the one who does all the research of documentation for the lawyer. They do legal research, draft texts and take notes during meetings with clients. Also, depending on where they work, they have to find the applicable law, check the doctrine and the jurisprudence for each case.
A typical day for a paralegal starts with organizing all the activities for the day. Depending on where we work and what is our responsibility our task will differ but in general, our journey continues by following up with our clients. After that, we might pursue by researching any related documents, redacting pleadings, document responses and discoveries, also analyze and summarize documents.
Paralegals can work in various establishments, such as lawyers' offices, notaries' offices, bailiffs' offices, or environments that require legal research. In short, you can even work in most of the big companies, or for the city or for the government. You can work in any place where legal problems appear because in order to carry out good research of legal information the paralegal is necessary.
To become a paralegal, you must have a college diploma in Paralegal Technology. This training lasts three years and is given either in French or English, depending on the school that you attend. To obtain the diploma, you must pass two and a half years of theoretical courses and have successfully completed the final internship.
According to Revenu Quebec, depending on the level of your degree, the salary will vary. For a beginner that doesn't have any experience his salary will start at $37 000 and will continue to increase to $53 000. However, for a paralegal who has 5 years of experience, his salary will increase by 8.4 %.
In general, paralegals don't need any specific training, but you need to be able to work with all the softwares that are used to accomplish job-related tasks. In addition, we need to be aware of all the corrections of current laws.
One danger that I can think of is being brought to court by a company or a physical person who had damages due to the quality of my work. For example, missed a deadline or made a mistake within the documents.
In my opinion, the chances that paralegals will be replaced by robots in the near future are very small. First of all, the jobs that will be replaced by robots are all repetitive jobs that do not imply any critical thinking. The paralegal is a type of job where the person needs to make particular decisions based on situations, clients, and environments. Second of all, we are in the early stage of artificial intelligence used through robots.
According to Retraite Quebec, in general, we can retire as soon as we are 60 years old, but to be more precise this kind of information will be stipulated on our work contract.
In conclusion, to be a paralegal is to be the right hand of the lawyer to help him in all of his decisions and most tasks. Due to the fact that we can work in any environment, when we finish our studies we can choose in what domain of law we want to work in. So, what do you think, is this job for you?
Rationale: to inform or educate
Authority: this author’s opinion
Date: still relevant
Accuracy: probably true
Relevance: relevant for this document
Sources: no sources cited
Rationale: to inform or educate
Authority: government
Date: still relevant
Accuracy: probably true
Relevance: relevant for this document
Sources: cites sources