The Duties Of A Legal Secretary
Once your legal secretary training has been completed you can now start thinking about applying for a position in a law firm if you want. However, before you do start to apply for any legal secretary position it is a good idea if you learn some more about the kind of work you will be tasked with. In this article we take a look at just a few of the duties that either a legal secretary or legal administrative assistants are required to do.
1. Organizing and Planning Schedules – Lawyers and attorneys are extremely busy people and their time is of a premium to them. So they are going to need someone who can make sure that when their schedules are being planned and organized time is used to its optimum each and every day. This is extremely important as these people charge by the hour and they need a legal secretary who can best evaluate how their time is used.
2. Preparing Legal Documents – There are all types of documents that need to be prepared both for within the law firm and outside it. It is generally the responsibility of the legal administrative assistants or the legal secretary’s to ensure that all documents are prepared in the right way and in good time although they may vary from one law firm to another.
3. Legal Document Filing – Should any case that a lawyer or attorney be involved in is going to court then there is even more paperwork involved. Normally it will the secretary or administrative assistant to the lawyer who will be required to produce and then submit these documents. Meticulous attention to detail is required and each document needs to be completed accurately. Also the lawyer needs an assistant or secretary who they can trust and rely on to make sure that all documents are filed in sufficient time.
4. Preparing for the Trial – Much of the research that is required and involved in trial cases will generally be carried out by the lawyer, but they still need their secretary or assistant to put it in to some order. So they prefer people to work for them who have a basic understanding of the law and who are willing to learn more about it. This may well mean a secretary actually taking say online paralegal programs and then obtaining some paralegal certificates.
5. Doing Research – Precedents make up a very important part of any legal process and so the need for good quality comprehensive research to be done. As generally a lawyer or attorney’s time is somewhat limited then they will need to rely on their secretary or legal administrative assistant to do this for them.
6. Maintaining Files & Typing Correspondence ? Of course no secretary?s job will be complete without them having to do other tasks which may seem more menial. However, a secretary with good organizational and typing skills is going to be highly in demand. In fact because there are numerous legal documents to be completed and correspondence is required to keep the clients abreast of what is occurring a large part of a legal secretaries time will be taken up in typing and maintaining files.
As well as the tasks we have mentioned another thing that many a legal secretary will need to carry out is greeting the lawyer’s clients. So a legal secretary be able to interact easily with the clients and make them feel at ease as any legal proceedings can be a very stressful time for these people.