What is a Paralegal or Legal Assistant? According to the ABA: A legal assistant or 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 who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible.
They perfom the following tasks:
*Conduct client interviews and maintain general contact with the client, so long as the client is aware of the status and function of the legal assistant, and the legal assistant works under the supervision of the attorney.
* Locate and interview witnesses.
* Conduct investigations and statistical and documentary research.
* Conduct legal research.
* Draft legal documents, correspondence and pleadings.
* Summarize depositions, interrogatories and testimony.
* Attend executions of wills, real estate closings, depositions, court or administrative hearings and trials with the attorney.
* Author and sign correspondence provided the legal assistant status is clearly indicated and the correspondence does not contain independent legal opinions or legal advice.
* Professionally, a paralegal's time for substantive legal work (as opposed to clerical or administrative work) is billed to clients much the same way as an attorney's time, but at a lower hourly rate.
How can eFiling and eService help the Paralegal?
* Will allow them to more effectively communicate with their clients regarding status of filings in their case.
* Will allow them a new way to conduct legal research if Court files are made available in a searchable data repository.
* Will allow them to move directly to the filing or serving of legal documents, motions and pleadings they created at their desktop...eliminating the need to stop, turn the digitally created documents into paper and delivering that paper to the Court
* Provide new hours in the day to atend executions of wills, real estate closings, depositions, court or administrative hearings and trials with the attorney
* Save client's money through the time-savings inherent in eFiling and eService
Here are various Paralegal sites to give readers a better understanding of what paralegals do and how the Courts can improve their service to them through eFiling and eService:
The Estrin Report
The National Association of Legal Assistants
The National Federation of Paralegal Associations
The ABA Standing Committee on Paralegals
