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zoosermom – what do you mean? If you are a paralegal waiting to get into law school are you treated better or worse. I always believed getting into law school was based solely on your LSAT scores, but does being a paralegal help?</p>
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<p>Perhaps perceived as brighter, whether or not that is true, probably given the more challenging projects.</p>
<p>No it doesn’t help. I was talking about how people are treated. Depending on the firm, either “career” people are treated better or worse. Many firms prefer to hire young people right out of college who are planning to go to law school. They are seen as temporary and can be worked very hard for less compensation. At some firms, career paralegals are treated like workhorses. Depends on the firm, but that’s the distinction I’ve always seen, never gender.</p>
<p>The paralegals/law clerks that we know and who my H has worked with are worth their weight in gold if they’re good, and they are paid very well. There is never a crossover between paralegals and assistants (not called secretaries anymore!) in terms of the work they do, in his experience. It just isn’t the same job and the responsibilities and talent/abilities/education/experience are very different. This is the case both at large firms and in house, in his experience. It’s interesting that some firms in the U.S. are now hiring college grads who have plans to head to law school as paralegals. That wasn’t the case when he worked at a large firm in the U.S. and doesn’t happen here in Toronto. Although a certain percentage of law school applicants have grad degrees or some work experience, the large majority here start law school the fall after finishing undergrad. I guess maybe a paralegal job may give some indication of what it’s like to be a lawyer, and maybe that’s what these kids are looking for, but z-mom is right, it’s not going to be of any benefit in law school admissions.</p>
<p>We do have some “Legal Administrative Assistants” (secretaries) who bill their time when they are doing things that a paralegal would normally do (ordering corporate records, for example.)</p>
<p>I think that being a paralegal would be a great job for a highly organized person, who wants a bit of a challenge. There are a lot of lawyers who are “big picture” folks. They can try a case or negotiate a deal with the best of them, but keeping track of exhibits or documents is beyond them. Those attorneys are typically quite aware of their weakness and treat the highly organized paralegal very well.</p>
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There is a huge amount of crossover here and with the exception of older secretaries, they are generally required to have a four-year degree. The distinction I see is that paralegals will travel and work very long hours, where secretaries often don’t. And secretaries are called secretaries.</p>
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Anecdotally, I think they’re paying off undergrad debt or studying to take the LSAT. But I’m sure that’s not universal.</p>
<p>I think it’s a great idea. When I graduated from college (in 1973, so many, many years ago!), I had no idea, really, what I wanted to do. A friend of mine who had graduated the year before was working as a paralegal in a large NYC law firm, and said she loved it. (I think she may have been one of the first paralegals ever! It was a new field then, and the firm she worked in was an “early adopter” of the concept.)</p>
<p>I got a job in another NYC law firm, and really enjoyed it. I worked as a paralegal for six years before going to law school, and always felt “part of the team.” As a lawyer, I supervised paralegals. I hope I conveyed what I felt, which was that I valued them greatly!</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else. At my (fairly small, but not one-person) firm the couple of professional, long-term paralegals we have are treated very well and accorded a lot of responsibility, but not compensated like lawyers. (One, in her 50s, has the second-longest tenure of anyone in the firm.) And there is a lot of crossover between secretarial/administrative work and paralegal work. Several of our better admins, and the assistant office manager, have billing numbers and do a fair amount of work that we bill out on a paralegal basis. (We knew them well, and knew they could do it and work well with the attorneys involved, so it was a safer bet to do that than to go out and try to hire a couple of additional paralegals.)</p>
<p>Some large firms – my old (large) firm – only hire career paralegals; others mainly hire kids for a couple of years between college and law school, with maybe a handful of career paralegals to train and to supervise them. You rarely see a real mixture of the two in the same firm. There are pluses and minuses to each strategy – a little like the debate about whether you would rather have a TFA kid from Brown or a state-college ed major teaching your child.</p>
<p>OP: Have you done informational interviews in the types of organizations where you might want to work? And do they pretty much require formal credentialing? Or do they prefer OJT of legal assistants maybe while they are going to paralegal school at night?</p>
<p>Don’t sell yourself short. If you have done volunteer work along the way and/or been involved at all in the administrative/managerial aspects of the preschool, you bring a lot of problem solving smarts to the table. With kids and their parents, you have no doubt demonstrated that you are skilled in conflict resolution and dealing with difficult people. As with any career just beginning, the biggest hurdle is landing that first job and convincing an employer that you have the smarts + motivation to be successful.</p>
<p>Another career suggestion: My daughter’s preschool teacher went back to school for her master’s degree and became a child therapist. It used to be an MFCC in my state but I think the letters have changed. She gets a ton of referrals from the school district, and needless to say she works very well with little kids and can make connections with them easily. Another became a doula.</p>
<p>I think you would encounter less age based discrmination as a paralegal than as an attorney. </p>
<p>I’ve always seen the age of associates as a complicated issue. Older associates certainly command more respect than younger ones, even with the same number of years of experience. But if a 55 year old attorney is looking for someone to train and to whom to transition his practice when he retires, a 50 year old associate doesn’t really fit the bill.</p>
<p>Here again, allow me to politely disagree with Missy’s example, My guess is you might find more age discrimination. Since about 73% of American lawyers are men, one might ask- would the average male atty prefer a 25 yr old woman fresh out of paralegal training over a 50 yr old woman fresh out of training? There are advantages to being 25, and I’m not referring to physical beauty, although that could secretly be a factor too.
I suspect an attorney is more concerned with who he will work with while he’s there, rather than who will take over once he’s gone.</p>
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<p>Maybe the diffference is whether or not the attorney is at a law firm (vs. in house, in a government position, etc.) When an aging lawyer in a law firm has a lucrative practice, succession planning is very important. Even if the aging lawyer doesn’t necessarily care what happens when he is gone, the *firm *certainly wants to keep that business if at all possible.</p>
<p>I don’t think secretaries are called secretaries anymore! They are “admins” or “administrative assistants”. We had an admin who got her paralegal certificate but there wasn’t a job for her to advance into. She left and has a great job at another company.</p>
<p>One other factor is that because there is a surplus of attorneys now, some law firms are hiring law school grads as paralegals.</p>
<p>WOW - Is the surplus that great? I know several undergrads studying for the LSAT and planning to go on to law school after graduation.</p>
<p>There is a huge surplus of attorneys. It is only worth going if you can minimize your debt and/or go to a top 20 school and do really well. Many Vanderbilt grads are struggling to find jobs, although things have improved slightly. A regional school like Temple- you pretty much need to be Law Review to get a job in the current market.</p>
<p>Many places will NOT hire a JD as a paralegal. Some will, but many don’t trust that the lawyer will actually stay or will have the right attitude.</p>
<p>MOWC is right about some law firms not hiring JDs to work as paras, but it certainly happens. </p>
<p>See [Can’t</a> find work? Paralegal for Weil Gotshal Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law School, Law Suits, Judges and Courts](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2009/07/cant-find-work-paralegal-for-weil-gotshal/]Can’t”>Can't find work? Paralegal for Weil Gotshal - Above the Law) I don’t think linking this violates TOS. If it does, the article is about Suffolk Law School sending out an email to its grads about a position at Weil Gotshal for a paralegal. Yes, this happened two years ago, but it gives you an idea of how bad things can be when a law school career services office sends its grads a mass email about a paralegal job. </p>
<p>It is password protected, but allegedly the Wisconsin Bar Journal carried an article saying that 40% of all applicants for paralegal jobs in Wisconsin have law degrees.</p>
<p>The ABA itself noted that a Long Island business publication claimed new law school grads are trying to get jobs as secretaries. [Recent</a> Law Grads Pursuing Hard-to-Get Paralegal, Secretary Jobs at Firms - News - ABA Journal](<a href=“Recent Law Grads Pursuing Hard-to-Get Paralegal, Secretary Jobs at Firms”>Recent Law Grads Pursuing Hard-to-Get Paralegal, Secretary Jobs at Firms) Again, this is from two years ago, and things have gotten a bit better. </p>
<p>Moreover, when work is slow, law firms will lay off paralegals and give their work to associates or contract attorneys.</p>
<p>MOWC and jonri - what has changed to create this surplus?</p>
<p>There are about 1000 articles on this subject. 1. The economy. 2. Too many law grads. Law schools are a real money maker for universities. Not huge overhead. Just churned out the grads. Firms started cutting back as their corporate clients cut back or even went out of business. Whole law firms folded. Corporations have reduced their legal staffs. I just lost my wonderful job of 5 years! It’s tough out there.</p>
<p>Oh- and offshore outsourcing of some legal work.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry to hear about your job, MoWC. I hope you find a new job very soon.</p>