The Bot Bin

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Legal Assistant - Tips on Finding the Right University

It’s hard to believe, but in 21st century America, paralegals are still not required to be licensed or certified. In fact, becoming certified is still of ones’ own free will. Back in the 1960s, most wanna-be legal assistants received their training on the job. However, in today’s world the trend is for employers to lean towards hiring those legal assistant candidates that have been certified.

Pivotal criteria to remember when examining the caliber of any legal assistant program:

1. Top notch legal assistant school curriculum consistently concentrates on teaching doable job skills along with essential supportive legal theory. The curriculum for legal assistant degree programs should also incorporate all things from communication and organizational skills to torts, litigation and ethics. Of course, complete development of the student must a key objective that’s revolves around providing them with real-world experience and cultivating their critical thinking faculties.

2. Commitment by the faculty and the legal assistant curriculum director to the importance of the legal assistant in the whole legal system is a must. Additionally, they must have the proper academic credentials to be able to teach the subject. Ideally, the legal assistant program director should have a law degree but if not, they should have some type of advanced legal assistant degree. As for the instructors they should be experts in the subjects they are teaching. How they came to become an “expert” can be debated as to what is the best path but regardless of the journey they need to have the proper expertise.

3. An expanding number of legal assistant schools are now offering online legal assistant training. Although becoming more popular among students due to convenience, cost and flexibility you still have to ask yourself, “Is it right for me?” However, before you can make that decision you should probably find out how much interaction takes place between the instructors and students and how is the instruction presented to the students. Is interactive video used, tele-courses or some other form of delivery system?

Fine, your goal is to become a lawyer, but rather than take the so-called “traditional route” of going directly to law school, why not get your legal assistant degree first. The benefits are many; like making contacts within the industry, getting a feel and an understanding for the field of law before you plunk down big bucks and 4 years of life and who knows; you may like being a legal assistant so much that you’ll never want to leave. Think about it!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 9:17 am and is filed under Education Info, Entrepreneurs, Great Legal Resources Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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