A legal assistant works in law firms or privately for a lawyer, providing them with auxiliary services to aid them in more complicated cases. The duties of a legal assistant typically include organizing and arranging documents, preparing lawyers’ schedules, receiving communication from clients, as well as providing immediate assistance in cases. For the last part, the duties of a legal assistant could include things like gathering documents and sifting through them to find important data, conducting basic research, and various other tasks that can benefit the legal proceedings.
Working as a legal assistant can be quite demanding psychologically, though the job isn’t difficult to get in general. A basic understanding of the judicial system is required, but a law degree isn’t – and likewise, analytical skills and knowledge in mathematics can benefit a legal assistant greatly, but any educational qualifications for those are mostly irrelevant when applying for the job. Multitasking skills can be a plus since legal assistants are frequently called to help on more than one cases.
A legal assistant doesn’t have a very high earning potential, with an annual salary of $29,000 – $43,000 commonly defining their limits. Additionally, the working hours are rarely flexible and often involve some overtime, and the job tends to be unrewarding mentally in some of its aspects as well. However, the possibility to build professional ties to a legal firm is a very good opportunity that many people choose to realize.