Clearly, the American Bar Association (ABA) has played a huge direct role in the development of the legal assistant profession over its short history but it’s also played a cursory role, because most of the major legal assistant professional organizations, in the land of opportunity, had their roots in the ABA. One influential legal assistant organization is the American Association for Paralegal Education, an organization whose primary focus is that of helping legal assistant schools and their instructors provide the most complete and highest quality legal assistant training instruction possible. As a result, AAfPE has become the academic development resource for the field.
Key steps to quickly and correctly evaluate the value of a legal assistant program:
1. Legal assistant degree programs need to teach both legal concepts and theory alongside usable, hands-on job skills. A solid legal assistant school curriculum should also stress a wide range of topics from legal contracts and litigation to legal writing, legal research, torts and ethics. The really exceptional legal assistant schools will focus on the entire development of their students’ by refining and honing their critical thinking abilities and by offering them the opportunity to gain valuable real-world experience through and internship or practicum.
2. Real world experience and unquestionable scholastic credentials are key character traits any high quality legal assistant program director will possess. They must also have the desire to take “their” legal assistant schools program to the highest level and the curriculum must be spot on for today’s legal assistant work environment. Similarly, the teaching staff must possess both the field experience and the scholastic background to be considered “experts” in their classrooms.
3. A broadening number of legal assistant schools and universities have made their entire legal assistant degree training programs available online. However, it’s recommended that before any wanna-be student signs up they find answers to a few important points. First, how will the material be delivered? Will all lectures be live interactive video or DVD tele-courses, or text-based with access via the web or a combination thereof? Also, because of the nature of the learning it takes much more self motivation and discipline to compete the work. Do you have what it takes to learn online?
Clearly, pursuing a legal assistant career isn’t for everyone but for those that enjoy research, have solid organizational and writing skills and can work under pressure this is a wide open and growing field that can offer financial security and professional satisfaction.