What is a Paralegal?
- A paralegal is someone who does legal work even though they have not qualified as a solicitor or barrister. There isn't a single definition for what a paralegal is or does.
- You are potentially a paralegal if you do paid or unpaid legal work for your employer or for clients or for someone else. Your job title is irrelevant. What counts is that you do legal work sufficiently often to legitimately be considered as a (non-lawyer) legal practitioner.
What do paralegals do?
Only one in three paralegals works for a solicitors' firm, many of our past graduates from our paralegal programmes come from the following sectors:
- Public authorities
- Commerce
- Industry
- Banking and Finance
- Government Bodies
- Human Resources
- Management
- Social Work
- Property
- Education
- Police service
Those working in solicitors’ firms will carry out working depending on the size of the firm which employs the paralegal. Most firms will group the work of a paralegal in to practice area, i.e Civil Litigation, Employment Law or Family Law and the work will involve researching legal issues, assisting with the completion of forms, liaising with the client, preparing bundles of documents and preparing draft documents. Some firms will ask that a paralegal work across several disciplines too.