A legal assistant job would be an ideal profession if you are interested n the idea of supporting a lawyer or a legal firm. Such jobs are usually quite well paid.
Legal Assistants – The Essential Facts
The assistants at a law firm constitute the backbone of the firm. The legal assistants carry out essential tasks such as drafting correspondence and pleadings under an attorney’s supervision. They also conduct legal research as well as assist in the preparation of trial notebooks. While the legal assistants can get certification, they should ideally have two year degrees. Being an assistant at a law firm could be quite stressful as it involves complying with deadlines and keeping up with a myriad of scheduled mediations and hearings. There are also many benefits of being an assistant to a lawyer or legal firm, one of them being receiving a decent salary.
Legal Assistant Job – Types of work
An assistant to lawyers or a law firm could engage in different kinds of work but usually needs to specialize in something just as the attorney’s do. A legal assistant job involves working in areas such as family law, insurance law, litigation, criminal law, personal injury and various other fields. Such assistants might also work for private firms or public entities like state attorney’s, prosecutors, judges and district attorney’s. A person engaged in a legal assistant job could operate as freelance paralegal in certain states. He might work for a number of attorney’s. He might also have his own clientele.
Legal Assistant Salary – Compensations
An individual working as an assistant in a legal organization or to a lawyer or judge could draw a handsome salary provided they hold a bachelor’s degree or an associate’s degree. The average annual legal assistant salary in the country of America is as high as fifty one thousand dollars. This means an hourly wage of about twenty four dollars. The lowest legal assistant salary in the country stands at thirty thousand dollars while the highest stands at seventy five thousand dollars. Location is an important factor that influences the salary of such assistants greatly. Those living in Stockton in the state of California are known to draw an average salary of about sixty eight thousand dollars annually, which is far higher than the salaries of paralegals in New York and Alaska, at fifty thousand dollars.