What is the difference between Legal Secretary and Paralegal?
Legal Secretaries are sometimes referred to as ‘Paralegals’. This, in reality, is not the case as they are unable to be ‘fee earners’ unless they have a Paralegal qualification.
Paralegals are regarded as solicitors assistants and are fee earners.
Legal secretaries primary task involves dealing with property transactions searches and registrations, preparing and filing court papers, arranging for service of summons or other court orders with Process Servers, carrying out searches for bankruptcy and a host of other aspects relating to Wills, Divorces, Company Registrations et al. A large percentage of their work is typing and within such busy environments, their typing speeds are expected to be in excess of 60wpm.
The work which they do is ‘billable’ not as ‘legal fees’ but as ‘disbursements’, which cover their time spent photocopying, administration work , arranging meetings and so on. All their work should be opened to possible scrutiny in case of an ‘Order for Taxation’ if there is a complaint. Attendance Notes and File Notes must always reflect the time spent attending meetings and courts and the administrative work done.
This makes it difficult for a person to be accepted within a law office if they have no previous legal knowledge or experience. Prior to our developing the Legal Secretary Courses in 1988, legal secretaries were in desperately short supply and many general secretaries were left frustrated at not being able to obtain lucrative jobs as Legal Secretaries.
Many businesses have now entered the training market to take advantage of this very popular development. Some Training Providers are operating as ‘institute’ or ‘association’ which could be misinterpreted as having the authority of Accreditation, Governing or Professional bodies. In some cases, they accredit their own courses.
Accreditation, Governing and Professional bodies must be independent and impartial organisations and should not be linked to any training course providers, except as Accreditation, Governing and Professional bodies which set Competency Standards and Professional Conduct for their members. They, nor any subsidiary, affiliate or division should not run their own courses as this could creates a conflict of interest. Accreditation, Governing and Professional bodies should not operate as such while delivering their own courses directly or indirectly through an associated 'training arm', 'training partners' or 'training division'. Accreditation, Governing and Professional bodies should be impartial, not show favouritism, partiality, preference or promote their own training, or any individual training provider above others as this is a Conflict of Interest or in extreme cases Misrepresentation.
Paralegals are regarded as solicitors assistants. Their work covers legal research, preparing court documents, attending clients and barristers meetings in chambers at Inns of Court. Their work is billable as ‘legal fees’ which are based on the amount of time they spend on clients’ legal affairs. Their hourly rate is a fraction of that charged by solicitors and as such, their contribution to legal services is invaluable in these cost-conscious days. Paralegals remain crucial for the continued competitiveness of legal services!
While some Paralegals are expected to do a great amount of their own typing, some will have access to legal secretaries who will do their typing, leaving them to concentrate on providing legal services to designated clients.
Some paralegals may wish to work independently and for this they may need either a law degree in addition to their procedural law training or previous legal work experience in the area of law they wish to specialise in.
A Conflict of Interest can exist when a person, an employer, a sponsor or an organisation has a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organisations, or with the people working with them, that could influence an outcome.
Conflict of interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To maintain transparency, any associations which can be perceived by others as a conflict of interest must also be declared.
Misrepresentation is a false statement of fact made by one party which affects the other party's decision in agreeing to a contract or commitment. If the misrepresentation is discovered, the contract or commitment can be declared void.