Paralegals~ what’s your job like?

[Cakeandcoffee93]

Hello
considering becoming a paralegal. What experience did you have to become one? Do you enjoy your role? Is the pay good?
thanks for info in advance!

I’m a solicitor and in my experience paralegals mostly get treated poorly and are wrongly looked down on by both solicitors and the paralegal’s own clients (who are too cheap to pay for a solicitor to do the work).

I also think you have as much stress as a solicitor without the pay.

Sorry I know that’s not what you probably wanted to hear and I am sure other people will have more positive reports. My experience is based on paralegals who are trusted and given a lot of autonomy and their own case work, all firms differ of course.

Thank you for replying

I had an interview with one today as I'm to poor to pay for a solicitor (£150 per hour instead of £400 ph) and I have to pay for their travel as well...long story
She was pin sharp, nothing but respect from me. And being a woman I've a feeling her listening skills were superior as well.

I’m a paralegal. It’s not a bad job. Some people do treat you as though you aren’t a proper person, but others are very courteous, and I’ve also worked in restaurants and bars and no-one has been as horrible to me as paralegal as they were to me as a waitress. The work is mostly the work that needs doing, but it wouldn’t quite be worth a solicitor’s time to do - straightforward drafting work (both letters of advice and legal documents) dealing with less complex legal issues, calling people to chase them to do X, Y or Z, tidying up the solicitor’s file (both on the computer and in the filing cabinet), finding documents, combing through incredibly long, dull but relevant bank statements. I feel like a PA with legal knowledge a lot of the time. It can also be very stressful at times. There are days when I feel like I’m being asked to do everything at once and it was all due five minutes ago. However, I usually leave the office earlier than the solicitors, and I’m not expected to log back on in the evenings. The money is not bad.

However, it is increasingly competitive, because most solicitor training contracts now look for previous legal experience - this means that every law graduate starts off looking for paralegal work. I have a law degree and the LPC, and it was still very competitive to get my job.