Differences Between Working with a Paralegal and a Lawyer
If you’re new to my blog/channel, welcome! My name is Christine Springer. I’m a paralegal and the founder of Desert Edge Legal Services. This post is my personal opinion and perspective as a career paralegal, and should not be construed as legal advice.
In this post, I’m talking about the differences between lawyers and paralegals as service providers.
The Arizona Supreme Court created a new license in 2020, called a Licensed Limited Legal Practitioner (LLLP) which is a license that will allow certain non-lawyers to represent you in some types of legal cases.
In my opinion, this is a formal acknowledgement from the Arizona Supreme Court that there are other legal professionals who are qualified, and that it is necessary to allow other people to assist the public in accessing the legal system.
There is also another type of license in Arizona called a Legal Document Preparer (LDP) which is a license that allows a licensee to prepare legal documents without the supervision of an attorney.
These licenses mean that there are other career options for paralegals, which is a big deal. There is simply no reason for the legal profession to be so top-heavy when there are other important professions, such as medicine, that offer many career options that don’t require you to be a doctor. There are other professionals, such as PAs and LPNs as examples, that can write prescriptions and see patients independently.
And we absolutely still need lawyers. However, many of the issues people struggle with are issues that lawyers don’t want to handle, for various reasons. Of course, there is also the cost of hiring lawyers, which further limits access to the legal system for many people.
So, what is a lawyer?
A lawyer is a licensed professional who has successfully completed three years of legal study, taken the bar exam and passed, and met the requirements to be admitted to one or more jurisdictions to practice law there.
What is a paralegal?
There’s no formal definition of what a paralegal is. The paralegal profession is still relatively new.
Story time: I took a paralegal certificate program in 1992 after high school. When I finished in 1993, there were no jobs because nobody knew what a paralegal was.
I went in the Army, and when I got out, I went back to the same school and graduated in 1998 with an associates degree in Paralegal Studies.
It was much easier to find work by then, although the jobs were usually legal secretary jobs. I started working as a legal secretary and did things like answering phones, transcription, typing and other admin stuff.
I started out working for a law firm as a temporary legal secretary. After they hired me, I learned everything I could from the attorney I worked for. She left the firm and I had just graduated from my bachelor's degree program. I pitched them on promoting me to a paralegal. I started billing and they saw how profitable I was, and soon they had TEN paralegals.
Most of the definitions of paralegals on the internet all say that they are a group of people who assist attorneys in the delivery of legal services. However, paralegals are often employed in other non-law firm companies, some without lawyers.
A definition I like is from The Lawyer Portal:
A paralegal is a highly-valued member of a legal team that has extensive knowledge of the law and legal matters, but is not a qualified lawyer.
Eventually paralegals will have a lot more recognition for their contributions than they currently receive.
The idea that we exist to support lawyers is outdated, obviously. This is a kind of enforced codependency where they want us to be dependent upon lawyers.
Nowadays, we have our own educational and career investments and we’re not necessarily going to allow lawyers to define our worth in the marketplace.
I interviewed with a law firm in Phoenix last year and it was eye opening. The expectation of subservience is still a thing.
When I started working for a lawyer in 1997, I worked for ONE attorney. He used a handheld dictation recorder. I would put these little tapes into a Dictaphone machine that had a foot pedal to speed up or slow down the tape so I could listen and transcribe his work.
This guy was older and he was sexist. If I had $1 for every time he told me to “be sweet” I’d be a millionaire! I’d just gotten out of the Army, and it was a very different environment than the military. Sexism was a problem early on in my career, but as I went to college, I got better jobs and most of the overt sexism stopped.
There are a wide range of responsibilities that paralegals do, depending on the firm size and other factors. Many jobs will train you, which makes the paralegal field unique for getting a job without having formal college education in the field.
Today, the younger lawyers do most of their own admin work. Many law firms now hire legal assistants that do a mix of paralegal and secretary work, and they will often support an entire practice area or department.
Some smaller firms want someone to be a receptionist, office manager and paralegal which isn’t a bad thing if the pay is good. I’ve seen some insane job ads where they want the person to basically run their firm for $15 an hour! No thanks.
(Side note: Why would you trust the running of your whole firm to someone who isn’t incentivized with higher pay?)
Many people already know that “paralegals do all the work for the lawyers.”
That is, we execute on the practical things that need to be done. We draft court papers (pleadings), schedule depositions, schedule court reporters, coordinate meetings, electronically file documents, troubleshoot situations, interface with the court and judge’s offices, coordinate service of process and lots of other things. I would ultimately sum up what we do as problem solving.
However, we cannot give you legal advice. We cannot analyze your situation and tell you which laws apply and suggest a course of action.
In fact, lawyers generally can’t do this either, outside of an established attorney-client relationship. They are also prohibited from advising you in areas of the law where they don’t have experience.
The interesting thing is that I’ve never had a client ask me for help in figuring out what they want to do. They already know, and they just want help in executing it and this is why working with a paralegal (or LLLP or LDP in Arizona) is a great option.
Ultimately, a lot of people simply cannot afford to hire an attorney, and this is what will lead to further changes in the legal marketplace. Paralegals, LLLPs and LDPs will all be competing with lawyers and I expect more changes to who can help people and how.
If you don’t know what to do, I absolutely recommend you go see a lawyer. Pay their consultation fee and ask them all the legal questions you have before you hire them.
You don’t have to hire them right away. You might want to consult with several attorneys before you hire one.
You can consult with an attorney for legal advice and represent yourself based on the information from your consultation.
You can negotiate with the law firm to have a paralegal do the bulk of work to save you money on your legal bills.
By the way: I wrote this blog post on how to hire the right attorney.
If you know what you want to do and just need help with the execution, consider whether one of the other types of legal professionals can help you.
I hope this helps!
To help you on your journey to Becoming Litigious (tm), I offer videos on my YouTube channel, plus many digital products, including Legal Research for Non-Lawyers and DIY Mortgage Auditing for Borrowers.
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