Center For Advanced Legal Studies

A Paralegal is a person, qualified through education, training or work experience to perform substantive legal work that requires knowledge of legal concepts and is customarily, but not exclusively, performed by a lawyer, according to the National Federation of Paralegal Associations, Inc. This person may work, either as an employee or a contract employee, for a sole practitioner, a law office, a governmental agency or other entity or may be authorized by administrative, statutory or other court authority to perform these tasks. Substantive means any work that requires identification, analysis, organization, evaluation, and communication of related data and legal issues.

As per the American Bar Association, a legal assistant or paralegal is anyone who has the proper education, training or work experience that works for an attorney, law firm, corporation, public agency, or other entity and who completes substantive legal work that an attorney is responsible for.

Basically, knowledgeable and experienced paralegals are capable of performing legal work that is usually completed by an attorney, and for which an attorney is, in due course, held responsible for. Paralegals, however, are responsible for providing their supervising lawyer and clients with ethical, timely, concise and accurate work.

Statistics gathered by survey companies indicate that paralegals are most commonly involved in the following activities:

• Interviewing Clients
• Performing Legal Research
• Investigating Case Facts
• Locating and Interviewing Witnesses
• Participating in Trials
• Drafting and Filing Petitions
• Managing Court Dockets and Correspondence
• Generating Correspondence and Pleadings
• Attending and Summarizing Depositions
• Attending the Execution of Wills, Real Property Closings, Court, or Administrative Hearings and Trials

The Paralegal Certificate program is designated for students who possess a bachelor\'s degree (you must have a bachelor\'s degree before applying to the center). This program has been streamlined to offer education in the most sought after and demanding areas of law, but still providing the essential paralegal courses of study.

Certificates may be earned by taking a full time 7 month course, which is offered in the morning, or by taking a 10 month part-time evening course.

Our paralegal certificate program requires only 30 college credit hours.

The Paralegal Program for an Associate of Applied Science Degree offers complete preparation for a successful career as a paralegal. To be accepted into this program, a person must have at least a high school diploma or an equivalent. The program is well rounded and includes not only concentrated study of the various areas of law, but also a series of general education courses.

You have the choice of attending part-time for 19 months in the evenings, or attending full-time morning classes for 15 months in order to earn your degree.

The program takes 62 credit hours to complete.

Since being first introduced in the 1960\'s, the paralegal profession has experienced tremendous growth. At present there almost a quarter of a million paralegals employed in the U.S. Furthermore, the need for paralegals is projected to â??grow much faster than the average for all occupations through 2014â?? or a growth rate of more than 27% or greater.

There are more terms to define the paralegal profession than the amount of people working in the entire legal field. This testifies to their worth and flexibility. However, law-related organizations and bar associations have codified standards for the paralegal professional and his or her role.

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