| CAREER OVERVIEW |
| Career Overview |
| What You'll Do |
| Who Does Well |
| Two-year or Four-year Program? |
| Choosing a School |
| CAREER TRACKS |
| DECIDING TO BECOME A LAWYER |
SOURCE: http://www.wetfeet.com/asp/careerprofiles_overview.asp?careerpk=21
Their work extends from individuals (for example, in a dispute over an assault-and-battery charge) to corporations (for example, interpreting the Equal Opportunity Act) to taxes (perhaps finding loopholes for a corporate client) to nearly every area of our lives (such as the environment, trade, labor practices, and so on).
Lawyers, who are also generally known as attorneys, represent clients in legal proceedings. In addition to acting as advocates for individuals and companies in criminal and civil trials, lawyers serve as ongoing legal advisers to corporations and organizations. While their day-to-day work varies depending on their specialty, the ultimate goal of the lawyer is to help clients comprehend the law and apply it to their respective situations.
Depending on the type of law they practice, lawyers will spend their time on paperwork, researching, preparing for or participating in trials, and advising clients. They spend hours in law libraries and with online databases researching legal precedents. They prepare contracts, briefs, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs or writing text from scratch.
They plan and conduct depositions (interviews with witnesses), which in complicated cases can generate thousands of pages of testimony–all of which have to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information. They present their evidence–the information they've gathered about a case and about the laws relevant to a case–in a court of law, arguing before a judge and/or jury. Alternatively, they may present their research findings to clients, advising them on business or other issues.
Hours and workloads vary tremendously among attorneys. Associates at private practices bill their clients by the hour, recording every minute spent on a particular case in order to fill their firms' required annual quotas. Advancement at big firms happens glacially–most associates expect to become partners after seven to nine years of hard work–and a rigid hierarchy is maintained according to seniority.
In contrast, public interest, government, and nonprofit lawyers hold salaried positions and typically move more freely within the office power structure. The firms or organizations that employ them often subsist on meager budgets and furnish their offices with hand-me-down desks and chairs, but relations within the office tend to be less hierarchical.
All attorneys spend at least three years in law school getting their Juris Doctor (JD) degree, and before they can practice, they must pass a state's bar exam. The National Association of Law Placement (NALP) estimates that 70 percent of law students go into private practice upon graduation, but lawyers are increasingly using their skills in tangentially related fields.
In fact, many lawyers decide to leave their firms after two or three years, going to work for corporations, nonprofits, or government bodies, or leaving the profession altogether. Legal consulting, legal education, law school administration, government lobbying, and legal recruiting are a few of the options available to JDs looking beyond the practice of law.
Bad press notwithstanding, lawyers get respect. Law is viewed by the public as a profession, not just a job. People decide to become lawyers for a variety of reasons: to save the environment, to fight for social justice, or, of course, to make a lot of money. In this litigation-obsessed age, there is no shortage of work for all kinds of attorneys. If you're detail-oriented, enjoy research, and are a natural negotiator, a law career might be right up your alley.
Paralegals can receive education from paralegal programs offered at two-year and four-year colleges or universities. Proprietary schools generally award post-baccalaureate certificates. NFPA's findings indicate 85% of all paralegals receive some formal paralegal education. Paralegal education programs offer degrees and/or certificates.
NFPA recommends that future practitioners should have a four-year degree to enter the profession. Individuals receiving a formal paralegal education should have 24 semester hours or the equivalent of legal specialty courses to enhance their ability to practice as paralegals.
NFPA recognizes that a two-year degree with an emphasis in paralegal studies is acceptable to employers in some markets as a minimum criterion for individuals to enter the paralegal profession. However, current trends across the country, as illustrated through various surveys, indicate that formal paralegal education has become a requirement to secure paralegal employment, and a four-year degree is the hiring standard in many markets. Consequently, NFPA recommends that future practitioners should have a four-year degree to enter the profession, and individuals receiving a formal paralegal education should have 24 semester hours or the equivalent of legal specialty courses to enhance their ability to practice as paralegals.
It is NFPA's intent to provide the necessary foundation from which paralegals may expand their roles in the future. In recognizing a two-year degree and recommending a four-year degree, NFPA has taken the lead in providing the profession with the necessary tools to prepare for its future role in the delivery of legal services.
Once you have determined a paralegal career is for you, you then need to consider specific information about paralegal education. NFPA has a Suggested Curriculum for Paralegal Studies that you should consider. The American Association for Paralegal Education and NFPA have prepared a paper entitled A Guide to Quality Paralegal Education which you will find helpful. Several law-related organizations have published information on How To Choose a Paralegal Program.
