Job Description And Selection Criteria For Paralegal Assistants

Part A – Position Description

When commencing in most positions, you are provided with a duty/position description/roles for your position. For this assessment provide a word format document, detailing the duty description for the position you have identified. It may be that you use the requirements/key selection criteria for the advertised position in Assessment Task 1 that you chose.

Part b – Professional Development Plan (Proforma attached)

You are then to complete the following Professional Development Plan for this role in a professional, clear and concise manner so that your immediate supervisor can then can then consider, propose changes, and/or accept your Professional Development Plan.

The Professional Development Plan should list four (4) professional objectives and one(1) relevant private objective.
Each objective should follow the SMART goal format being
S specific (what am I going to do? Why is this important to my position? What do I want to accomplish?)
M measurable (how will I know that I have reached my goal?)
A attainable (can I see myself achieving this goal? Can I break it down? How will I achieve it?)
R realistic (is this goal to easy or too difficult? Is it relevant and why?)
T timely (what is my target date to reach this goal? Any reason for this date?)
 

Duties and Responsibilities

Position description is one of the most important job in term of recruitment in any kind of field that job is (Meyer 2017). It is mandatory to mention the job details and the description of the position for which the vacancy is out for. The following report would be discussing about the position description of a in the legal field. The position selected for report to analyze is paralegal assistant. It would also provide insight about the description of the duty. The key selection criteria would also be discussed in the following report. 

Before discussing about the job description, it is necessary to understand the term paralegal. The term paralegal is used to denote a particular person who is working in the law section of a company or the legal department in any company. The person should be having training in laws and regulations (Emptage 2017).

A paralegal is someone who is trained to perform all the delegated legal work for which any of a lawyer is responsible for ultimately. Now there are differences between the work done by lawyers and the work done by paralegals. Lawyers are responsible for fighting and defending the laws made by the government that bound every human being. The role of paralegals are quite distinguished. The tasks they would have to perform includes maintenance and organization of files necessary for the laws, drafting of documents and conduction of research related to legal filed. Jobs for paralegal are found almost in all the departments and in all the field of works. Sectors like law firms, agencies under government and the legal department of corporate sectors requires paralegal assistance (Bureau 2019).

A role of paralegals is to perform typical kind of works in their field. They would have to perform tasks like helping the fellow lawyer with and during the trials with the embedment of laws and regulation. They also have to conduct research based on laws and regulations and up on articles related to legal factors. It is also the job of the paralegal to organize and present the correct amount of information for the department they are working on. They would also have to keep track of all the information related to the cases undertaken by the lawyers accordingly in the databases. The job description also states that they would have to help the lawyers in writing the letters and reports necessary for the trails that have been taken by the lawyers. They would also have to take part in the investigation of facts related to the cases taken by the lawyer and also for the corporative cases. The job also describes that they would have to create draft correspondences and various documents which included the mortgage plans and legal contracts. The role of the paralegal also describes that they would have to take up formal statements and the affidavits that is related to the cases and also could be further used as the necessary means of evidences to be presented at court during the times of trials.

Skills for Success

Rather than handling the cases only from the beginning to the end of the case, the job describes that paralegals who are working in huge corporate sectors, they are mostly responsible for providing the reviews of the case only in some particular phases. In organizations, a paralegal’s job is to provide insights and their views on particular parts of the cases that is related to the organization. A litigation paralegal job describes that they would have to review the legal matters that is in internal uses. Although the job does not provide not provide any description that they would have to attend the trials of the cases. These are the detailed description for the jobs that paralegals are responsible for.

The following aspects would be needed for the selection criteria for the jobs of paralegal assistant (Furgang 2016).

Technical skills - Attorneys do not have the time or the scopes of becoming an expert for operating the technologies that is used in the law offices. These attorneys rely on their secretory for the performing the variety of computer based works like creation of spreadsheet and preparation of presentation related in the organization.

Interpersonal Skills – The role of the paralegal states that they would have to interact with the attorneys and clients on a daily basis. So the candidates are expected to have a top notch communication and interpersonal skill.

Writing skills – The attorneys sometimes hand over the job of writing to their assistances. They would have to be good with the words and also able to express the words the attorney’s in their own.

Transcription skills – The candidates are needed to have strong skills in sections like vocabularies, grammar and spelling as they would have to create superior quality of transcript. 

Conclusion

Thus, the following report could be concluded by providing a brief overview on the job description of a paralegal assistance. The report also provides description of particular task and duties would be handled by paralegal assistance at their jobs. There is also a brief insight on the skills needed for getting hired as a paralegal assistance. Therefore, it could be said that the job of paralegal is no less than maintaining the law.

References

Bureau, H.E., 2019. Job Description. Network.

Campus, T., 2017. PARALEGAL INTERNSHIPS INFORMATION & REQUIRED FORMS (Doctoral dissertation, MADISON AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE). 

Emptage, N., 2017. Job description and selection criteria(Doctoral dissertation, The University of Oxford).

Technical Skills

Furgang, K., 2016. Getting a Job in the Legal Profession. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

Meyer, K., 2017. Job Description.

Personal Development Plan

Name:

Role: Paralegal Assistant

What are my development objectives (What skills, knowledge or experience am I missing or  need to improve)	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives? (What can a course offer?)	Target Date for achieving my objectives	Review – actual date of achieving objectives
Verbal Communication	Communication Study Course from University of the Sydney	The resources that are needed are the audio-visual medium that can help in training the students. The communication course would train the individual about the social etiquettes that can help in creating a good impression in an organization. I can achieve the objective with the help of the auditory material in the course that can help in improving my verbal communication skills.	The target date was 25.08.2018	The actual date of achieving the objective was 30.08.2018
Research Skills in relation to various existing laws	Legal Studies course from the University of Southern Queensland	The support that can help me in achieving my objective are the legal officers who can share their valuable experience to me. This course can help me in learning about the social justice studies that can help in the advancement of my career (Furgang 2016). The legal studies course can help me in understanding the topics of the law like the property, contracts and the crimes. It can help me in understanding about the process of tribunal adjudication along with the alternate dispute resolution that can help me in my professional advancement. It can help me in understanding about the human rights in Australia and that of the complaint mechanisms. I can achieve my objective with the help of this course that can help me in strengthening my knowledge and help me in the area of fact finding.	The target date was 24.07.2018	The actual date of achieving the objective was 28.07.2018
Technology Skills for the legal notation and the disbursement of the documents	Diploma in Information Technology from University of New South Wales that can help me in getting knowledge about information technology that can help in the professional position of Paralegal Assistant.	The resources that are needed for this course are the learner guides that can help me in understanding the different aspects in relation to technology. The printable resources can help me in assessing the clients in the legal profession (Peñalver 2018). The course would help me in learning about the basics of the information technology along with the use of the digital electronics that can help me in advancement of my career. It can help me in knowing about the aspects of systems analysis that would help me in realizing my objective. The use of the internet is indispensable in the present age in all kinds of professional positions and it can help me in realizing my aim as the Paralegal Assistant. This course can help me in learning about the numbering system that can help me in making the proper format for the depositions along with the interrogatories.	The target date was 20.06.2018	The objective was achieved in 30.06.2018
Organization Skills for the filing of the documents	Online legal assistant course that can help me in gaining knowledge about the different kinds of the legal documents (Halina 2017). It can help me in gaining knowledge about the overview of the court procedures along with the timings that can greatly help in my professional development.	The resources that I need for achieving my objective are the laptop and the internet communication that can help me in watching the course. The support that I need for being successful is an online trainer who can help me understanding the different aspects of the course. The legal assistant course can help me in achieving my objective as it can help in maintaining the record of the documents of the clients.	The target date was 29.05.2018	The objective was achieved in 15.06.2018
Private Objective Team work	I shall work with the other paralegals that can help me in learning the essential elements of team work.	The support that I would need pertains to legal secretaries along with the associates who can help me in my career development.	The target date was 16.03.2018	The objective was achieved in 20.03.2018

References

Furgang, K., 2016. Getting a Job in the Legal Profession. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

Halina, W., 2017. The Interface Between Globalisation, Corporate Responsibility, and the Legal Profession. In Human Rights and Corporations (pp. 495-538). Routledge.

Peñalver, E.M., 2018. The Role of Skills Instruction in Legal Education. FIU Law Review, 13(2), p.229.

PART - C

Internal Memorandum

To: 

From: 

Date: 

Re:

The professional development items that have been chose are verbal communication skill, research skills in relation to various existing laws, technology skills for the development of legal notations and the disbursement of the documents, organizational skills for filing the documents and a private objective that signifies the importance of team work (Vietzen 2015). 

As discussed by Currier, Eimermann and Campbell (2019)these are items are important for the role of paralegal assistance in their day to day work as attorneys’ are not the means that do the visiting or dealing with the clients or the research or data analysis for these Thus these items are necessary.

The benefits of the unit would be understanding the career prospective as being a paralegal assistance. The unit also benefit the firm or agencies in knowing the necessary skills that would be needed at the time of recruitment (O'Neill 2017).

This development would help in understanding the job description and the necessary roles needed to be performed as a paralegal assistance (Chasse 2015).

According to Mabiza (2015), the aspects that would be required for the completion of this development would be time and cost both as, the recruitment process would be needing assistance from expert recruiters for hiring quality candidates of the job of paralegal.

All the respected superiors that would be approving the job description details and its development plan is requested for providing their thoughtful comments on the necessary points that is needed to be changed in the following development of the job description and the development plan of a paralegal assistance. They are hereby requested to provide their feedback on the give space below 

References

Chasse, K., 2015. A Memorandum for Judging the Candidates Running in the Law Society of Upper Manu-Mabiza, N., 2015. PARALEGAL HANDBOOK.Currier, K.A., Eimermann, T.E. and Campbell, M.S., 2019. Introduction to law for paralegals: A critical thinking approach. Aspen Publishers.

O'Neill, R.P., 2017. Legal Research and Writing: A Practical Approach for Paralegals. Pearson Education.

Vietzen, L.A., 2015. Law Office Management for Paralegals. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.