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Law Practice

Paralegals and legal assistants are taking on expanded duties

By G.M. Filisko

November 1, 2014, 5:10 am CDT

Dallas legal assistant Sarah Klein, who now handles filings and preliminary research, expects her responsibilities will soon include marketing as well. Photo by Terri Glanger.

Is time running backward for today's law firm paralegals? These nonlawyer staffers were among the first to be hit with layoffs as the legal practice economy took a dive. According to the 2012 Survey of Law Firm Economics (PDF), law offices averaged 30 paralegals per 100 lawyers in the early 2000s, and by 2012 that average had dipped to slightly more than 20 paralegals per 100 lawyers.

The result, says Karen McElroya certified paralegal and legal secretary at DiMuroGinsberg in Alexandria, Virginia, and president of NALS, an association for law office staff membersis that she feels like her job is morphing backward in time to match the responsibilities of Della Street, the jack-of-all-trades assistant to TV lawyer Perry Mason.

"We're going back to the way it was 30 years ago," she says, referring to when she began in the business. "Della Street was really Perry Mason's right arm; she was involved in every aspect of his business and practice," McElroy says. "The '1-1-1'where one lawyer worked with one secretary and one paralegalobviously is never going to happen again. But the diversity within those jobs is coming back."

That range of responsibilities is endless, McElroy says, spanning many business functions from accounting to billing to document preparation. Some secretaries, she says, also have roles in marketing, finance and human resources.

Job creep is certainly the case at many smaller firms. Sarah Klein, a legal assistant for the two-attorney firm Broden & Mickelsen in Dallas, handles filings and does preliminary research on legal matters. She expects to expand her role in the firm's marketing.

Each additional task they take on leads to more fuzziness when it comes to defining the roles of paralegals, legal assistants and legal secretaries. "They're becoming hybrid positions," McElroy says.

For paralegals the biggest change may be their transition in becoming the go-to staffers for technology.

"Because of technology, the economy and e-discovery, firms are requiring paralegals to be more technologically advanced," says Robert Hrouda, a registered paralegal at Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller in Philadelphia and the president of the National Federation of Paralegal Organizations. "They're specifically searching for paralegals with e-discovery skills, including knowing the databases and how to search them, along with the lingo vendors uselike whether databases use single-page TIFFs or load in native. The paralegal has become the liaison for lawyers using trial-prep technology."

More paralegals are also leapfrogging to an entirely different position the litigation specialist. "As a paralegal, we'll get documents in from a client," Hrouda says. "We'll look to see what format it's in and then work with litigation support specialists and outside vendors to get those documents into a database. But litigation specialists will also make sure we're getting all documents from clients, like from phones and laptops. They're more technology experts than paralegals, and that new role can afford former paralegals a higher income."

It's anybody's guess as to how nonlawyer roles will look a decade from today. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that the hiring of legal secretaries and paralegals would grow by 17 percent between 2012 and 2022, which would translate to job growth of 46,200 positions.

"Over the course of the next decade or two, we'll see many support functions within law firms being augmented or replaced by technology or technology-enabled processes," says Randi Mayes, executive director of the International Legal Technology Association in Austin, Texas.

This article originally appeared in the November 2014 issue of the ABA Journal with this headline: "Techno-Change-o: Paralegal, legal assistant duties expand."

ARTICLE 2:

Technology has not replaced need for paralegals

By Marc Davis

February 1, 2018, 1:15 am CST

Five years ago, it seemed like the paralegal industry was about to become obsolete. A January 2013 Associated Press report claimed that an increasing number of lawyers were using computer software and technology to do the work paralegals once did.

The report hit the paralegal industry like a sucker punch. The market had been red hotthe Bureau of Labor Statistics had previously predicted an 18 percent growth in paralegal jobs through 2020. In 2014, however, the bureau revised its projections, forecasting an 8 percent growth from 2014 to 2024.

The bureau then adjusted that figure to a 15 percent growth from 2016 to 2026a decrease of 3 percentage points from its original projection.

So was the AP report about lawyers relying more on technology much to do about nothing? Not necessarily. While solo and small-firm lawyers have increasingly turned to technology, they haven't completely turned their backs on hiring paralegals.

"In the past, with the big firm I was with, I used paralegals to issue subpoenas for documents, to organize them, file them electronically," says Deborah G. Cole, a Chicago-based solo practitioner who specializes in commercial litigation and employment law and is among the growing number of lawyers who perform the work paralegals typically do. "Now I do it all myself, including documents searches; I know exactly what I'm looking for."

Cole doesn't use a secretary or office administrator either. She uses computer software to handle the usual tasks, including case management. "Still, I have a manageable caseload," she says.

A major benefit of not using a paralegal, Cole points out, is the significant cost savings for solos and small firms. "Depending on the case, by my using software rather than a paralegal, I can save anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000," she says.

Despite reports of the slow disappearance, "there will always be a need for paralegals," says solo attorney Megan Zavieh, who has offices in Alpharetta, Georgia, and the San Francisco Bay Area and specializes in defending lawyers who face ethics investigations and state bar prosecution.

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Zavieh performs the work of paralegals, but on occasion she hires one on a per-need basis. The work, facilitated by technology, that she or a paralegal might do includes scheduling, creating tables of contents and documents, and preparing client intake forms and files.

But technology can't provide the human touch, Zavieh says. "A large part of my job is being a counselor to my clients. I listen, I understand their stress [and] they can vent on to me," she says.

Attorney Jill Vereb tells a similar story. Although she never wanted to be overwhelmed by paperwork, she declined to hire a paralegal or a secretary. Vereb, who runs a solo family law practice in Sugar Land, Texas, does all the work a paralegal might do.

"I perform all the document research," she says, by way of example. "When I do that myself, I'm less likely to miss something important that might be missed by a paralegal."

By using a software program that converts PDFs, emails and other documents into searchable versions, she's able to bypass much of the tedious work of reviewing what she describes as reams and reams of paper. "I enter a search word and it streamlines the process," she says. "But when I'm superbusy, I may hire a paralegal on a temporary basis."

By contrast, paralegals are part of attorney Luis Salazar's legal team. But he doesn't use as many as he did before. He is head of a small firm in Coral Gables, Florida, specializing in corporate compliance law, bankruptcy law and complex commercial litigation.

"Paralegals can't appear in court as representatives of a client, but they're with me in court when I'm litigating a case," he says. "They're familiar with the documents I might need and the exhibits. If I ask for something, they snap it up right away and give it to me."

At one time, Salazar used nine paralegals. Now, however, he's got just three.

"Maybe demand for entry-level paralegals is declining," says Amy McCormack, co-president of Chicago-based McCormack Schreiber Legal Search. "But the market for trained paralegals is strong."

This article was published in the February 2018 issue of the ABA Journal with the title "Holding Steady: Although more lawyers are performing the work of paralegals, job prospects for trained assistants seem good."

ARTICLE 3:

South Dakota inmates get tablets for legal research; state drops paralegal and part-time lawyer

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 3, 2017, 11:02 am CDT

Inmates in South Dakota no longer have a need for legal help from a paralegal or lawyer because they can do their own research on tablets, according to Department of Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk.

South Dakota is one of two states that had offered legal help to inmates researching the law or needing advice on court procedures, Kaemingk tells the Argus Leader. South Dakota had paid about $135,000 a year for an on-site paralegal and part-time lawyer, but their help isn't needed, he said.

The other state, Rhode Island, contracts with law students to provide legal information for inmates, Courthouse News Service reports.

The South Dakota lawyer and paralegal advised inmates researching family law matters, civil rights lawsuits or federal habeas appeals that don't provide a court-appointed lawyer. The state was also paying for hard-copy law books, bringing the total annual cost to about $276,000.

The tablets, issued to all inmates, will allow around-the-clock legal research and give them access to paid subscriptions to games, books and music on a closed network, the Argus Leader reported in an earlier story. The tablets are provided by Global Tel Link at no cost to the state.

The state's cost for LexisNexis research will be $54,720 for the first year. The Department of Corrections is working on an hourly-rate contract for lawyers who update forms that inmates use to file legal documents, the story reports.

Clinical assistant law professor David Shapiro of Northwestern University's Roderick MacArthur Justice Center was skeptical about the plan.

"What's someone who can't read or write ... supposed to do with a tablet?" he said in an interview with Courthouse News Service.

The lawyer hired to help the inmates, Delmar "Sonny" Walter, tells the Argus Leader that the tablets have actually increased his workload because inmates are finding cases that bring more legal questions.

A consent decree in a 1999 inmate lawsuit said South Dakota must provide inmates with meaningful access to the courts. Kaemingk tells the Argus Leader that the consent decree didn't require the state to provide a lawyer or paralegal in perpetuity.

But Walter tells Courthouse News Service he expects a new lawsuit over court access.

"A book isn't going to make you a lawyer," he said. "These people need legal assistance."

What are your thoughts on legal research? Explain your thoughts. Please share your thoughts on the articles included