There are many reasons why paralegals would choose to work at home or become freelancers instead of working full time in an office. For one, the field of paralegal work at home is largely untapped and the niche offers many opportunities for paralegals seeking a bit of change.

Second, paralegal work at home opportunities allow paralegals a chance to get away from the all too often sterile office environment. With paralegal work at home opportunities, they are given a wider range of fields in the legal community that is more to their preference.

However, before you decide to leave your permanent, full-time job and embark on a paralegal work at home career, note the following considerations:

Paralegal Work at Home is a Relatively Young Concept

This could work both ways: You have less competition, but you may also find it hard to penetrate the niche currently occupied by full-time paralegals employed or retained by law firms and corporations.

The good news is that the paralegal profession is continuing to grow and develop. In fact, paralegals today perform more of the same tasks that lawyers do.

The real estate field is comprised of real properties, either corporeal which refers to soil and buildings and incorporeal which refers to easements. And either of these types commonly needs legal assistance and services especially when it comes to agreements and contracts.

Real estate lawyers may use an employee who is not admitted to practice, in this case, a paralegal. As such, he is called a real estate paralegal.

As the law becomes more complex, paralegals have responded by becoming more specialized dealing with specific area. And so, real estate paralegals have their own specific tasks different from other types of paralegal careers.

Real estate paralegals assist lawyers with contracts, shareholder agreements, stock-option plans and employee benefit plans.

A Real estate paralegal also functions as a messenger who delivers and picks up documents and funds required for a real estate deal or closing.

In addition, as provided in the CBA Guidelines for Paralegals, a paralegal may attend closings, even though no lawyer from the law firm employing the paralegal is present.

However, at the closing the paralegal may act only as a messenger and should not use or express any independent opinion or judgment about execution of the documents, changes in adjustments or price, or other matters involving documents or funds.

In the strictest sense, there is no such thing as tort law inclusively for paralegals. The tort law for paralegals could be learned by everyone, but above all, paralegals should know this statute, because as persons working with the legal system, it would help them avoid malpractices and desertion of duties.

What is the Tort Law?

The term “tort” in French means wrong or a wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. A tort could be a civil wrong other than breach of contract, for which a remedy may be obtained usually in the form of damages.

It is also the breach of a duty that the law imposes on persons who stand in a relation to one another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm.

Hence tort law is the branch of law dealing with such wrongs. Tort law has numerous subdivisions classifying the erroneous act one may commit.

What is the importance of Tort Law for Paralegals?

Actually the tort law for paralegals is usually included in every curriculum of a paralegal education.

“A legal assistant or paralegal is a person, qualified by education, paralegal training or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible.” (American Bar Association)

As public awareness about legal remedies increase, so does the need for efficiency, economy and availability of legal services.

It is the job of the paralegal to assist the lawyer in rendering legal services to clients and the utilization of their services not only serves to increase efficiency in the legal profession but also has economical benefits.

But most employers who seek paralegal services typically require paralegal training in addition to formal education in paralegal studies. That is why it is recommended that a person considering a career as a paralegal or legal assistant enroll in a paralegal training program or course.

Not only will these programs increase your chances of getting employed as a legal assistant, it is also through these programs that you learn basic legal concepts and other pertinent areas of the legal system.

Are you interested in doing legal work but don’t have the appetite or the heart for law school? Then, you may find the work of a paralegal to your liking.

A paralegal, or legal assistant as they are sometimes called, handle almost every aspect of an attorney’s work.

While the attorney assumes the ultimate responsibility for the legal services that they provide their clients, he may, however, delegate most of his tasks to a paralegal, from drafting pleadings, to writing wills and contracts, and doing legal research.

The paralegal profession is one of the fastest growing professions in the US today. In fact, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for paralegals is projected to increase by 33% in ten years.

But while demand is high, there is no proper standardization of employment requirements in terms of paralegal studies and educational attainment. Indeed, majority of employers agree that some education is necessary.

But the extent of such paralegal studies is often left to the discretion of the employer, since there are no proper standards or requirements. What’s more, no state currently has any laws that govern the licensing of paralegals and legal assistants.

Paralegals are qualified persons having gone through proper education, formal training, work experiences and are employed by lawyers or any legal department, or by a company that utilizes legal works.

“Paralegal Experience” indicates the performance of substantive legal work of a paralegal.

If a lawyer maintains responsibility for a paralegal’s work product and adequately supervises the paralegal’s performance, a wide range of tasks may properly be delegated by a lawyer to a paralegal.

So it is important that paralegals possess the required paralegal skills to perform the tasks needed by lawyers.

And although there are tasks that lawyers can do and paralegals can’t, it is still important that paralegals in any field should have the essential paralegal skills before they be hired as paralegals.

Interviewing skills - One of the essential paralegal skills is the interviewing skills, because most often than not, paralegals are assigned to do interviews on clients, witnesses and others who are seeking the legal services of a lawyer.

However paralegals could not give advice nor set legal fees.

Researching skills - A paralegal must know how to conduct researches because he may be tasked to conduct statutory case law and other legal research, which will be reviewed by the lawyers.

The demand for paralegals and legal assistants is ever growing. Their responsibilities encompass almost all aspects of lawyering, including drafting important legal documents, writing affidavits and pleading, the bulk of legal and factual research, documentary analysis and organization, and other tasks that a lawyer would delegate to a legal assistant.

It is an exciting career that a paralegal has. However, while there are no current laws that regulate the licensing of paralegals and legal assistants, many employers require a minimum of two years of formal paralegal school education.

Evaluating Paralegal Schools

Choosing the right paralegal school is your first step to building a career in paralegal profession. Consider the following six questions when you go through the selection process:

What is the reputation of the paralegal school as well as the paralegal program?

There are many paralegal schools and educational institutions that are offering paralegal programs, yet only few of these have a reputation for producing paralegals and legal assistants who have the knowledge and skills to meet the demands of the paralegal profession.

As such, it is important that when you choose a paralegal school, choose one that has a good reputation not only to the public in general but also to the legal community as a whole.

The events of Sept. 11 and the apparent deepening of the US recession have left many employees feeling as though their share of the financial pie has run out.

But according to Legal Assistant Today’s (LAT) 2001 National Paralegal Salary Survey, this is not so with paralegals.

On the contrary, paralegals and legal assistants enjoyed one of the largest paralegal salary increases in more than six years.

According to the LAT’s findings, paralegal salary in 2001 actually increased by an amazing 9.4 percent over the paralegal salary rates in 2000, reaching $41, 599 despite a year marked by steep economic decline.

Moreover, majority of paralegals and legal assistants also received bonuses from their employers. According to the LAT survey, 70.6 percent of the total respondents reported that they received a bonus, averaging nationally at about $3, 058.

Mary Ellen Perkins, president of the Legal Assistant Management Association (LAMA) has expressed surprise at hearing of a nearly 10 percent paralegal salary growth rate between the years 2000 and 2001.

She explained, “If (law firms) are turning more to legal assistants from a cost-cutting perspective – giving work to paralegals instead of associates – (the average salary increase) would make sense.”

A recent study conducted by the United States Department of Labor showed that paralegal profession is one of the fastest growing occupations in the nation.

Between now and the year 2008, the market for paralegals is expected to grow 62%. Indeed, there is an increasing rate of paralegal job demands.

Demands for paralegals are projected to grow much faster than average through 2014. Private law firms employ 7 out of 10 paralegals, while the remainder worked for corporate legal departments and various levels of government.

The United States Department of Justice is the largest employer for paralegals within the Federal Government, followed by the Social Security Administration and the United States Department of the Treasury.

The demand for paralegals is constantly increasing, and clearly statistics of paralegal job demands.

Private law firms will continue to be the largest employers of paralegals, but there is also a developing range of paralegal job demand in other organizations such as corporate legal departments; insurance companies, real state firms and banks also hire paralegals.

The goals of these organizations to remain competitive and serve more clients have created an exceptional growth of the paralegal job demand.

What is a paralegal? There is no single definition of the term but those in the legal community agree what are the responsibilities a paralegal has.

What to Expect from a Paralegal Job

A paralegal job involves much of the same tasks that a lawyer must perform. However, while lawyers assume the ultimate responsibility of legal work, they may delegate some of their work to paralegals.

This includes important tasks like preparing for closings, hearings, trials, and corporate meetings. Paralegal jobs may also cover the investigation of cases and doing legal research, including identifying appropriate laws, judicial decisions, legal articles, and other materials relevant to a case.

So if a paralegal job is similar to that of an attorney’s job, what is the difference between the two professions? Where does one set the distinction between a paralegal job and lawyer responsibility?

Indeed, the distinction between the two can become blurred as paralegals of today assume more and more of the same tasks that lawyers have. Nevertheless, stringent measures have been taken through the passage of various legislations, narrowly defining the tasks that a paralegal may not do.