A good legal assistant job description template is used to attract the most experienced and skilled legal assistants to your company. It contains the duties and responsibilities required of the candidate and the qualifications, requirements, and basic skills needed. A well-written legal assistant job description template is meant to be easily understandable to prospective applicants.
The legal assistant has a wide range of duties which they perform in an organization which mostly includes answering phone calls and making clients feel at home.
Are you interested in crafting a clear and accurate legal assistant job description template in order to attract the best to your company? This article provides you with an easily customizable and concise legal assistant job description template, with skills and abilities you should add to the qualification and requirement section.
Table of contents
What Do Legal Assistants Do?
A legal assistant works in a legal firm under a lawyer specializing in performing mostly administrative duties. A legal assistant’s role in a legal firm can be changed and mostly depends on the law firm and its current requirements. In some legal firms, a legal assistant performs administrative duties while in others they cover a wide variety of secretarial-like duties. It’s not unusual to see the duties of a legal assistant overlapping with that of a paralegal.
A legal assistant works to improve the level of efficiency and productivity of the supervising lawyer. They work hand in hand with the lawyer, taking up all the administrative tasks he might need work on. Undeniably, the roles of legal assistants are well needed in every legal firm.
In a nutshell, a good legal assistant is usually very coordinated, fast, quick to detail, and smart.
Legal Assistant Job Description Template
Your legal assistant job description brief or intro Is usually the first thing to write in a legal assistant job description. Your brief should be written clearly and straightforward in a way tailored to attract only the best in the legal sector. A good example of a clear and catchy legal assistant job description template brief is:
“Are you self-motivated and experienced in the duties of a legal assistant? We (name of the company) are currently searching for a skilled legal assistant to manage the smooth running of all administrative duties in our company/organization. You are to have superior research capability and administrative skills. As a legal assistant, you should be good at multi-tasking, have good communication skills, and have adequate technological skills.
Your duties and responsibilities will be providing a wide range of legal duties mostly helping your supervising lawyer in preparing for various corporate meetings, hearings, and trials.”
A good legal assistant should be able to work with very tight schedules and should be able to work under pressure.
Duties and responsibilities
This section of your legal assistant job description is meant to cover all the duties and responsibilities that are expected of the legal assistant. Different legal firms and organizations have different duties they expect their legal assistants to perform. The most common duties and responsibilities of a legal assistant in a legal firm include:
- Proper arrangement of all legal documents.
- Ensuring that all confidential legal documents are kept in a secure place.
- Performing any initial research on any case and forwarding the information to the supervising lawyer or attorney.
- Managing and coordinating all administrative duties in the legal firm.
- Communicating properly with clients and potential clients in the organization.
- Interviewing clients to get documents and information relevant to the case.
- Proper monitoring of calendars for important events.
- Giving the lawyer continuous notice on deadlines and important reminders.
- Answering phone calls and giving accurate information.
- Maintaining an accurate list of all client contacts.
- Typing and proper documentation of all legal documents and correspondence.
- Summarizing of legal interrogatories and testimonies.
- Preparation of case briefs.
- Scheduling of appointments for the lawyer.
- Monitoring and ensuring every office supply is adequately supplied while placing orders for more when necessary.
- Drafting of business correspondence.
- Securing of affidavits.
- Drafting of divorce settling agreements, contracts, and mortgages.
- Proper maintenance of financial records by keeping client hours.
- Collection and proper recording of various case exhibits.
- Go through legal records and assist the lawyer in gathering information for a case.
Qualifications and requirements
In this section of your legal assistant job description, you’re meant to highlight the basic qualifications and requirements needed from the legal assistant. Clearly stating the qualifications and requirements you need will save you a lot of time as only qualified candidates can apply. Your legal assistant job description should contain the following basic qualifications and requirements.
- A degree in a legal field or a field related to law (COMPULSORY).
- High school diploma or General education degree (GED)
- Years of experience in the legal field.
- Experience in how the legal system and procedures function.
Skills Needed To Be A Legal Assistant
What are the skills needed in a legal assistant? This section will help you know which skills are truly essential in your legal assistant job description. The most important skills that should be added to your requirement section in your legal assistant job description include:
1. Excellent written and verbal communication skills
As a legal assistant, you must have good communication and verbal skill. The duties of a legal assistant cover speaking with clients and trying to gather information from them, with poor communication skills a legal assistant will not be able to communicate properly with the client. A legal assistant is in charge of the preparation of case briefs for the lawyer and as such should have effective written communication skills.
An excellent written communication skill is necessary for getting your idea across in any of your work. Having good verbal communication skills will depend on the tone of your voice and body language while written communication skills will depend on your ability to write with correct grammar and word choice.
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2. Computer literacy
With the advance of technology, every sector in the country needs its employees to be computer literate. A computer-literate legal assistant is meant to be proficient in computer and technological skills. A legal assistant’s duties and responsibilities encompass everything relating to documentation.
Knowledge in the wide variety of software programs used in the legal departments for documentation, like Microsoft Office, Google docs, and OpenOffice, is a major skill that should be highlighted in the requirement section of your legal assistant job description template. A good legal assistant should have an in-depth knowledge of the various programs used in the legal office as they might work hand in hand with his daily duties.
3. Attention to detail and key organizational skills
Being attentive to details is one of the key skills that must be mentioned in your legal assistant job description. A legal assistant should be able to spot details that might be under-looked by someone else as this could affect the direction the case of a client might take. As a legal assistant, you are tasked with detecting and correcting errors that may have been overlooked.
You should be able to run checks and ensure everything is in the right order, from the key evidence for the case to as few as typo errors. Every legal assistant must have exceptional organizational skills. By organizing the attorneys’ calendars, handling paperwork, managing different projects, and performing key administrative duties, a legal assistant ensures that the law firm is properly organized and runs at the topmost efficiency.
SEE ALSO: Administrative Assistant Job Description Template for 2023
4. Ability to work under pressure
In between the constant meetings, cross-checking, meeting with clients, court meetings, and so on, the life of a legal assistant is a steady roller coaster. Working under pressure is one of the key skills/abilities that must be highlighted in your legal assistant job description requirement section. Legal assistants must perform various administrative duties, mostly while working on a deadline.
Law firms can be truly stressful and legal assistants are not exempted from the fair share of pressure and stress that come with working in a law firm. To succeed in a legal firm as a legal assistant, you must learn to prioritize, delegate, and keep track of various assignments while maintaining calmness despite the pressure.
5. A fast thinker with proficiency in research
The last but not least desired skill in a legal assistant job description is the ability to think quickly and perform adequate research on any case being worked on. A legal assistant must have good analytical skills for research. You must be able to sift through the myriad of irrelevant information and select only what is useful to that particular case.
A legal assistant must quickly gather facts and establish correct facts about a case. Legal assistants should know how to search for information and use only data from trustworthy sources. You should proficiently use Microsoft Office, Lexis-Nexis, PACER, Westlaw, and other legal research sites.
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Conclusion
Writing a well-detailed legal assistant job description is key to attracting the best to your organization. Your legal assistant job description should be clear and straight to the point while highlighting the duties and responsibilities, and qualifications needed of the candidates.
Frequently Asked Questions On Legal Assistant Job Description
While some lawyers can hire someone without a legal background and train them, a degree in paralegal studies goes a long way in helping you land jobs as a legal assistant.
There are various skills that a legal assistant must have but the two basic ones are detailed-oriented and impressive research skills.
While they are mostly used interchangeably, a paralegal is usually certified through an organization, while a paralegal who performs mostly administrative duties can be trained on the job.
References
- betterteam.com – Legal Assistant Job Description
- resources.workable.com – Legal Assistant Job Description
- glassdoor.com – Legal Assistant Job Description
- mightyrecruiter.com – Job Descriptions Legal Assistant
- peoplehum.com – Legal Assistant Job Description
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