If you are good at administrative skills and have in depth knowledge of the legal field, then you can look forward to make a career as a legal administrative assistant. The legal administrative assistant responsibilities include performing all the clerical, administrative and secretarial legal responsibilities.
He/she maintains a highly close responsive and professional relationship with the day to day activities and performs the assigned duties as per the directions given.
He/she is responsible for ensuring strict confidentiality, especially about the legal documents, records, and any other pertinent legal information related to high level planning which may affect the operations of the organization. He/she is responsible for serving the clients by monitoring and developing their cases and providing them with all the necessary secretarial and administrative support.
The legal administrative assistant is also referred as a paralegal and needs to assist and support the lawyers in their daily legal functions. This professional is responsible for providing a responsible legal and administrative support to the attorneys as well as to the other staff members.
He/she is responsible for maintaining the legal files, databases, etc., and the overall management of the legal records. He/she also types the legal documents and edits them as well as handles all the legal correspondence and presentations.
He/she may also be involved in scheduling travels and appointments of clients, maintaining calendars, making travel arrangements, answering the telephone calls and checking the mails. To understand the role of this professional in a better way, listed below are some of the core responsibilities that need to be carried out by him/her in the organization he/she is working in:
The legal administrative assistant in addition to the above responsibilities confers with the management and keeps them informed on the overall progress as well as the key issues and also makes recommendations to resolve them.
He/she is involved in performing subject specific specialized research and performs the related statistical work, either manually or on computer. He/she may also be involved in answering the inquiries and disseminates this information either by mail or via telephone.
He/she communicates and monitors all the policies, standards, procedures and makes suggestions for improving them. He/she may at times need to deal with confidential and sensitive information and personal matters.
He/she is responsible for processing all the confidential records and may need to set up interviews and maintain the file system. He/she may need to retrieve some important legal data and needs to organize and prioritize large volumes of legal information.
He/she inspects all the legal documents, reports, paper, calculations, etc., to ensure its consistency and accuracy. Thus, he/she needs to handle a multitude of responsibilities.
This professional works in a normal office environment with duty hours lasting for about forty to forty five hours per week. Occasional overtime may occur in case there is workload.
The average annual salary earned by this professional is $50,000, and it may vary depending on the individual skills, educational and a lot of other factors like type and size of the law firm, experience, etc.
The career prospects look really bright if you are able to dedicate more time on upgrading your educational skills. You have the option of becoming a lawyer or claim investigator, adjuster, or an examiner and then you can definitely expect a hike in your salary as well as a huge growth in your career.
Now that you are well aware of the legal administrative responsibilities, start upgrading your education, knowledge and skills that are required in the legal field to kick start your legal career and ensure a great success ahead.