A paralegal is a legal assistant with specific legal knowledge obtained by education, training and experience; they work under the direct supervision of an attorney. Paralegals are employed by attorneys, law firms, or government agencies, they are not allowed to practice law or give legal advice; they only assist lawyers in legal related tasks.

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A paralegal has to have a general legal knowledge in order to assist an attorney, and to be able to acquire through experience specific knowledge in different areas of law. It is common for a paralegal to be in charge of the clients-attorney relationships, so it is important to have good communication skills.

What a paralegal does in a law office is determined by the lawyer’s needs or imagination; they could work in serious legal matters or just assist the attorney in simple tasks. Attorneys use paralegals in many different ways. That means that in some law firms a paralegal has more responsibilities, they could write drafts of contracts, pleadings, etc. depending on the skills and experience of the paralegal. The attorney supervises the paralegal’s work and corrects it according to his own professional knowledge.

The most common tasks a paralegal is asked to execute:

-Elaborate drafts of contracts, pleadings, legal letters, deeds, wills, always under the lawyer’s supervision.

-Legal research of different legal issues, locating statutes, regulations, etc.

-Contact the clients, interview the clients and summarize the information of their case, keep the client up to date on the progress of his case.

-Be aware of the deadlines, this is extremely important since an attorney has many cases to deal with and needs the paralegal to take care of courts deadlines and all the important dates the attorney has .

-Keep track of the cases the attorney is involved, and give a summary of the situation of all the cases.