What is a paralegal? What does a paralegal do?

Basically a Paralegal is a lawyer's assistant who has a basic understanding of law and legal concepts and trained to carry out a variety of legal assignments and legal procedures.

At the basic level (which this course covers) a lawyer may employ a Paralegal or legal assistant to perform basic legal tasks such as simple case research, witness statement taking, filing documents at court in advance of a court case and court trial note taking.

At a more responsible level (covered in part by our Specialist Paralegal Course) a Paralegal can be asked to analyse case papers/evidence, perform document reviews, draft motions and subpoenas. In the UK Paralegals can be used to actually represent the solicitor’s client in simple and straight forward civil court cases. These would be cases held in the lower courts e.g. before a District Judge in a County Court or before a Master at the High Court   i.e. The Royal Courts of Justice, London.

It should be noted that many Paralegals can also be found working in legal departments of non law organisations in both the private  and public sectors, e.g. banks, NHS hospitals.