Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant Perform secretarial duties using legal terminology, procedures, and documents. Prepare legal papers and correspondence, such as summonses, complaints, motions, and subpoenas. May also assist with legal research.
Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant is Also Know as
In different settings, Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant is titled as
- Confidential Secretary
- Coordinating Legal Practice Assistant
- Judicial Administrative Assistant
- Legal Administrative Assistant
- Legal Administrative Secretary
- Legal Coordinator
- Legal Office Support Assistant
- Legal Secretary
- Magistrate Assistant
- Secretary
Education and Training of Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
- Bachelor in Legal Administrative Assistant/Secretary
- Associate Degree Courses in Legal Administrative Assistant/Secretary
- Masters Degree Courses in Legal Administrative Assistant/Secretary
Training Required for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant in different industries are
- Paralegals and Legal Assistants
- Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants
- Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
- Office Clerks, General
- Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs
- Correspondence Clerks
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Medical Records Specialists
- Judicial Law Clerks
- Lawyers
- Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers
- Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers
- Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
- Administrative Services Managers
- Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping
- Compliance Officers
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators
What Do Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant do?
- Mail, fax, or arrange for delivery of legal correspondence to clients, witnesses, and court officials.
- Receive and place telephone calls.
- Schedule and make appointments.
- Make photocopies of correspondence, documents, and other printed matter.
- Organize and maintain law libraries, documents, and case files.
- Assist attorneys in collecting information such as employment, medical, and other records.
- Attend legal meetings, such as client interviews, hearings, or depositions, and take notes.
- Draft and type office memos.
- Review legal publications and perform database searches to identify laws and court decisions relevant to pending cases.
- Submit articles and information from searches to attorneys for review and approval for use.
- Complete various forms, such as accident reports, trial and courtroom requests, and applications for clients.
- Prepare and distribute invoices to bill clients or pay account expenses.
- Prepare, proofread, or process legal documents, such as summonses, subpoenas, complaints, appeals, motions, or pretrial agreements.
- Make travel arrangements for attorneys.
Qualities of Good Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Tools Used by Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
- Digital audio recorders
- Digital cameras
- Digital duplicating machines
- Document scanners
- Document shredders
- Electric typewriters
- Handheld calculators
- Laptop computers
- Laser facsimile machines
- Microfiche machines
- Multi-line telephone systems
- Pagers
- Personal computers
- Photocopying equipment
- Switchboards
- Word processors
Technology Skills required for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistant
- A1-Law
- AbacusNext HotDocs
- Accounting software
- Aderant CompuLaw
- Adobe Acrobat
- ADP Workforce Now
- Amortization calculation software
- Appointment scheduling software
- Billing software
- Case management software
- Chrome River Expense
- Database software
- Desktop publishing software
- Dropbox
- Electronic adjudication management systems EAM
- Electronic diary software
- Email software
- Filing system software
- IBM Lotus Notes
- Intuit QuickBooks
- Legal research software
- Legal software
- LexisNexis
- LexisNexis Time Matters
- Litigation management software
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server MOSS
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Word
- Presentation software
- Public access to electronic court records PACER
- Quicken
- Sage 50 Accounting
- Spreadsheet software
- Thomson Reuters Elite Billing Manager
- Thomson Reuters Westlaw
- Transcription software
- Vertican Technologies Collection Master
- Web browser software
- Web conferencing software
- Web page design and editing software
- Word processing software
- WordPerfect