Paralegal Jobs

Woman working in office space full of documents

As defined by the American Bar Association (ABA), a paralegal is a professional “who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible.” Hence, paralegal jobs encompass a variety of work that’s more directly involved with supervising attorneys or lawyers, such as preparing affidavits and legal correspondence, filing pleadings, responding to discovery requests, researching case-related information, and recapping depositions and trial transcripts.

Attorneys—especially those at bigger firms—can’t do it all on their own. Essential members of their teams often include paralegals. However, these roles should not be confused with legal secretaries, who only handle day-to-day admin duties and customer-service tasks. Paralegals have lots of options regarding the work environment they want to be in—from smaller law offices and major firms to the legal departments of corporations and government agencies.