How to become a Legal Secretary

A legal secretary provides administrative support for lawyers’ offices and courts. Legal secretaries perform secretarial tasks that are specific to the law field such as draft and file documents such as memorandums, pleadings, motions, and briefs at various court systems in a timely fashion. Legal secretaries also assist in legal research and accompany lawyers to court. When addressing legal secretary vs paralegal, a legal secretary serves in a more clerical capacity who types, transcribes and files the legal document that a paralegal has worded. A paralegal or a legal assistant requires proper qualification and depth of legal understanding and knowledge of procedural law as they are expected to perform tasks of lawyers in their absence. Many legal secretaries may go on to become paralegals after substantial experience and obtaining an associate's or bachelor's degree in a legal field. 

Legal secretary duties and responsibilities comprise of the following tasks:

• Schedule site inspections, meetings, hearings, closings, depositions, etc

• Create and update spreadsheets

• Communicate with various parties such as attorneys, experts, opposing counsel, vendors, clients, and so on. 

• Draft legal documents such as legal invoices, motions, briefs, subpoenas, and deposition notices

• Ensure that all legal documents are free of grammatical errors and typos

• Maintain systems to track all the legal filing deadlines

• Assist with legal research 

In order to excel in any field, aspirants must possess certain attributes that complement the job role. Legal secretaries are expected to have excellent computer skills and be proficient with spreadsheets, word processing, presentation, billing software, and so on. Aspirants must have a good grasp of legal terminology and procedures such as court filing rules, and law office protocol. Strong time management skills, communication skills and organizational skills and the ability to be deadline-driven are important attributes for aspirants to meet the job role requirements. In addition to the core legal secretary skills, aspirants must also have a keen eye for details, should be able to multitask and deal with individuals of varied temperaments.