Ehsan Kabir - Paralegal or legal secretary

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Paralegal or legal secretary

• Ehsan Kabir

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E- Discovery Professional

• Electronic Discovery-
• Technology based
• Identifies, preserves and manages electronically
  stored information
• Definition of legal Discovery
• Procedural legal rules where the parties to a
  lawsuit exchange information and documents in
  effort to discover relevant facts to the lawsuit
  and identify potential witnesses and evidence
• http//legalcareers.about.com/od/glossary/g/Discov
  ery.htm

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E- Discovery Professional

• Technology based
• Very valuable to old attorneys and clients who
  are not good at using computers

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E- Discovery Professional

• Whos doing it?
• People with backgrounds in Law and/or information
  technology
• Paralegals- majority
• Attorneys-
• Increased demand and salaries

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E- Discovery Professional

• What they need to know
• Legal System
• Information Technology (IT)
• computers

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E- Discovery Professional

• On the Job Training
• New field
• Duties
• Liaison between teams (legal, IT, records
  management)
• Collection of legal information
• Writing legal documents
• Educating clients about legal matters
• Follow Federal guidelines on electronic legal
  info.

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E- Discovery Professional

• Environments
• Law firms, big businesses, schools, government
• Salaries
• 125, 000 - 250,000 in big markets
• Demand
• Field has grown 300 in the past several years
• Most jobs on Monster.Com are in Virginia

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Litigation Support

• Support Lawyers in the litigation process
• Litigation- a legal proceeding in a court a
  judicial contest to determine and enforce legal
  rightswordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• Usually in very large cases or with very large
  clients

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Litigation Support

• Whos doing it
• Paralegals (post-secondary education)
• IT professionals (post-secondary education)
• Educational requirements
• Some college up to Masters level

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Litigation Support

• What they need to know?
• How to manage documents on the computer
• Word, PowerPoint, Excel, graphics
• Strong communication skills
• Talk to lawyers, clients, tech people
• Organization
• Attention to detail
• Critical thinking
• Legal System

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Litigation Support

• Job Duties
• Manage large scale litigation
• Design and implement databases for managing large
  amounts of data
• Assist with technology in the courtroom
• Support and train others in using legal software
• Supervise underlings

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Litigation Support

• Where to work
• Law firms, big companies and consulting firms
• Salary
• 40,000 - 80,000
• Job outlook
• High Demand
• Monster.com

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Paralegal/ legal assistant

• Description of job
• A paralegal assists lawyers in performing their
  jobs. They help them with a variety of tasks,
  including preparing for trials, hearings and
  closings doing research and drafting legal
  documents. Paralegals are sometimes called legal
  assistants

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Paralegal/ legal secretary

• Job Duties
• preparing legal documents such as affidavits,
  briefs and contracts
• maintaining documents using a paper or electronic
  filing system
• organizing exhibits for a trial
• meeting with clients to discuss details of cases
• Filing pleadings with court clerks
• In some states, they can even act as a lawyer

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Paralegal

• Skills needed
• Computer program knowledge
• Fast typing
• Good communication
• Organization
• Legal Knowledge
• Dedication to long hours

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Paralegal

• Educational Requirements
• 2 years associates
• Some have 4 year degrees
• Some places offer on the job training
• A certificate of training is necessary

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Paralegal

• Environment
• Law firms
• Large corporations with legal departments
• Job Outlook
• The field is still growing
• So the outlook is good
• Advancement
• Good and experienced paralegals can be promoted
  to managerial positions

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Paralegal

• Salary
• 22 per hour
• 46,000 a year.
• Jobs around here
• Monster.com

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Lawyers

• Educational Requirements
• Undergraduate degree
• Strong knowledge of History, Political Science,
  Sociology and Philosophy)
• Other areas- Economics, business, finance, math
• Pass LSAT (Law School Admissions Test)
• High GPA- shows work ethic and general ability

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Lawyers

• Educational Requirements
• Law School
• 1st year- required courses
• Civil Procedures
• Contracts
• Constitutional law
• Criminal law
• Legal writing
• Ethics
• torts

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Lawyers

• Law School
• 2nd and 3rd years
• Specialized classes
• Begin working in law firms as interns
• Participate in mock court sessions
• Participate in law clinics
• Research for writing in legal journals
• Cost per year
• UK- 25k, U of L- 26K, 27K

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Lawyers

• Types of Lawyers
• Criminal and Civil
• Criminal law
• Deal with crimes that have been broken
• Homicide, drugs, even traffic violations
• Civil Law
• Domestic disputes- divorce
• Corporate cases- contracts and taxes

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Lawyers

• Car Accident Lawyers
• Deals with insurance claims and making sure YOU
  GET YOUR MONEY
• Medical Malpractice Lawyers
• Deal with medical cases where a doctor could have
  been at fault
• Strong medical background necessary
• Divorce Lawyers
• Handle divorces

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Lawyers

• Bankruptcy Lawyers
• Handle the legal proceedings of a bankruptcy
• Offer options to get out of bankruptcy
• Big Businesses or personal
• Immigration Lawyers
• Patent Lawyers
• Consumer Fraud Laywers

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Lawyers

• Salaries
• Family lawyer- 51,000
• Criminal lawyer- 53, 000
• Bankruptcy- 107,000
• Corporate- 50,000-90,000
• Accident- 32, 000
• Immigration- 59,000
• Patent 84,000

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• Salaries
• Law firms/law office- 57-103k
• Civil litigation- 59-101k
• Government 60-106k

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Lawyers

• Criminal Defense
• Defend people accused of breaking a low
• Could be court appointed (less money)
• Prosecuting Lawyers
• Lawyers who work for the Government and work to
  convict accused criminals
• District Attorneys
• Not as well paid

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Thanks