what are the different job duties of a legal secretary, legal assistant and paralegal?
A legal secretary answers phones for her boss, generally does his filing (unless three is a file clerk in the firm) and does typing. If the attorneys she works for are litigators (the kind who actually go to court), she’ll also have to know how to file documents with the court. From what I’ve seen, the duties of legal assistants and paralegals can vary widely from firm to firm and area to area. In the firm I work for, for example, they are all very high level and really do the work of attorneys, but they can’t sign legal documents or give legal opinions or advice. In some firms they do mainly research and “grunt” work.
