Exploring the Different Types of Paralegals: Career Paths and Specializations

Paralegals are not attorneys. Paralegals carry out various legal tasks, including writing motions and memos, conducting legal research, and reviewing documents. However, a licensed attorney must review all a paralegal’s work. Most importantly, a paralegal may not give legal advice to a client.

Lawyers are sworn officers of the court. Lawyers must have a post-graduate degree from an accredited law school and pass the state bar exam to practice law in their state. Only lawyers can give clients legal advice. A paralegal can explain what a law means, but only an attorney can tell a client how the law will affect their case.

Lawyers and paralegals can work for law firms, and attorneys depend heavily on paralegals for every office's paperwork and case management. A good paralegal is a critical part of the legal profession.

Like attorneys, paralegals specialize in different areas of the law. Just as there are law school courses for attorneys specializing in criminal or family law, there are paralegal studies programs for different practice areas.

Paralegal specializations have different career tracks, depending on the field.

• Litigation Paralegal: Help attorneys prepare for trials, manage case files, and assist in court and law office.

• Corporate Paralegal: Works in corporate legal departments, handling contracts, corporate filings, and compliance issues.

•  Real Estate Paralegal: Specializes in property transactions, title searches, and real estate closings.

• Immigration Paralegal: Assists with immigration applications, legal research, and client interviews.

• Family Law Paralegal: Supports family law attorneys with divorce cases, child custody, and legal separation agreements.

• Bankruptcy Paralegal: Works on bankruptcy filings, creditor communications, and case administration.

• Nurse Paralegal: Combines nursing knowledge with legal expertise to assist in medical malpractice and personal injury cases.

• Probate Paralegal: Assists in estate planning, wills, and probate court filings.

• Employment Law Paralegal: Workplace discrimination, labor law compliance, wrongful termination, and worksite harassment.

• Estate Planning Paralegal: Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, estate planning, and other legal documents. Estate planning paralegals are often notaries.

• Intellectual Property Paralegal: Assists with protecting intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

• Trademark Paralegal: Focuses on trademark applications, office actions, and trademark portfolio management.

• Patent Paralegal: Specializes in preparing and filing patent applications and managing patent prosecution.

• Divorce Paralegal: Assists with divorce proceedings, including preparing documents, managing client communications, and supporting attorneys in court.

• Criminal Law Paralegal: Supports criminal defense attorneys with case preparation, legal research, and trial assistance.

• Military Paralegal: Works within the military legal system, handling cases related to military justice, administrative law, and service member rights.

• Medical Paralegal: Assists with medical malpractice, personal injury, and healthcare law cases.

• Personal Injury Paralegal: Supports attorneys in personal injury cases, including managing client files, conducting legal research, and preparing for trials.

A certificate is what you’re given when you complete a course in paralegal studies. A certification is given by a professional organization and shows that you have taken the exam and met the qualifications. These certifications can be beneficial in obtaining a job later.

California is the only state that requires certification for paralegals. A few other states, such as Oregon, have considered such requirements. These certifications and continuing education requirements (CLE) help advance your career in legal studies.

Professional organizations with nationally recognized certifications include:

• The National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA). This organization offers several certifications.

  • The Certified Paralegal (CP) Certification, which is a basic certification for paralegals

  • The Advanced Certified Paralegal (ACP®) which allows paralegals to specialize in a number of legal practice areas such as criminal litigation and family law

• The National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA) also offers two certifications.

  • The Paralegal Core Competency Exam (PCCE), a basic exam and certification for new paralegals

  • The Paralegal Advanced Competency Exam (PACE) for those with extensive experience as a paralegal

• The Professional Paralegal (PP) Exam Certification from the National Association for Legal Support Professionals (NALS).

Paralegals can eventually earn as much as any attorney. Based on the BLS, paralegal managers and legal project managers can earn salaries in the $80,000-100,000 range. Of course, you’ll need experience and education to reach that salary level. Senior paralegals typically have 20-30 years of experience in their specialty or work in niche industries where their expertise is in high demand.

Currently, in-demand paralegal specializations include intellectual property, employment and labor law, and immigration. These areas are experiencing high growth in all legal sectors. As artificial intelligence (AI) grows, you can anticipate a greater demand for paralegals to handle the paperwork.

Specialization is an excellent way to focus your skills and become a master in your trade. Although you won’t lack work as “just a paralegal,” a review of job boards like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn shows that these are the ones everyone is looking for.

• Corporate paralegals assist in-house attorneys in the legal departments of corporations. You’ll help with contracts, mergers, dissolutions, acquisitions, and daily legal paperwork.

• Family law paralegals help attorneys with divorce, child custody, visitation, support, adoption, insurance, and healthcare matters related to marriage and divorce.

• Immigration paralegals. If you speak another language, your paralegal skills will make you doubly employable in immigration law. Assisting lawyers with visas, asylum applications, border detentions, and other immigration issues demands top-tier legal skills.

• Personal injury paralegals are always in demand. Tort law is booming, particularly mass torts and class-action lawsuits. Medical malpractice, corporate liability, and toxic torts are prevalent.

You should remain in a field that interests you. Never enter a legal field because it’s “popular” or “pays well.” If you’re not personally invested in your job, you’ll find yourself bored and unhappy and quit long before you develop the legal expertise you need as a specialist.

There are several ways to become a paralegal. You can learn on the job and acquire the skills and knowledge over time. You can also obtain a certificate online or at a brick-and-mortar school. Finally, you can get an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies.

• A certificate is awarded through a short course, often 14- or 15-weeks. Many community colleges and extension schools have these classes. Certificates give you a fundamental knowledge of substantive and procedural law.

• An associate’s degree (A.A.) is a two-year degree. Your associate’s degree is an excellent general degree that gives you in-depth knowledge and prepares you for further study.

• A bachelor’s degree (B.A. or B.S.) is a four-year degree. You should research and get your bachelor’s from an ABA-accredited college. Once you have your bachelor’s, you can apply for jobs requiring a four-year degree. Government jobs and management positions often demand a four-year degree, even for paralegals.

There are challenges in every job. The paralegal career is no different. Some things you need to keep in mind for any job include:

Time pressures. If you already work in the legal profession, you know that time is always at a premium. As a paralegal, you’ll be under extra pressure because your attorney will need you to produce at the speed of court.

Emerging technologies. AI is now a fact of life. You’ll need to cope with using it to improve your workload and case management and stay current with updates and glitches, such as AI’s distressing tendency to make up citations.

Continuing education. Like attorneys, certified paralegals must turn in their CLEs annually to their certifying agency. You won’t have as many hours as your attorney, but you still need to attend seminars or read legal journals and keep up with the times.

If you’ve been considering a paralegal career, you may already be working on the fringes of the legal field. You might be a receptionist in a law office or a clerk in a government agency. How can you tell if a paralegal career is the direction you want to take?

First, you need to research the paralegal profession itself. Talk to some paralegals in your office, or visit an online forum like Reddit or Quora. See what paralegals have to say about their jobs. Don’t limit yourself to the exciting world of criminal law. That’s a different animal than bankruptcy law or contract law.

Take an online job assessment quiz like the Meyers-Briggs Typology test, and ask yourself some questions specific to the paralegal career.

• Are you interested in law? Do you enjoy reading and writing about legal topics?

• Are you organized and thorough? Are you a good multitasker?

• Are you a good researcher? Can you track down different topics on a tight schedule?

• Are you persistent? If you hit a roadblock in one direction, can you attack a problem differently?

Do your self-assessment from the point of view of your current job. Imagine you were just handed a project and told you had to finish it by the end of the business day, and you had no idea where to begin. Can you complete the project and still get your other tasks done? That is the life of a paralegal.

If being a paralegal isn’t for you, or you want to expand your career options, you can use your paralegal skills in other jobs. These jobs can sound similar, but they’re not quite the same as being a paralegal.

• Legal Assistant: Sometimes, a legal assistant is a paralegal. A legal assistant supports lawyers by performing administrative and clerical tasks, including document management and client communications. The primary difference is that a paralegal must have a certificate or certification to call themselves a paralegal. In a few states, such as California, you cannot call yourself a “paralegal” unless you have such a certificate.

• Legal Secretary: A legal secretary handles administrative duties, such as scheduling, correspondence, and court calendaring. A large law firm is expected to have a legal secretary who only handles calendaring since attorneys and clients cannot miss court appearances.

• Law Clerk: If you’re hired as a law clerk, you may be called a judicial assistant. If you get a job as an intern in law school, you may be a law clerk. Either way, you will assist a judge or attorney in conducting legal research, preparing case summaries, and drafting legal opinions. Judges depend on their law clerks to perform research during cases.

• Mediator: A mediator is a neutral third party who facilitates negotiation and conflict resolution between parties to reach a mutually agreeable settlement. Mediators may be volunteers who work in small claims courts or private attorneys and paralegals who work freelance.

• Arbitrator: Also neutrals, arbitrators are more often administrative law judges (ALJs) who make binding decisions after hearing both sides of a case. Paralegals are hired by agencies like JAMS for internal staff.

Once you have your paralegal certification or degree, you have the knowledge and skills to enter various legal careers. The only limit is your imagination.

Whether you need certifications, a list of approved schools, or general information on paralegal programs, the American Bar Association is a good place to start. The ABA’s Standing Committee on Paralegals gives paralegals access to the same programs and perks as other ABA members.

Professional organizations like NALA and NFPA hold regular conferences, online workshops, and CLE courses. The American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE) promotes paralegal classes and continuing education and supports paralegal educators.

Whatever your legal interests, there is a paralegal specialty that you can fill and become a skilled, in-demand professional. There are paralegal agencies that can help you find your focus and give you the tools and education you need to get employment in your desired field. Contact the ABA, paralegal organizations, or a college near you to begin your professional paralegal career.