You might have heard the term "paralegal" before but may only have a vague sense of what the word means. A paralegal is actually an assistant to a lawyer; sometimes the formal title for this job is "legal assistant." But being an assistant to a lawyer doesn't mean you simply answer his or her mail or fetch him or her coffee. You will have all kinds of exciting tasks to complete in this profession.
An attorney is obviously a busy person and doesn't have time to complete every single detail involved in preparing for court. Therefore, many of these important responsibilities fall to paralegals. A paralegal can investigate the details of a given case and make sure an important fact hasn't been left out of a lawyer's argument. Paralegals also do a lot of research. They can comb through old law cases--either in books or online--to find past rulings that apply to a current case.
At a lawyer's behest they can also prepare legal documents to be submitted in court, and they can help write contracts as well. They can help prepare a law form's tax returns, and they can even oversee and manage other employees who work for their law firm as well. All throughout a case a paralegal might be tasked with keeping records: he or she might have to organize all notes and documents relevant to a particular case and archive them so they can be easily accessed at any point in the future. A paralegal can never present a case in court, however. Nor can they decide what a client should have to pay in legal fees. And they can never offer legal advice to a client, just as only a doctor can actually prescribe medicine.
Most paralegals work forty hours a week, except during times when their law firm is facing a tight deadline for a case. At those times a paralegal can work day and night until the case is wrapped up. There can be a lot of stress that goes along with this job--lawyers are often very demanding on their legal assistants--but many paralegals report that their work is challenging and rewarding, and often exhilarating. About seventy percent of paralegals work for private law firms; most of the rest work for the government.
There can be a lot of competition for a given paralegal position, but there are also a lot of openings, and this profession is forecast to grow at a healthy rate for the foreseeable future. To become a paralegal, you would be best advised to get an associate's degree in the field (paralegal studies, that is); many community colleges offer special programs for paralegals. And then you might want to earn a bachelor's degree in a major related to the law. After that, you could get a paralegal studies certificate. Sometimes you could get such a certificate in only a few months, although these short-term programs can be intense. It's not a bad idea to get a master's degree, either; there aren't that many schools that offer a master's degree program in paralegal studies, but there are some.