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PROFILE
Marcel Fitch: Paralegal for Karen Smith, Solo Practitioner, Coeur d’Alene, ID [By Charisse Dengler] Marcel Fitch has been a paralegal for four years, but it wasn’t until recently that he made the switch from working at a large firm to working for solo practitioner Karen Smith. Transitioning from handling mainly medical malpractice cases to dealing with just about anything was a nice change for Fitch. In fact, he said he prefers his new situation.
I get a better feel for the law in general,” he
“You have a chance for burnout in any job;
The areas of law he is interested in practicing
said. “I get to do more of a variety of things with
and if you’re only doing one thing for one
include estate planning, employment law,
a sole practitioner rather than a larger firm.”
company in one area, I think the risk of
and contract issues. He said he’d probably
burnout is higher,” he said. “With being a
steer clear of areas that involve a lot of
paralegal—especially with Karen Smith’s
dramatic situations, such as family law and
office, where I’m at now—there’s such a
criminal law.
Smith, whom Fitch describes as practicing everything but criminal and bankruptcy law, contacted Fitch when she heard he was looking for a different position. The two knew each other through Fitch’s involvement with the Spokane County Volunteer Lawyers Program, the director of which had gone to work for Smith.
variety of things that I get a broader view of the law, a wider range of clients; and I don’t run the risk of burnout as much as other paralegals that work for a larger firm and only do one area.”
“I’d rather stay away from all of that,” he said. “I ran into quite a few issues with family law that tend to make it difficult. So, pretty much the simpler areas of law, the more cutand-dried, the more people who definitely
In the future, Fitch hopes to go on to become Before becoming a paralegal, Fitch worked
need help. And there isn’t a huge amount
an attorney, a feat he thinks will be aided
for 17 years in newspaper advertising and
of conflict involved; I’ll probably stick with
greatly by the years he has spent working as
layout. However, when the company began to
those.”
a paralegal.
get into areas he hadn’t been schooled in, he started considering other career options.
“I think most students going through law school are going in much younger than I am,”
Fitch’s advice to paralegal students is to ask plenty of questions, be thorough when doing research, and always remember what made
“I wanted to stick with my degree; but when
he said. “They go in maybe with an idealized
I found out that that wasn’t going to happen,
view of what an attorney is. I have been
I decided to switch to a different career
working as a paralegal…so I’ve seen more.
altogether. And I had looked at a variety of
I’ve heard the terminology, I’ve had to deal
“It’s so easy to get tunnel vision—whether it
occupations and found that being a paralegal
with attorneys and judges and courts and all
be on an issue of a client or a particular area
was a better fit than most,” he said.
that, and I think I’ve got a huge step up from
of law or the goal of making money. If the
at least first-year students going through
student has a continued wide-eyed mentality,
school. [With] the paralegal training that I’ve
I think they’ll go further,” he said.
“Being a paralegal, I was able to realize I could practice in a private practice or a corporate practice and also do state and local government areas as well. Then, each of those would further break down into the
them want to become paralegals in the first place.
had and the employment that I’ve had, I think I’ll have a quicker, better grasp of everything than most of the other folks.”
ON THE NET
areas of law: family law, torts, bankruptcy.
Fitch also feels that the experience he got
Midwest Paralegal Services
So, there was a much wider range of things
working for a larger firm helped prepare
www.midwestparalegal.com/
I could do, which I think is beneficial to
him for a career as an attorney. While in his
paralegals as a whole.”
previous position, he worked with an attorney who was on the disciplinary board for the
Midwest Imaging www.midwestparalegal.com/Pages/ MidwestImaging.html
Fitch thinks that paralegals have less of a
state bar and was responsible for doing
chance of suffering from boredom in their
everything that needed to be done to prepare
profession compared to other professions
Summation
him for hearings. He said this opened his
and even less of a chance when they are
www.summation.com/
eyes to the realities of what attorneys face on
dealing with multiple areas of law.
a daily basis.
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