Paralegals in the Corporate Legal Departments

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THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH

LawCrossing Feature

Paralegals in the Corporate Legal Departments Believe it or not, paralegals have greater job security and respect in corporate legal departments than in law firms, as do corporate counsel. The biggest reason is that the ‘revenue model’ of the business is ‘protected’ by legal support, but does not ‘depend’ upon it. So, at the end of the day, a paralegal, or a lawyer, working in a company that creates machinery, is not going to get blamed for lack of sales, and why the company is not making profit. That makes a big difference in peace of mind and work. In fact, in corporate legal departments, paralegals are looked up to as vital components in the structure and most business stakeholders put their trust upon them to know their work, and do not micromanage.

Some common paralegal jobs in corporate departments

Clause analysis of deeds and documents

include positions like “transactional real estate

Legal compliance work

paralegal,” “contracts manager,” “corporate paralegal,”

Document work related with transactions

“legal assistant,” “commercial litigation assistant,”

Document work related with litigation

“legal analyst,” “subpoena paralegal,” “litigation

Document work related with pre-litigation

paralegal,” “intellectual property paralegal,” “securities

All work related with compliance and submission

paralegal,” “executive assistant,” “commercial loan

of required documents to state and statutory

closer,” etcetera. Also, there are several industry

authorities

sectors like real estate where closing the deal almost always requires the answering of legal queries, and

In smaller firms, paralegals would also work as in-

in such industries it is not common for paralegals to

house consultants and take part in meetings where

work in the jobs of marketing or sales representatives

their opinion on transactional matters and strategy

conjointly with other marketing and sales professionals.

formation is sought at a primary level before the opinion of attorneys is sought.

In corporate legal departments that are traditional and have big legal departments, the paralegal is usually

Right now, the maximum number of jobs for paralegals

part of a team led by and supervised an in-house

is available in the real estate sector, which is ailing,

attorney or general corporate counsel. The paralegal

downsizing, can’t do without legal work, and trying to

is the legal, secretarial, and personal assistant in the

substitute in-house attorneys with in-house paralegals.

workflow of the legal team headed by the corporate

In fact, if one follows the economy, this trend of

counsel. He or she is expected to do all the work that

substituting in-house attorneys with paralegals to do

a legal associate might be expected to do in a law

the grunt work is increasing as corporate firms realize

firm, and more. A paralegal in a corporate environment

that paralegals are people who begin with the mindset

would be normally doing:

of “working under” as opposed to law school graduates, who begin with the mindset of “working independent.”

Legal research

Primary drafting of documents

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