At Your Service; No Seriously, Use Me

Those of us who work in the law know, or should know, just how important good support staff are these days. Over the past several years, paralegals specifically have been carving out a niche for ourselves in the legal community. We grew out of a need for cost control and efficiency as law firms began competing as businesses. We grew out of a need to bridge the gap between the high and mighty lawyer and the lay people he serves. We stem from the legal secretary, a highly efficient and organized specimen who learned procedural law to perfection until one day someone decided her skills should be billable. We sprung forth from professionals of every field who enjoy the challenges in the law yet choose not to pursue a license. And we are becoming ever more necessary in a legal world fraught with runaway costs, inflated salaries, and increasing overhead.

Unfortunately, we have failed to catch onto the cleverness of the pyramid theory (not to be confused with pyramid scheme). We still expect lawyers, and lawyers still expect themselves, to be able to take care of all aspects of running a law firm with a little bit of assistance from support staff. This is inefficient. If we look at clinics, the medical field being slightly relatable to law in this way, we find that it takes so much more than the practice of medicine to run the operation. In fact, the practice of medicine, that which only licensed physicians or surgeons can do, is but a fraction (albeit a necessary and good chunk of one) of the daily goings on in a medical clinic. A doctors office pyramid would probably look like this in a very general sense (and because I cannot get this to post as a pyramid, you have to use your imagination; I tried):

SPECIALISTS

D O C T O R S

N U R S E P R A C T I T I O N E R S

N U R S E S

P H Y S I C I A N'S A S S I S TA NTS & N U R S E'S A S S I S T A N T S

N O N M E D I C A L A D M I N

Dear medical readers, if I am wrong, please tell me. I know I am missing several steps on the pyramid, but my point is that it takes much more to run a medical practice than that which only doctors can do. You need billing clerks, records administrators, assistants and nurses, etc. And yet hospitals and clinics would not exist without the practice of medicine. This is how I view the law.

In my own small office, my Boss performs many of the same tasks I do: we both draft and file documents, make phone calls, and answer emails. However, the Boss also gives out the legal advice, explains cases, advocates for clients in court, and negotiates settlements. I do not do these things, but I manage the files, tend to the schedule, keep track of various collections, write procedural and status letters, make copies, handle invoices, and answer the phone. My Boss could do all of these things, too, but should he? My answer is no, not if I have the time and ability to do it, and his time would be better spent on a task that I cannot do. Not if he is working in the client's best monetary interest.

If a seasoned, well-educated paralegal is to a law firm what a nurse practitioner is to a clinic, why then would the attorney want to spend time doing paralegal-type tasks when a) he has the benefit of a paralegal and b) his license and education are better used in attorney-specific tasks? Sure, lawyers could do it all, and bill for every second, or even worse, waste time doing non-billable administrative tasks, but this doesn't mean they should.

This topic stems from a discussion I had this evening regarding paralegals and attorneys. I was told that paralegals are becoming less necessary today because young associates are willing and able to do all their own work. First, that is not true. The paralegal profession is expected to grow at a rate of 22% between 2006 and 2016. In the meantime, the job market for attorneys is expected to grow at a rate of 11%, which is steady but average. Finally, young associates are doing all their own work right now in an effort to keep their hours up because there is so little work to go around at the bigger firms. This does not mean that paralegals are going to become extinct. If anything, it suggests that associates are so worried about their jobs that they are performing tasks they would normally delegate to the paralegals in an effort to reach their billable hours goals. Especially in areas of the law that are big in document creation, areas with little to no involvement in litigation, I can see paralegals thriving. Of course, we are thriving right now, even in a down market. People always need legal services, and they always need those services from a lawyer - but these days that lawyer may be more than willing to have his experienced paralegal do the work rather than a young associate.

Finally, there is much good to be said regarding smart attorneys who utilize their assistants. Many times, we are much more in tune with local court preferences than the attorneys. For instance, I know that a certain judge in my county likes proposed orders to be filed separately from motions. I know exactly what is needed when requesting service by certified mail. These are small, administrative things. But my attorney does not have the time to call the clerk's office with these questions. I do. And the clerk's office, as I found out tonight while speaking with one of the ladies who works there, is thankful. In the words of T. from Juvenile, "I wish more attorneys would properly utilize their assistants; when they try to do it all themselves they just screw everything up."