Female Paralegals

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Women Paralegals in Personal Injury Firm Not all legal work demands a law degree. Paralegals perform many of the same jobs as lawyers, with the exception of those that are considered to be practicing law. Due to the male dominance view within the law profession, there are more female paralegals than female lawyers (concept of gender inequity) (Diner, 1998). Even though, lawyers are held responsible for the legal work, they often assign many of their jobs to paralegals. Yet, they “can do most things…that associates would do, except go to court, take depositions, give clients opinions or sign pleadings” (Samborn, 2003). For this reason, I interviewed a female paralegal, who by chance is my cousin that works in Bergener Mirejovsky personal injury …show more content…

It was also founded in Feinberg’s research study that “due to the dramatic differences in billing rates between associates and paralegals…the more specialized and complex legal work” is handled by paralegals (1994). Also, Samborn stated that: “hiring paralegals is very profitable because it means compensation and overhead are lower, and the firm has lower recruitment and human resources costs” (2003). This was also seen in Reskin’s article, lawyers in firms that hire paralegals “earn more than those in firms without paralegals” (1984). Yet, in Levin’s article, it was mentioned how such jobs are mostly consisted of minorities and women (2009). This is so because they are want to help others and that they come into this profession with the mindset of helping the people in their communities (Gorman & Sandefur, 2011). As discussed in Stover’s article, lawyers and paralegals have a change in their values and expectations from 1L to 3L (1997). Their values change “from public service and altruism to ‘interesting,’ ‘challenging’ work” (Stover, 1997). At the same time, their expectations changes throughout this three-year process. During the first year they “’hate’ corporate law”, and by the second year it becomes “interesting” and challenges them and once they get summer jobs they assimilate the idea that “corporate legal work is ‘creative’” and that they must “’specialize’ in legal practice” (Stover, 2016). This is true because even my interviewee started off that way of hating corporate law and now finding it challenging and staying there since she first started interning there in February 2016. When asked what made her want to stay there for so long, her response was that “my goal is to become an attorney and I wanted to see if this is what I want to do and since I had a good experience here I did not

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