The paralegal conundrum

Currently we don’t have a clear idea of who paralegals are, what they’re doing, what they will be doing in future, or even how many there are. We don’t know the scale of the challenges they are facing, but we do know their employers are facing tough times, and that, however much they want to offer progression to their paralegal workforce, budgets are tight and they face pressure from clients to keep fees down. How can we address these big questions facing our sector? And how can employers and paralegals work together to meet the demands of the future? We hope that the results of the Paralegal Enquiry launched by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) last month, can help us find out.

What’s in a name?

We don’t know of any single accepted definition of “paralegal”. The term tells us nothing of the qualification or experience that person has and it also doesn’t tell you what type of legal