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Paralegals: different paths to the law

07 April 2023 / Amanda Hamilton
Issue: 8020 / Categories: Features , Profession , Career focus , Training & education
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A diverse range of opportunities (and a convenient gap in the legal market) awaits those choosing a career as a paralegal, writes Amanda Hamilton
  • Today many people who want a legal career are choosing to become paralegals.
  • Apart from ‘reserved activities’, paralegals can do mostly everything that a solicitor can do.
  • As a paralegal you can provide a cost-effective service, backed by the credibility of being a member of a recognised membership body for paralegals.

Over the centuries in England, it’s been the case that consumers of legal services tend to consider a ‘lawyer’ to be either a barrister or a solicitor. Not so anymore! Many people who want a legal career are choosing to become paralegals.

Paralegals are educated and trained in a similar way to solicitors. Some of them have law degrees, while others have successfully completed nationally recognised paralegal qualifications. They can do mostly everything that a solicitor can do, except the practice of some activities which remain the monopoly of solicitors. These activities

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

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Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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