Legal profession in our country is considered prestigious. It is customary to represent people in this field of activity behind the wheel of prestigious cars, in suits from expensive brands and with dazzling manners. That is why annually the admissions committee of law schools is filled with students who want to learn the basics of the profession. But only after graduation from the university the question arises: “How to become a lawyer in real life?” Theoretical experience is not enough to begin to form your clientele, and it’s quite difficult to pass an exam in a college of lawyers. The way out of this situation may be the following option: working with a practicing specialist as an assistant lawyer. Thus, in practice, you can feel what constitutes legal activity and accumulate the necessary experience for further independent practice.
Position: assistant lawyer
The legal profession itself contains a wide range of activities: prosecutorial supervision, legal practice, notarial aspects and legal advice. However, the practice of a legal assistant does not depend on the activities of a lawyer, because he is not involved in serious matters. What are the responsibilities of this employee? The assistant lawyer prepares and arranges the documentation, visits various inspectorates on behalf of the head, sorts and is responsible for incoming correspondence, and searches for the necessary rules of law to interpret the required cases.
Many young people are not too fond of such a job, believing that they will be at someone's "errand." This is partly true, because assistants are not trusted to carry out important tasks - they are needed only for easy work, which the lawyer himself does not carry out due to lack of time. Therefore, all routine activities will fall on the shoulders of the support staff.
Great start
This practice will allow you to get the necessary experience for a beginning lawyer. As a result, a person will be able to work with regulatory legal acts, draw up inventories, and master office equipment, including a printer and a photocopier.
This activity is not paid for at a high level, although in many respects it depends on the particular lawyer who takes on an assistant, and on the status of the company or enterprise. That is why the bulk of such workers are graduate students of law faculties, for whom such work acts as an unpaid practice. For obvious reasons, everyone wants to take a comfortable chair and gain an important look, but without having mastered the initial stage, they will not be able to move on.
What personal qualities are needed?
Not everyone is suitable for work in the legal field. For any profession, you need a certain set of personal qualities. So, if you decide to become an assistant lawyer, and subsequently a full-fledged lawyer, you should have the following character traits:
- Perseverance. Such a career is not easy, but to overcome all obstacles you will need firmness and consistency in achieving the goal.
- Resourcefulness. In order to solve difficult problems, find the right ways out of situations and stay afloat for a long time, you need to be able to use different approaches.
- Patience. This is especially true for those who have just begun to help a lawyer in matters. You can encounter complaints from the authorities, therefore, patience can not do here.
- Sociability. This quality is necessary because it will be necessary to contact with a large number of people.
- Stress resistance.Sometimes things require a huge return on all your resources, while it is important to prevent a nervous breakdown.
Necessary professional skills
In addition to personal qualities, the work of an assistant lawyer requires professional skills, namely:
- Fluency in basic office software: Excel, Word.
- Use of legal Internet systems: "Guarantor", "Consultant Plus".
- Ability to handle email.
- Drawing up claims, complaints, letters of claim, other legal documents.
- The correct interpretation of the rule of law.
You should know:
- record keeping standards;
- ethics of communication, negotiation;
- legislation.
Without these skills, an experienced lawyer is unlikely to consider a candidate for the position of his assistant. Students receive most of the proposals of this kind in the third year of study.
Job responsibilities
As mentioned earlier, an ever-busy servant of the law certainly needs an assistant lawyer. Its responsibilities in each individual case may be different, so we will try to summarize the more relevant ones.
- Collection and processing of information necessary for a lawyer.
- The study of new legislation.
- Preparation of regulatory documents suitable for specific information.
- Drafting legal papers: lawsuits, contracts, claims, complaints, and providing them to a lawyer for adjustment and approval.
- Accounting for professional documentation.
- Reception of incoming correspondence, its sorting and further provision to a higher specialist.
- Departure on behalf of the judicial, state bodies, social protection institutions, local self-government, organizations and enterprises in order to solve simple issues, receive and submit documents.
- Progress Report in front of the senior management.
These are just the main responsibilities that include a position as an assistant lawyer. In each case, they can be supplemented. For example, sometimes the assistant provides legal advice to the public. Usually, young specialists who have already completed their studies at the university are attracted to this and have just begun their professional path.
Sometimes duties may not be fixed on paper, in other words, these are personal instructions of the boss. Whether or not to fulfill them is the job of the assistant himself, because everything that is not spelled out in the employment contract is not mandatory. In addition, it must be understood that the commission of illegal actions, even at the time of execution of the order of the immediate superior, will be considered a crime.
Assistant Attorney at Law: Job Responsibilities
It is not always that a lawyer selects an assistant for himself, sometimes they are hired by a large company, where there can be either one or several lawyers, and everyone certainly needs help. The position in this case sounds a little different, namely: a junior rank specialist. In order to occupy such a position in an enterprise, it is enough to have an incomplete higher legal education.
The duties of a junior specialist are the same as that of any other assistant lawyer: he develops draft contracts, works with the internal documentation of the enterprise, helps specialists in personnel matters, and orders. Very often, such employees assist the lawyers of the company in litigation.
The rights
All rights are contained in the instructions of the assistant lawyer. These include free access to familiarization with documents that indicate the duties and rights of the employee according to the position he occupies. In addition, it is imperative that the lawyer or enterprise provides the organizational and technical conditions necessary for the normal implementation by the employee of his duties.
A responsibility
The job description contains a clause that determines what responsibility and in what cases the employee may incur. As a rule, there are three provisions.
Firstly, failure to perform or improper performance of assigned duties entails liability provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation. This, for example, may be a reprimand.
Secondly, an offense committed by an employee at the time of employment presupposes liability within the framework of civil, administrative and criminal legislation.
Thirdly, for causing material damage to the organization or enterprise, the liability established by the employment contract and civil law also follows.
How to create a resume of an assistant lawyer?
Before how to get a job you need to get an interview, and for this you need to have a resume. A correctly drafted document is already part of the success, thanks to it, the applicant will be noticed, selected from among the candidates and invited for an interview.
In general, all resumes are similar to each other. First you need to specify the last name, first name and patronymic, contact details, city of residence. Below you need to indicate the position of interest, the expected level of salary, degree of employment, work schedule. All this data helps employers to screen out candidates who are not appropriate for the job in advance, otherwise both parties will simply lose time.
All that remains is to indicate work experience, if any, professional and personal skills. You should not cheat at this point, since later the employer will notice this anyway. Then indicate your profile education, because which school you graduated from does not interest anyone. In conclusion, you can specify additional information: professional development courses, knowledge of languages, attitude to business trips and readiness or not preparedness for moving. Information about a hobby is better not to indicate, because we are talking about responsible work.
Wage
It is logical that the salary will depend on in which company or city you carry out labor activities. Based on the data for the city of Moscow, the average salary of an assistant lawyer varies from 10,000 to 25,000 rubles. In large companies or in the offices of successful lawyers, assistants sometimes receive more significant amounts.
But in any case, specifically your income level will depend on the quality of the legal services provided by the assistant. There is a choice: simple work with a low salary in a small law office or help a famous lawyer - everyone decides for himself.
