Entering or remaining in the legal assistant profession is not regulated; therefore any existing restrictions have come from employers and within the profession itself, such as membership criteria for professional organizations. Most employers do require a degree and/or a paralegal certificate. The Legal Assistant Management Association's Comprehensive Legal Assistant Utilization Survey recently reported that 72.5% of the respondents require a Bachelor's Degree and 43.8% require a paralegal certificate. Most employers use minimum education standards as a way of filtering through numerous resumes; however, if some other circumstance arises, such as a personal recommendation or graduation from a respected paralegal program, they may be willing to consider a candidate even though he or she lacks the minimum standard. The Houston Legal Assistants Association recently established (1) an Associate's Degree as a minimum educational requirement for joining the association as a voting member and (2) a minimum of 10 CLE hours per year to renew that membership. Although the requirement of a degree does not relate directly to legal education, it indicates a trend toward requiring more education of members of our profession. The trend toward more education (both general and legal) relates to the greater responsibilities being given to paralegals and the need for minimum standards to assure competent handling of these tasks.
Certification on the other hand is still voluntary. A growing number of legal assistants are certified, either at the national level through the Certified Legal Assistant (CLA) Exam offered by the National Association of Legal Assistants, or at the state level through the specialty exams offered by the State Bar of Texas Board of Legal Specialization. In addition, the National Federation of Paralegal Associations is currently developing an exam called the Paralegal Advanced Competency Exam (PACE), and plans to begin administering it in 1996.
Why would you choose to sit for any of these exams? It says a lot that a person is willing to commit the time and energy needed to accomplish the feat; but, fortunately for most of us, such designation is not necessary for keeping our jobs (although one corporation in Houston does require its legal assistants to sit for the CLA Exam within a specified period after hire!). These exams consider legal education to be a necessary prerequisite. To be eligible to sit for the CLA Exam, you must have a certificate from an accredited paralegal training course, have a degree and some experience as a legal assistant, or have extensive experience as a legal assistant and CLE credits. Although the emphasis on this test is the tasks performed by a legal assistant, a thorough understanding of the legal issues and their application is necessary for successful completion; and comprehensive education is the key to success.
The State Specialty exams offered in Texas also require extensive experience in and knowledge of the specific area of law being tested. PACE will require four years of work experience if application is made during the three-year grandparenting period; otherwise, you must have a Bachelor's Degree and legal education plus two years of work experience to be eligible.
No matter how you look at it, education continues to play an increasingly important role in the legal assistant profession. With all the talk about regulation, limited paralegal services provided directly to clients, licensure, etc., different levels of minimum education are being discussed by employers, paralegals, professional organizations, bar associations and training programs. Whether in preparation for one of the certification exams, or to further their understanding of the legal process, more and more people are going back to school. There are plenty of program choices out there. Certificate programs teach a core curriculum of legal subjects with, perhaps, some additional courses deemed valuable (accounting and computers, for example). A certificate is awarded at the successful completion of such a program. These programs can be anywhere from three or four months, to approximately one year in duration.
If you do not have a degree and are thinking of going back to school, another option is an Associate's Degree program offered at many community and junior colleges. This avenue takes longer (usually two years); but, in addition to legal assistant training, you earn a degree, which seems to be establishing itself as a prerequisite in many arenas of the profession. For those interested in earning a Bachelor's Degree, legal assistant studies has been added to the course catalog of several colleges. With a full, four-year degree being requested by so many employers, this is a promising choice.
No matter which type of program you choose, be sure to investigate the school's credentials thoroughly. One criteria upon which you can evaluate a paralegal program is to inquire about its ABA status. The American Bar Association (ABA) has an approval process in place which looks at not only a school's curriculum and faculty, but also its financial stability. These are areas that the ABA emphasizes when evaluating a program, and the standards can be used to evaluate all three kinds of legal assistant programs. ABA approval of a program requires that a student end the program with at least the ''equivalent'' of sixty hours of education. Each individual program is deemed to be the ''equivalent'' of X number of hours, thus requiring the rest of the college hours as a prerequisite for admission (for instance, the program at Southwestern Paralegal Institute in Houston has be deemed to be the ''equivalent'' of 18 college hours, so a minimum of 42 hours is required for admission).
Another criteria to consider is a training program's standing with the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The TEA has an accreditation process in which the curriculum, faculty, tuition and other fees, financial agreements and admission policies are reviewed and must meet minimum requirements set by the agency. Although not a thorough evaluation in terms of legal education, a school approved by the TEA is constantly monitored with regard to educational and financial policies. Finally, you might inquire what professional associations the school participates in as educators in the legal profession.
With increased demands from clients for reasonably priced, yet competent, legal services, employers are assigning greater numbers and more complicated types of projects to legal assistants. Clients, employers and paralegals are all looking for the best ways to ensure competency in performing these tasks. Legal education is the key element, but certification is also a viable option for demonstrating one's ability to handle the issues which arise. The details may be hazy, but the trends indicate that increased legal education, coupled with certification, may be on our horizon.