A Preferred Path to a Profession as a Legal Practitioner
High school students are in the enviable position of having time to choose a potential professional path. Some key considerations are quality of life and salary. As director of our ABA-approved paralegal studies program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a licensed practicing attorney, and a former paralegal, I will share here with you my perspectives on the positive preferred path to the substantially wide array of choices open to a profession as a legal practitioner.
I remind my students that whether you become a licensed attorney or a professional paralegal, if you can imagine something on or off this planet, there is an area of law related to that thing. The average salary for an attorney is $98,422 per year in Illinois. Illinois paralegals average $60,390 per year. Those salaries will vary up and down depending on the legal practitioners’ years of experience, legal specialties, and location within the state.
Whether one ends up as a licensed attorney or a professional paralegal, in my opinion, the undergraduate should major in an ABA-approved paralegal studies program. American Bar Association (ABA) approved paralegal programs are those programs for paralegal study that have been reviewed and deemed to meet the ABA Guidelines for the Approval of Paralegal Education Programs. Such programs demonstrate a high level of rigor at an accredited college/university geared toward success in a paralegal career including professional ethics, legal research and writing, technology, and legal specialty courses concentrating on practical applications in a law practice setting. (www.americanbar.org/groups/paralegals/).
As a physician’s assistant is to a medical doctor, a paralegal performs many of the duties traditionally performed by an attorney. For example, paralegals assist with client communications, document preparation, legal research, discovery, and so much more. However, in Illinois, paralegals cannot provide legal advice, except under the direction of an attorney, nor can paralegals establish a client relationship or represent a client in court.
The American Bar Association defines paralegals as persons qualified by education, training, and work experience who are employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency, or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible. (www.americanbar.org/groups/paralegals/). Paralegals may not engage in the unauthorized practice of law, so paralegals in Illinois must operate at all times under the supervision of an attorney.
In Illinois, the law office and/or supervising attorney is responsible for their paralegals’ adherence to the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 5.3 (Ill. S.C. 2023). In Illinois, paralegals must work under the supervision of an attorney. This means that the supervising attorney must review and sign legal pleadings even as the pleadings are prepared by the paralegal.
The attorney may delegate a wide range of work to the paralegal as long as the supervising attorney retains appropriate oversight. A supervising attorney may employ a paralegal as a conduit of information to relay legal advice, fee structures, and other information to a client; however, the paralegal may not independently provide legal advice or make fee arrangements with clients. When properly utilized, paralegals will be tasked with anything the supervising attorney may need including, but not limited to, conducting client interviews to gather background information.
Paralegals will correspond with clients, counsel, and others on factual and informational matters. Paralegals will conduct legal research, draft pleading, and prepare whatever form documents are required, depending on the area of law practiced. Paralegals will organize and maintain forms and client files.
Paralegals will assist with summarizing medical records, abstracting depositions, and briefing court opinions. They will assemble and analyze records from courts or agencies relevant to a case or client and will assist in preparing trial notebooks. Paralegals will remain up to date on all relevant law office software and computer-assisted legal research. Paralegals will maintain the office calendar, tickler system, and digital court rules.
There are currently more than 5,000 active paralegal job openings in the United States. (www.zippia.com/paralegal-jobs/trends/). The availability of paralegal-related jobs is so great in part because paralegals work not only in private law offices, but also in corporations of all sizes, within their corporate legal departments. Paralegals and attorneys are employed in all of the state and federal administrative agencies like the CIA, FBI, IRS, EPA, Homeland Security, and the Space Force.
There is employment for paralegals and attorneys in government offices like prisons and state’s attorneys and public defenders. There are nurse paralegals and employment with insurance agencies. As paralegals advance within their professions, they may trade up to become office managers and office administrators.
They obtain titles such as legal coordinators and litigation support managers. Paralegals work at courthouses as court administrators, court clerks, and, where talents permit, court interpreters. With experience and additional training, paralegals may also go on to become mediators.
Because of the wide variety of paralegal positions around the world, paralegals have the flexibility to trade up in their own firms or to move from firm to firm and state to state. There are full-time paralegal positions and part-time positions to accommodate lifestyles, and paralegals even work from their own homes electronically communicating with their employers, even employers from foreign nations. Our students are drawn to the program especially in these economic times because this is a profession where they will not only be able to find employment, but they will be able to keep employment for the rest of their lives, and likely no matter where they end up living.
Because we are the only undergraduate program where every teacher is a licensed attorney, practical, real-life professional experiences are a regular part of all of our courses at SIUC. Fifty one percent of paralegal students graduate with a bachelor's degree. Twenty nine percent graduate with an associate degree. Five percent graduate with a master’s degree, 4 percent with a doctorate, and 11 percent with other degrees. (www.zippia.com/paralegal-jobs/demographics/).
Majoring in paralegal studies is particularly helpful in preparing for law school because we cover from a practical perspective many of the same required courses a law student will be taking the first few years in law school. Students will take an introduction to law course, civil procedure, estate planning, business entities, family law, torts, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, and technologies in the law office. There will also be courses in criminal law and procedure, and in their final semesters, students will intern at a law office or administrative agency.
We get tremendous feedback from our graduates’ experiences in law school. Graduates from our paralegal studies program consistently report they have an advantage over other law students who came to law school from other undergraduate majors. Having an edge at the outset of a law school education is invaluable due to the incredibly competitive nature of law school.
High school students who are randomly asked what they intend to major in often do not have adequate information on which to base their decision. Hopefully, this short article provides a compass from which you can determine that the preferred path to engaging in the legal profession is to major as an undergraduate in an ABA-approved paralegal studies program. This is true whether you ultimately choose to be a licensed practicing attorney or a professional paralegal. In all events, the best of good fortune in your professional pursuits.
Daniel A. Silver, J.D.
Director, Paralegal Studies
Clinical Associate Professor
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Illinois 62901
dsilver@siu.edu