Simple question: difference btwn litigation and corporate? Forum

[strawboy1230]

What's the difference between a litigation paralegal and a corporate paralegal?

[sethc]

What's the difference between a litigation paralegal and a corporate paralegal?

1L, 2nd term here.

You should probably give us a little more context than simply "litigation paralegal" & "corporate paralegal" to get a good answer. A paralegal is obviously NOT a lawyer & vice-versa, so that's one important distinction... but USUALLY when you hear "litigation" in an employment perspective it is more than likely going to refer to "trial lawyer" type of settings. But not always, it could just be a fancy way of saying "Paralegal" in general because whatever area a lawyer practices in (e.g. criminal law, products liability etc.) is the area they "litigate" in.

I'd say "corporate paralegal" just means a paralegal for a corporate-law attorney/firm but that's just a guess.

[Renzo]

As a paralegal, my guess is not much, other than the department you are assigned to work in.

As a broader question, litigation is what you think of when you think about TV lawyers--going to court, taking depositions, and (most importantly) reviewing endless mountains of documents in preparation for going to court.

Corporate law is the catchall term for pretty much everything non-litigation in big firms. It includes M&A work, debt/security work, drafting/amending corporate charters/bylaws, and lots of due diligence to make sure that the things that business people say in public and in official statements are true.

[UCLAtransfer]

Honestly, as a paralegal the work for litigation is not going to be much different than that of corporate, because there likely won't be a ton of actual substantive work.

As a corp or lit paralegal you will be wading through and organizing documents, making binders, putting together files, proofreading documents, etc.

The main difference will be that if it is litigation, all this will be related to some sort of dispute (either a lawsuit or something heading towards being one), and if it is corporate, it will all be related so some sort of "deal" (real estate, debt/equity financing, m&a, etc.).