Paralegal Work vs. Lawyer Work -- Where is the line? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a paralegal at a boutique NYC firm. I do all of the following:

"Paralegal work": Filing (both in house and with courts), corresponding with clerks, indexing and binder prep, serving documents, creating tables of contents and authorities, managing discovery, etc.

-and-

"Lawyer work": Composing Memoranda of Law and Affidavits, writing motions, outlining depositions, researching authorities to support substantive arguments, etc.

I bill approximately the national average Associate rate per hour[1]. My duties (i.e. "lawyer work") and my skill-set vastly exceeds my co-worker paralegals, but we are compensated identically.

Am I getting shafted being paid as an entry-level paralegal? Should I ask for a raise?

Or, is the work I consider "lawyer work" actually within my domain as "paralegal," and I'm just belly-aching?

[1] http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=12 ... he-Country

[zot1]

Wanna get paid as a lawyer? Go to law school.

[brotherdarkness]

What kind of motions are you writing? Is "researching authorities" mere cite checking, or researching the law in the first instance?

In any case, if you're more capable than your equally compensated co-workers, you can try to leverage that into a raise, but make sure your assessment is correct. If they view you as easily replaceable, it might not go so well.

[Anonymous User]

If you are a paralegal and you are really doing all of that stuff then IMO you are practicing law without a license.

If what you are doing is, for example "go through the federal register and find me all regulations discussing drug labeling" or "find a newspaper article that talks about Y so I can put it in as a fact cite to this argument I'm writing" or "take the declaration in the Jones case and change all the names and exhibit titles to correspond with what we're filing in the Smith case" then that's paralegal work.

At my firm, there is really very little hard and fast distinction between paralegal and lawyer work. Paras do not do legal work full stop. But associates cite-check and bluebook briefs, make binders, and serve documents (via email) all the time. While paras do those things too, if none are available at the moment or you have a particuarly paranoid senior associate, juniors will end up doing "para" work. I citecheck and bluebook a lot, especially when someone says at 6 PM "we need a file-ready copy of this circulated by 9 AM tmw" and there are no paras available.

[ballouttacontrol]

What paras do can vary pretty widely. I did more substantive legal work as a para than some of the stuff big firm 1st year associates seem to be doing.

I did good work and got a few raises out of it. It doesn't hurt to ask, just be able to substantiate yourself as long as you understand your place. Don't expect to get paid near a lawyer's rate though. They have a lot more stresses going into the job than you do. Also, most paras get mad overtime. I was getting some time and a half every single week.

It's not unauthorized practice of law because it is "reviewed"/signed by a lawyer. And that is the real line between paras and lawyers

[CanadianWolf]

It is not unauthorized practice of law because, as the above poster noted, it is reviewed by & signed by a licensed attorney. The attorney's signature verifies that the lawyer is familiar with the content of the document & signs it in good faith.