If you have never had any legal experience before, applying for a paralegal position at a law firm is one of the most popular ways for you to get your foot in the door. But what exactly is a paralegal position, why does it matter and what is the difference between a paralegal opportunity and a clerkship? In this article, we look at answer these questions.
What is a paralegal position?
A paralegal position is an entry level position usually reserved for students who have an interest in pursuing a career in law. The responsibilities of this role differ across different firms and projects, from conducting due diligence and proofreading contracts to preparing briefs and photocopying documents. The benefit of this experience is that it helps you understand what it is like to work at a law firm and gives you some exposure to different practice areas within the firm.
Paralegals are often employed on a casual contract. The nature of their employment type means that these positions are often advertised in response to short term resourcing constraints that the firm might have as a result of a sudden increase in projects or work taken on by the firm. For example, a common scenario for law firm to require paralegals arise when the firm takes on a large matter that requires a lot of manpower to complete within a short timeframe. Note that because the availability of paralegal positions is largely dependent on the requirements of these large one-off projects, the role itself is often short term in nature.
As paralegals can be readily assembled in a short timeframe, this resourcing option is very popular among law firms. As a result, you will often see many paralegal positions advertised online all year around by various reputable law firms and in-house legal teams. This is great as it gives you more opportunities to work across different corporate environments that are otherwise difficult to get into.
How is this different to Clerkships?
If you have not read our article on what a clerkship is, you can access it here.
The fundamental difference between clerkships and paralegal positions lies in the objective of the recruiter. This is important to understand when you are applying for either role.
As explained earlier, paralegal positions focus on the short-term goals of the company and is dictated by the workload that the firm is presently required to manage. That is, paralegals are employed for the purpose of fulfilling the firm’s short-term obligations to its client.
Clerkship positions are offered by recruiters with the intention that they remain at the firm in the long-term. Rather than fulfilling a present resourcing constraint, the clerkship program is focused on selecting the next top lawyers who will hopefully take the firm to new heights.
What does this mean? Which is more important?
While it depends on your own career objectives, a clerkship is more important if you are looking for a long-term career as a lawyer at the firm. It remains the main pathway that you can become a full-time lawyer at the firm and is therefore the ultimate goal for many law students. While there are instances where paralegals have been converted to a graduate lawyer, these are not common. In fact, some law firms are quite explicit in stating that a paralegal role does not lead to a clerkship position at the firm.
This does not mean that paralegal positions are not important. Paralegal experience is looked upon favourably by most recruiters when you apply for clerkships. It shows that you have a real passion for law because you are still interested in the profession after having already worked in the industry. Furthermore, as clerkships are only offered to penultimate and final year students, paralegal roles remain great experiences for more junior students.