Legal Secretary/Paralegal

Dennis
Hi, welcome to Legal Squeaks, I’m Dennis VanDerGinst. Before we get started, I’d like to remind you all to please subscribe or register for Legal Squeaks on your favorite podcast platform. Ask your friends and family to do so as well. By doing that, you’ll be sure to get notice whenever the next Legal Squeaks drops.

Dennis
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Dennis
Today, I’d like to welcome three guests to Legal Squeaks, Kristy Healey, Lucy Reyes, and Raven Hollenhorst are all current paralegals at VanDerGinst Law. We often get inquiries from people interested in the paralegal profession.

Dennis
What does it take to become one? What do you do? How do you enjoy it? Et cetera. So we thought we’d take this opportunity today to address some of those issues. Before I let the ladies have their say. I’d like to explain the historical role of the paralegal and how it kind of evolved over the years.

Dennis
Obviously, each law firm might have their own distinctions and nuances as far as what they require of a paralegal. But historically, a paralegal was someone who had been trained to conduct legal research, draft pleadings, work on litigation, discovery, prepare witnesses and assist attorneys in very substantive ways.

Dennis
The, the distinction between a paralegal and a legal secretary was sometimes subtle, but a legal secretary would be more involved in the organization of files, the typing, the filing, keeping attorney schedules, scheduling people to meet with the the attorney, keeping the docket and things of that nature. But with the growing usage of the Internet, we’ve seen more and more a development of a hybrid between legal secretaries and paralegals.

Dennis
In fact, years ago I used to be an adjunct professor at a college that had a paralegal degree. And I told those students back then to be very careful about putting all their eggs in one basket as far as paralegalism was concerned, because as the Internet began to grow, its usage began to grow, you would see that more and more attorneys were requiring less and less of paralegals because it would frankly take less time for an attorney to do their own legal research with the Internet than it would take to explain to a paralegal what it was that they wanted and wait for them to get it done.

Dennis
So it became more important that in order to be marketable, paralegals also develop legal secretarial skills. And that, for instances, is kind of what we have in VanDerGinst Law. Now there are also some other similar roles in most law firms, including legal assistants, who are typically considered a more entry level position that helps both paralegals and, and attorneys and or legal secretaries, if there is a distinction in a law firm.

Dennis
And then there are legal clerks or law clerks who are usually law students who are working through law school and helping in any of the ways that they are qualified at that point in time to assist within.

Dennis
So with those those caveats in that introduction, I would like to take the time now to let each of these lovely ladies introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about your journey to the point where you are right now. Something about your background and what it was that you were required to do to get to the point where you were a paralegal. So let’s start with Kristy.

Kristy
So I’m Kristy Healey and I’ve been a paralegal for about twenty three years now. I started right out of college with a general practice firm that I worked for for almost 15 years. We did everything from family law, to defense criminal work, to bankruptcy, small claims, personal injury, work comp, real estate, pretty much everything you can think of when it comes to law. So I had a lot of experience in all different types. After that, I went and worked for about eight years in a prosecutor’s office and which obviously only does prosecuting criminal.

Kristy
So I got all of that experience and being able to see a different type of law and only focus on one thing. And then I came here to VanDerGinst about a year ago almost, and doing what I really enjoy doing, which is the personal injury side of the law.

Dennis
OK, Kristy, thanks. Raven, how about you?

Raven
So I got my start doing paralegal work during college, I was working on a bachelor’s in English, which I did complete and has been really helpful with paralegal jobs, and I just found a part time job listing for a paralegal job and answered it and I ended up really liking it. So that first job I did was strictly criminal defense. We did like public defender, court appointed work, and then as they got into it, things evolved. And I worked in family law, criminal law, personal injury.

Raven
And I’ve taken some breaks from working in law firms and actually worked for domestic violence programs in the area and done some work with orders of protection and things like that. And then about two years ago, I found this open position at VanDerGinst Law and so have really started learning a lot about insurance law and claims and things. And that’s been really interesting and I really enjoy that as well.

Dennis
All right, thanks, Raven. And last but not least, Lucy.

Lucy
My name is Lucy Reyes. I’ve only been in the legal field for about three years. Before that, I was in social work for years and years and I transferred, transferred into the legal field and into a different firm where I was a legal assistant. And I did that for about two years and then came here to VanDerGinst as a paralegal, which has been great because I’ve been able to expand my experience and get more litigation experience.

Lucy
Before I came here I did strictly personal injury cases, but here at VanDerGinst, I’ve been able to get into some different areas, which has been really exciting with mass torts, some VA disability claims, and even helped a little bit with work comp. So that’s been fun for me to experience different areas.

Dennis
And to explain to folks who may not be familiar, the areas that that Lucy referred to mass tort, VA disability, work comp, etc. Those are kind of still under the umbrella of personal injury law. But there are definitely some nuances that are distinct and separate from what you might typically think of when you think of injury law.

Dennis
Now, Lucy’s journey is not dissimilar to that of a lot of folks that we work with. And of course, these are three of our paralegals. But we have many others that have worked here for much longer, some that may not have worked here as long. But but it’s not unusual in our office to have someone start as a legal assistant and kind of learn the ropes, as I mentioned, a lot of times a lot of firms will use that position as an entry level or a jumping off point to either go into paralegalism or legal secretarial or some some other area that the firm might require.

Dennis
So my question to all of you then is I know some of you have had a more formal education in, with respect to paralegal studies and some of your education has been on the job, let’s say. What’s, what’s your feeling as to what’s, where, where where should somebody look to get the type of training necessary to be successful as a paralegal?

Dennis
Is it a combination? Is one more helpful than another? What are your thoughts? Anybody can jump in.

Kristy
So I’m the one that has the formal education, which I received 24, 25 years ago, was when I started college.

Dennis
Let me, let me stop you for just a second, but I should just direct who’s going to respond since listeners may not know who’s speaking. So this is Kristy now.

Kristy
So I would say when I entered, when I went into college about 25 years ago, I’m sure that the courses are a lot different than they are now. I definitely think I feel like I got the majority of my training on the job. I’m sure there was things in the schooling that helped. But for me on the job was where I got all of my experience.

Kristy
And I was lucky enough that the attorney that I worked for in general practice wanted me very hands on. And so he, I think, did a very good job of training me and I got a lot of knowledge from him.

Dennis
OK, Raven, what are your thoughts?

Raven
So I have a bachelor’s in English from the University of Iowa, and I actually had started taking those courses with the goal of ultimately using it to go to law school. And I just never got there. But I do really think that the degree helped me a lot. And I at the time didn’t foresee becoming a paralegal. But a lot of the reading, writing, researching, sourcing your information, things like that that I learned through getting an English degree have been really helpful as well as a lot of our laws are based on common law from other countries.

Raven
And so it’s helpful to have taken some like ancient literature classes and stuff too, in the rare occasions that I’m doing around this common law and stuff, it’s really helpful.

Dennis
Because we all go around speaking Latin, so…

Raven
Right.

Dennis
What about you, Lucy, what are your thoughts on this?

Lucy
Well, I got my bachelor’s in psychology about 20 years ago. From what I can remember, most of what I learned wouldn’t apply very much to my paralegal experience, but it my job after that, working in social work, helped me prepare for this job a lot because it helped me develop my writing skills, listening skills, case management.

Lucy
I didn’t start really learning the ins and outs of personal injury until I started my job as a legal assistant, but I think any program that encourages you to be a really strong writer and any kind of job experience that helps you with developing good interpersonal skills with clients, whether that’s in a medical office or customer service, I think, I think that’s going to be really helpful. It is going to translate to your job as a paralegal.

Dennis
Yeah, and as an employer, I will say that, you know, we have a number of folks who don’t have any formal education in paralegal studies, nor do they necessarily have a college degree. I definitely believe that that kind of formal education can be helpful, and especially when it comes to, you know, the need to research and write and do so well and grammatically correct and all that type of thing. But there are, we’ve got some paralegals who did all of their training on the job who are phenomenal.

Dennis
And so, you know, I would I would suggest that it’s not, it’s never a bad idea to have your education extended and or to to have continuing education. And that’s something in our firm, and I know other firms, we encourage not only paralegals, but all of our staff and attorneys to to have continuing education in order to enhance their abilities to help our clients. But regardless of whether you have that formal education or not, as long as you focus on the right things, you can still be successful.

Dennis
So that’s a good segway into the next topic, which really I’d like to discuss. What are the right things? What are the skills that you you guys have seen being the most essential and the most crucial in being successful in your job, either here or with any prior firms that you worked with? So let’s again, we’ll just go right round the clock. And Kristy, what would you say as far as, you know, the skills that you feel are essential or helpful and why?

Kristy
Well, I definitely think customer service type skills are very essential and helpful. The majority of what we do every day is, is talk and work with clients. Listening to them, helping them. So having those skills is is definitely essential, having patience to hear them out. I mean, you’re listening to the worst day in a lot of their lives and to be able to just listen to them and sometimes they cry and you just have to be patient and let them kind of work through it the way that they need to.

Kristy
Also, just your general reading, writing things that that both Raven and Lucy have touched on. They’re so important because you are drafting complaints and drafting demands and doing a lot of writing and even research and trying to find case law to support the claims that you’ve done. So all of those things are very important.

Dennis
Raven, what do you think?

Raven
I agree with everything that Kristy said. Your customer service skills and then also the reading and the writing. Organization is another huge being able to organize yourself and being able to organize, usually you’re organizing the attorney you work under as well. You know, getting things ready for trial, getting things ready for court appearances, managing files. In some instances, you’ll manage a large volume of information or files. So it’s really, really helpful to have organizational skills and systems for managing all of this information because it will be a ton of information.

Dennis
And Lucy, what would you add?

Lucy
Well, I would reiterate that your communication skills with clients and with attorneys and adjusters, everyone that you come in contact with are really important. You’re going to have to listen for details and be able to ask the right questions when you’re talking to a client to get the information that’s going to be useful. And as Kristy said, you do have to have a lot of patience because they’re going to want to talk about things that might not be relevant. But that’s part of your job and part of the experience to listen to the client and reassure them and make sure that they feel heard.

Lucy
Organization, I would agree with Raven. It’s a huge thing. You will get lost. And your clients will get lost if you don’t have really strong organization skills. You’re also going to have to be really persistent. There’s, there are going to be times when things, a lot of times, when things just don’t come easy. And that could be you’re talking to medical providers to get them to respond to requests for records. It can mean just making sure that you’re you’re staying in touch with your client.

Lucy
Sometimes that’s not always the easiest thing and you can’t just give up and let it slide. And you’re also going, in my experience, you’re going to be working with very little direction from the attorney. They’re going to be depending on you to make sure all of the boxes are checked and that you’re staying focused on the right details. So you’re going to have to have a lot of self-motivation to to make things happen.

Dennis
And I will add, obviously, the–you know, the way that what you guys are accustomed to and what we do at VanDerGinst Law is–is a little bit unique in that we’re–our focus is almost exclusively on personal injury law and those subsets of personal injury law. So in addition, you know, anyone who’s considering becoming a paralegal, you need to kind of take a look at what it is you want to do. Because what’s also important, I think Lucy touched on it a little bit, but you guys didn’t really hit it too hard

Dennis
is your understanding of medicine and medical jargon and medical records and medical billing and–and, you know, the coding and all those types of things. Extremely crucial in our particular practice. Now, it’s not something that’s–that’s going to be necessarily that important in a–in another practice that maybe a general practitioner who does mostly family law or someone who does business law or something like that. But then each of those offices, I’m sure, would have other things that they would want their paralegals to become familiar with.

Dennis
One thing you guys did all hit on, which I will echo, and I think it’s important in any law firm, is the need to be attentive to the client’s needs and be compassionate and patient and understanding. And as I think Kristy mentioned, you know, you never know. You know, these–this is usually going to be the worst day, or they’re talking about the worst day of their lives or one of the worst days. Sometimes these people may not be able to work because of their injuries,

Dennis
and as a result of that, you might be faced with a whole other set of problems you have to deal with for them, including addressing the folks that might have leins for medicals or maybe they’re in danger of losing their home or their–or their vehicle because they can’t make payments, because they can’t work. Now, obviously, everything that is done by a paralegal is under the supervision of an attorney–so you have to communicate with the attorney.

Dennis
But as Lucy said, sometimes, you know, the attorneys are in depositions, the attorneys are in court, the attorneys are not always available to address things immediately. And because of the nature of our practice, and other practices, you have to be prompt in your response. You have to be attentive. You have to be very service-oriented because there are people who are relying on you and you have to do it with a smile. You know, these people have come to you because you’ve asked them to. You’ve asked them to put your trust in the–in the firm, in the attorneys and the staff, including the paralegals at the firm.

Dennis
And so you want to show them that that trust was warranted. So, I always feel that it takes special people to work in, you know, in a law firm in general. I happen to believe that we have a lot of special people that work in our firm because we are dealing with people who are in such dire straits that, you know, need to have the angels that are here on this podcast and the others that work behind the scenes in our firm and other firms that do such important work.

Dennis
Which is also why I believe during the pandemic, attorneys and the folks who did work in law firms were deemed essential because there are so many things that need to be done to keep everything working in an orderly fashion. So, enough of me getting on a soapbox about this.

Lucy
Well, I do want to add something, if I can, to–talking about medical records, if someone is thinking about going into personal injury. Um, one thing to ask yourself is if you are someone that can stomach some pretty disturbing medical information or photos. I think that’s really important.

Dennis
For sure.

Lucy
Yeah. And also some ability or just knowledge that you’re going to be working with people who might have traumatic–traumatic brain injuries. That kind of goes back to that, having empathy and patience with people.

Lucy
You’re also going to be–you’re going to have to feel comfortable working with people who may not–English may not be their first language, or you may be working through a translator. You’re just going to be exposed to a wide, diverse population.

Dennis
Mhm.

Dennis
For sure. And I will say to your point about, um, you know, knowing that you have the stomach for the medicine and the injuries that you might be facing in this type of–of law firm. Ironically, one of the reasons I didn’t go to med school was because I was very squeamish. And now, yet, I’m still doing personal injury work. So I think you can get past that. You know, it–it does take a little bit of time to work yourself up to actually dealing with some of the more horrendous injury cases and in, you know, seeing some of the–the photos and videos that are involved in those cases.

Dennis
So, I think you can do it. But you’re right. You want to ask yourself if it’s something you want to attempt to do to begin with. So, um. So, now let’s–let’s talk about a typical day. You know, we’ve kind of alluded to some of the things you deal with, but I’d like to–I’d like people to have some idea as to what it is. And you can talk about what your typical day has been or what you might ordinarily do or see at VanDerGinst Law.

Dennis
But you can also talk about what you have done in other contexts, because, again, our firm is a bit unique in that our focus is exclusively injury law. Most firms are not just injury law. Most firms do, you know, either general practice or business or real estate or who knows what it might be. So if you had some background in some of those other disciplines, you know, speak to that as well. So, Kristy.

Kristy
Well, first of all, I don’t think there is a typical day.

Dennis
Agreed.

Kristy
–in any type of law. It’s always different. It’s–which is one of the great things about doing this job. But you’ve got your standards. You know, you check your emails, you check your voicemails. But then it’s just what–what you were working on. A lot of times it’s finishing up what you were doing the day before, which might be a demand that you’ve been working on for a couple of days.

Kristy
And so you’re reading your medical records and, and putting together all of that. You may be in the middle of negotiations and putting together closing statements and discussing things with the client or, and attorney. Um, phone calls–talking to your clients and checking in with them, following up with medical records requests. There’s–

Dennis
Mhm.

Kristy
Just a little bit of everything.

Dennis
Sure, well, Raven, why don’t you address it? And, again, feel free to talk about experience elsewhere so that people would understand what they might be facing in the course of a day as a paralegal, no matter where they’re at.

Raven
I agree with Kristy. No two days in this job ever look the same. But I do have–I have a set–I like to block my time. So, I do have some, you know–I do emails in the morning, I do phone calls in the afternoon, and then I try to keep my big projects in the middle of the day when my brain just happens to be firing the best. So, a lot of times, those big projects will be–discovery responses seem to take up a lot of my time, drafting demands, figuring out–kind of evaluating offers for the attorney so they can discuss them with the clients and see if it’s a good deal for the client, if it’s–if it’s fair.

Raven
I also spend a lot of time on just like basic file management, following up, making sure I tied up loose ends and crossed this T and dotted this I. So that’s pretty much the way my day usually goes.

Dennis
OK, and Lucy, what would you add?

Lucy
Well, I’m somebody that, um, works best when I am touching a lot of things through the day, touching a lot of files. Some paralegals might structure their day differently where they know I’m going to work on these three specific things. But my kind of case management style is to kind of keep a lot of things–a lot of plates spinning at once. So, um, you’re going to be–I handle a lot of documents, whether that’s electronic or paper, you’re going to have, you know, you–that’s part of–

Lucy
kind of that, um… I can’t think of what word I’m trying to think of. It’s just kind of the maintenance of your job that you’re going to have to do. It’s kind of like putting gas in your car. You’re–to keep things going, you’re going to be receiving, requesting, and following up on a ton of documents. Following up on things is one thing that I wish that I didn’t have to spend so much time on, but that’s where that persistence comes in.

Lucy
My favorite part of the day is talking to my clients and checking in with them.

Dennis
It’s not happy hour afterwards?

Lucy
Maybe leaving the parking lot every afternoon. That might be the best time.

Lucy
I’m an extrovert. So, having that contact with clients and making sure that I’m answering their questions and I just kind of get a little kick out of every time I can talk to a client and leave them feeling less overwhelmed and more reassured. So I–I do like talking to our clients the best, but I’m also going to be doing a lot of writing like Raven and Kristy said, you’re going to be writing demands. Right now,

Lucy
I think I have probably six or seven demands in the works. Um, I do also a lot–this is part of writing the demand–a lot of review of medical records. So sometimes there is a massive amount of, um, medical records to–to conquer.

Dennis
And just so the folks that are listening are aware when, when–when we’re referring to “demands” or “demand letters” that is kind of the introduction into settlement discussions in a personal injury case. Where as–as the ladies have indicated, you pull together the medical bills, the medical records, lost wage information, anything that touches on the damages that a client may have endured as a result of an injury case. And then you lay it out in a certain fashion so that the insurance adjuster or the attorney or whoever’s on the other side of the case can understand why it is that you are requesting a certain amount of money to settle the case.

Dennis
And that’s referred to as a “demand.” Now, one of the things that I don’t think we touched on when we were discussing, you know, some of the–the skills, for instance, that would come in handy, that might be either essential or helpful, is the ability to, you know, the, um, the computer “savvy-ness” that is required. We use a case management software program which helps us keep organized. It, uh, helps us have templates, you know, for some of these things, like the demands, it is a source where we can retrieve digital files, we can calendar, we can do things of that nature.

Dennis
What, what is–well, let me, with that foundation, let me ask you each what advice would you give someone who is interested in becoming a paralegal? So, Kristy.

Kristy
Um…Can you come back to me? No, no. Oh, I don’t know. You can–you can come back to me.

Dennis
All right, well. Raven?

Kristy
Let me think about that one.

Raven
I would definitely say read. Read everything you can about if you’re looking at a specific law firm, get on their website and look at the attorneys, look at what their accomplishments are, look at what kind of cases they handle. If you’re looking at a specific body of law you want to be involved with, read about it.

Raven
So many times since I got into legal world, I’ve thought that this was a thing I wanted to do, only to, you know, start researching that area of the law and find out that it’s something completely different. And I’d also say, you know, talk to attorneys, because each attorney that’s hiring a paralegal is looking for something different. So where your skillset might be just right for one attorney and might be wrong for another attorney. But don’t–don’t feel like if you, if this is a thing you want to do and you don’t have experience, you can’t find a way in the door–because you can.

Dennis
Lucy, what would you add?

Lucy
I would say don’t be afraid to ask questions. Either before you get the job or before you, you know, when you’re just considering the field. Like Raven said, talk to attorneys, talk to other paralegals, reach out, and just be don’t be shy about asking questions about that. And when you’re interviewing and considering a position, ask a lot of questions about how they manage their caseload, how their paralegals manage their caseload. One of the things that I remember in our interview, Dennis, that really got me excited about VanDerGinst was that this firm has more of a team approach.

Lucy
We have–there’s a lot of interaction between the paralegal and the attorney throughout the case. In the last firm I worked with, the legal assistants were kind of working in their own bubble, the paralegals are working in their own bubble, the attorneys are working in their own bubble, and I really enjoy everyone working together. Again, I’m an extrovert. So maybe that has something to do with it. And then when you start–

Dennis
She’s trying to get a raise too, so…

Lucy
No, I really do like it! When you start, don’t be afraid to ask questions. I ask Raven and Kristy and every other paralegal so many questions throughout the week, and especially when I started. Just don’t be shy about that.

Dennis
Well, Kristy, now that you’ve had the time to think about it, what would you add?

Kristy
Dennis, I just–I don’t really have much more, much of anything to add. I mean, they both gave all the advice that I would give and did an excellent job at it.

Dennis
So what–do any of you have regrets about becoming a paralegal? Would you do things differently as far as preparing for that career? Kristy, I’ll start with you.

Kristy
No, I don’t have any regrets. I absolutely love what I do. I love talking to all the different people, all the clients. It’s hard and it can be difficult sometimes just the job itself. But I also love the challenge and the complexity of it. So there’s absolutely nothing I would change. And, going into it–I started right out of college, you know, young. So I don’t–there’s really nothing I think I could have done differently to prepare for it?

Kristy
I’m happy with how everything’s turned out and how much I really do enjoy this field.

Dennis
Great. Raven, anything that you would do differently?

Raven
I think the only thing I would do differently is, um–after…Once you’ve been working in the legal field for a while, you start to realize that the information that you’re working with–laws and policies and insurance policies and things like that, they’re changing all the time. Our laws change all the time. And so you’re going to have a changing set of information. And I was really–when I was first starting out as a paralegal, I spent–I probably wasted a lot of time looking at information and going back and looking at it again.

Raven
You know, double-checking yourself is great. But once you’re secure that you found this information and you’ve stayed up to date on it, you kind of have to learn to trust yourself in the information that you’re working with and that you’ve spent the time to know your subject matter. And I wish I would have spent more time just becoming more confident in the area of the law I was working in each time.

Dennis
And Lucy, what about you?

Lucy
I–I wish that I had started or looked into this field and considered it a long time ago. As I said, I was in social work for a really long time and felt like that was just my niche. But this is–it’s a better niche for me. If there are any people that are in social work and enjoy parts of their job where they’re helping people, but they’re burnt out or looking for a change, I would say, look into to being a paralegal or working in the legal field, because I think it was a good transition and I’ve been able to retain the things about that job that I loved, which was helping people,

Lucy
but you lose a lot of frustration. And not that this is, sometimes you can– obviously there’s a lot of–there’s frustration working as a paralegal sometimes, too. I would just, I would really encourage them to to look into it. If you’re thinking about making a change and you’ve been doing some social work or case management. I wish I had done it sooner.

Dennis
Well, I appreciate all your–your comments, and I think you’ve given some good advice. Before we wrap things up here, do any of you have anything else you’d like to offer? No? OK, well, in that case, thank you for joining us today again, please be sure to subscribe to Legal Squeaks. Also check out our other podcast, Uncommon Convos. Be sure also, if you want to suggest a guest or a topic on Legal Squeaks, go to LegalSqueaks.com.

Dennis
Join us next week for another episode. In the meantime, have a great day, stay safe, and I love you all!