Laying the Groundwork: How Paralegal Experience Prepares You for a Stellar Career as a Solicitor

Feb 12, 2024

Written By Lewis Ogg

Working as a paralegal can be a fantastic opportunity to further your legal career by offering the chance to develop core legal skills and make valuable connections. This article will explore how paralegal experience can lay the groundwork for a successful solicitor career through its unrivalled access to practical experience.

Understanding the value of paralegal experience

Paralegals are involved at the very centre of legal proceedings and are integral in facilitating the work of solicitors and barristers. From this, paralegals gain unparalleled hands-on experience in legal research, drafting documents, and assisting in case preparation.

Experiences such as these help to foster an understanding of the legal procedures and protocols that legal professionals encounter daily. Often, it’s this base understanding that trainee solicitors struggle to understand in their first months, having typically had limited legal exposure previously. Having previous legal experience as a paralegal can allow you to smoothly transition into becoming a trainee, being able to focus more on what you are working on rather than how to work effectively.

Developing core skills as a paralegal

The skills required and nurtured in paralegals are closely akin to those of solicitors and barristers. Attention to detail, analytical thinking, and problem-solving abilities are all prerequisites for being an effective paralegal, with these skills translating directly to your future work.

As with all legal roles, successful paralegals have strong communication skills, both written and verbal, allowing them to convey complex legal concepts in a digestible manner. Paralegals also have the capacity to communicate in a professional manner, so that they can have effective conversations with colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders.

High-quality organisation is a central tenant of paralegal work. Paralegals are often inundated with requests for their time, whether for meetings or in preparing documents. So, in order to thrive in this busy environment, they must have robust scheduling and prioritisation systems that will allow them to make informed choices about what work they can take on and what the order of completion should be. The importance of routine organisational skills is irreplaceable, with the work becoming no less frantic or multi-faceted when switching from paralegal to solicitor.

Gaining exposure to legal practice

In most instances, paralegals will be managed centrally within a law firm, meaning that they are not assigned to one practice area but receive work from several departments. Having such varied exposure to practice areas, especially within a multi-disciplinary or full-service law firm, is highly advantageous in developing the breadth of your legal understanding. It also provides a strong foundation of knowledge for your future seat rotations as a trainee solicitor.

As a paralegal, you will be surrounded by and working closely with experienced legal professionals. This is a great opportunity to learn the practices and methods of those with more expertise. Observing the practices of others will set you in good stead for being a lawyer, where you can directly apply what you saw and learned.

Furthermore, the variety of tasks and responsibilities expected of paralegals, such as legal research, assisting in court proceedings or preparing formal documents, provides a complete understanding of legal practice and may help point you towards a future speciality.

Building professional networks

Consistent work within a law firm can naturally lend itself to networking opportunities with fellow colleagues, but there is also a word of networking outside of your firm. When starting your career, it’s good practice to develop your professional network, whether through attending industry events, joining professional associations, or using LinkedIn to connect with individuals with shared interests.

At the beginning of your legal career, especially before securing a training contract, it’s easy to ignore the importance of building a professional network in favour of maximising your application output. However, these are not mutually exclusive. Networking can offer chances to further develop your CV through mentorship, referrals, or even more direct job opportunities.

Leveraging paralegal experience for career progression

Under the new SQE qualification route, paralegal work has taken on a newfound utility. In most situations, it will count towards the two years Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) required to become a solicitor. Additionally, the SQE2 exams, much like the old LPC, seek to assess legal skills and understanding of legal procedures. Those who have worked as paralegals thus have a clear headstart regarding this exam.

Individuals often overlook the potential value of paralegal experience in their training contract applications or are unaware of the growing trend of internal hiring within firms. Recruiters appreciate that paralegals have unrivalled practical knowledge reinforced by relevant transferable skills, allowing them to be more effective and productive trainees. This benefit is doubled when you have been a paralegal at the firm you are applying for, as you are already familiar with all their internal processes.

Overcoming challenges and maximising opportunities

While there are undoubtedly significant personal and professional benefits to becoming a paralegal, the experience does not come without challenges. Paralegals who choose to use their work as a route to qualification will naturally have to find a way to balance work and study commitments, which can present a challenge considering the difficulty of the SQE exams.

Newly qualified former paralegals may also find that they are somewhat disadvantaged when applying for NQ roles. Other applicants may have gained their QWE as trainee solicitors, meaning they have direct solicitor experience.

These potential disadvantages should not dishearten you, as there are several ways to counterbalance them during your time as a paralegal. Firstly, even if you have begun accumulating QWE as a paralegal, continue to apply for internships and other work experience opportunities. Even something as small as a week-long internship can be used when applying for NQ roles, to show you understand what a solicitor’s daily work entails. You may also find that there are secondment opportunities within your paralegal role; this is a fantastic way to develop your client awareness skills.

Conclusion

The key takeaway from this article should be the need to normalise paralegal work for aspiring solicitors. Paralegals do a complex and challenging job that helps them develop the core skills required of solicitors, while placing them at the very heart of the process and procedure of legal dealings. With this in mind, it’s no wonder being a paralegal offers such a robust foundation for a successful legal career.

Paralegal Work