Friday, November 13, 2009

Easing into the Paralegal Field

Upon graduation from the Institute of Business and Medical Careers with my brand new 4.0 GPA Paralegal Certificate, I found myself in a down economy with jobs disappearing left and right. Law firms were laying off their paralegals in order to save money because less and less people were seeking legal help. Now the paralegal job market was being flooded with professionals with far more experience than I, and as you paralegals know, experience is what employers are looking for.
The best way to remedy this situation would be to "take the bull by the horns," and get yourself out there. You need to make sure that your resume is up to date and very professional as well as have a crisp cover letter. If you have these two things you need to start researching law firms in your area and looking for the type of law firm you would enjoy working for. Once you have your list of firms that you want to work for you need to put on your best garb and take your resume and cover letter and walk right into those firms. Attorney's like when they see a potential employee walking into their firm because that's exactly what the attorney's did in law school for their internship. It shows you have confidence and are willing to do anything in order to impress your future employer.
Of course while your doing this, you need to still look for jobs online or wherever you can think of. You need to talk to people during the day and basically just market yourself. If someone you might run into knows of an attorney who was looking for a paralegal, now they know someone to tell that attorney about. It's all about getting your name out there. It's a numbers game. Quantity of Quality.

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