Thoughts from Court. (Posted by Gabe)

This morning I was sitting through some 341 meetings in federal bankruptcy court, and overheard a rather terrible discussion about a paralegal. You see, it's not uncommon at all for people looking to bankruptcy to hire a paralegal to help fill out the forms. While there are certainly acceptable ways to do that, this one was not - the paralegal went a bit beyond filling out the forms, gave the client some plain wrong legal advice, and was being investigated by the United States Department of Justice. Not a pretty picture, to be sure!

Being in on that meeting prompted a couple of thoughts on being a paralegal. Maybe these thoughts won't apply to you as you study, but I hope that they will be an encouragement to you as you prepare for your future work.

Know the Rules

This one is obvious, I'm afraid. A glance at an ethics book or a little common sense could have saved this paralegal a whole lot of potential heartache - not to mention criminal prosecution.

Now, who knows? Maybe this paralegal was having a bad day. Maybe she was distracted and didn't think about what she was saying. Maybe she has given this advice and gotten away with it a dozen times before. Or maybe she just took that little twinge of common sense and stuffed it under the rug to make a few bucks from this client. I will never know - but this I do know: whatever the reason, she is going to regret her laxity and ignorance of what she should and shouldn't do.

Your Words Matter

Scriptures are certainly clear on this point, as are the many that have written on the subject, but in the legal field it is especially true. To a very large extent, legal professionals have the lives of others in their hands. What you say and what you write has, for better or for worse, someone else's fate embodied in it.

It may not seem like much, sometimes. It could be a small question, a tiny project, or a seemingly inconsequential conversation with your client or your boss. But don't let those appearances deceive you. Don't get sloppy in what you say!

And it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to mis-communicate. It's highly possible that this errant paralegal I heard about today has a very different idea of what she said. It could be that she is innocent at heart - but what she communicated caused her client to go the wrong way, and could well lead to criminal liability on her part. Clarity in speech can be horribly difficult, but it is no more difficult than it is vital.

I don't say this to scare anyone. I say it more as an encouragement, because you, as a paralegal, have the opportunity to impact people's lives in ways many will never know. You are in a position of trust, to both your clients and your bosses, and with that trust comes great responsibility - and great potential to bless, to enrich, and to edify.

Even now that I am a lawyer, I can still honestly say that some of the most rewarding experiences of my life came when I was working as a paralegal with the chance to help people through legal issues on a regular basis. But not just legal issues, friends, because legal issues are often just symptoms of something deeper, and often the reward comes with seeking out spiritual and practical solutions to the difficulties your clients are in.

So don't forget that what you say will have an impact on lives. And study your ethics rules!