Legal Secretaries

A Day in the Life

You get to the law firm where you work about 30 minutes before the attorneys with whom you work arrive. As on most days, you check phone messages, emails and faxes. You see that an expert witness has responded to an inquiry about whether or not she is available to testify at an upcoming court date. You also notice that a client has called to ask about his attorney's defense strategy. You'll get in touch with the expert witness once your morning has settled down, but you'll need to pass the client's question to his attorney as soon as the attorney arrives.

As the attorneys you work with begin to arrive, you greet them and distribute their mail. You've already scanned the mail to ensure that you're not wasting their time with solicitations and other junk items. After you've helped the attorneys settle in and have given them any necessary phone messages, you ask if any attorneys need help preparing legal documents or letters. One attorney asks you to draft a letter to a client and another attorney asks you to draft a court motion for an ongoing case she's handling.

Before you return to your desk to begin work on the documents, you stop by the receptionist's desk to see if any walk-in clients have come in. There's only one potential client waiting to see a lawyer, so you spend a few minutes chatting with her and determine the lawyer who might be most interested in her case. You let the receptionist know and head back to your desk to work on the documents.

You'll finish the two documents by the end of the day but are also busy answering client phone calls, talking to investigators and expert witnesses, preparing invoices and checking legal citations in a court report. You've had a busy day, but you get to leave when the office closes knowing that you've done your best to assist the attorneys and clients with whom you work.