Paralegal Certificate Program
ABA Approved

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Handbook, employment of paralegals and legal assistants is projected to grow 18 percent between 2010 and 2020, faster than the average for all occupations. Employers are trying to reduce costs and increase the availability and efficiency of legal services by hiring paralegals to perform tasks once done by lawyers. Paralegals are performing a wider variety of duties, making them more useful to businesses. NALA has a useful guide to typical paralegal duties by specialty that you can view online or download.

Demand for paralegals also is expected to grow as an expanding population increasingly requires legal services, especially in areas such as intellectual property, health care, international law, elder issues, criminal law, and environmental law. The growth of prepaid legal plans also should contribute to the demand for legal services.

Private law firms will continue to be the largest employers of paralegals, but a growing array of other organizations, such as corporate legal departments, insurance companies, real estate and title insurance firms, and banks also hire paralegals. Corporations in particular are expected to increase their in-house legal departments to out costs. In part because of the range of tasks they can perform, paralegals are also increasingly employed in small and medium-size establishments of all types. Take a look at the NALA 2010 National Utilization and Compensation Survey Report to review the current data.