QUESTION.
I'm currently a paralegal student. I've held several jobs as a paralegal, but I'm interested in starting my own paralegal venture. I'm trying to decide on a business or not-for-profit organization, or both? I would like to draft legal documents for pro se clients, provide them with information about different forms and when to file them, show them how to research legal information and I would also like to be a mediator. How should I go about getting started? I've just been logging my ideas and researching information.
ANSWER.
I think you need to go to law school and pass a bar exam before you can do what you want to do. What you describe is the practice of law. And there is a crime called the unauthorized practice of law. Now California has a pretty liberal idea of what is the practice of law, and they let people (paralegals) hold out their own shingles to do doc prep and other "barely legal" work. Generally, the only way you are going to do paralegal work as an independent contractor is to work for attorneys. You can form a paralegal business that will only have attorneys as clients, but then you might run into problems with conflict of interest issues. Imagine yourself working on a case where you work for both the plaintiff's attorney and the defendant's attorney. That is a no-no. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Good luck! Regards, -Jeff
Jeff Lippincott
SCORE.org Counselor
Princeton, NJ
scoreprinceton @ aol.com
www.scoreprinceton.org
www.jlippin.com
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1 comment:
Hey Jeff,
Sounds great that you know all about your stuff! Its intriguing when you speak to someone who knows what they speak about, as oppose to reciting it from someone else they learned from. I can see you are very experienced and with your credentials it is quite obvious that you will make it far in life, or have already made it far in life :)
paralegal studies
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