My parenting skills and my paralegal skills are so often used interchangeably. You don’t have to be a parent to understand and appreciate this week’s blog. I know many paralegals and legal assistants with no children who have the absolute best parenting skills and use them every day on the job with their coworkers and clients. 

Parents are oftentimes influential teachers, consistent nurturers and the most important role models to our children. This is obvious. But all of those things can be said about your role as a paralegal as well. 

Just like being a parent, a paralegal’s work is often overlooked. We seem to immediately look to the parents to place blame when things don’t go well; yet, rarely acknowledge the contributions they make when things do go well. Having an ego is not a part of either job description. So if you want to be successful in this field, you have to be able to accept this as you cannot change this. Moreover, if your goal is to truly be the best paralegal (or parent) you can possibly be, this will not bother you in the slightest, as your goal is not recognition. 

Any good parent knows their job is truly to prepare their child to be able to function and operate like a responsible adult on their own. As a paralegal, you may know this as preparing a trial notebook. (My overuse of sarcasm in this blog is a symptom of years in the legal field, I am sure most of you can relate.) Any attorney who walks into court with a well-prepared trial notebook feels all the security of an indomitable trust fund baby. 

Just like being a parent, a paralegal’s role is a supportive role. Despite how some parents choose to parent, and some paralegals choose to paralegal – our role is not to do everything for our children and our attorneys, but rather support them to be their absolute best in everything we do. When a paralegal and attorney have a deep appreciation for this, that is when a paralegal’s work really shines. 

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