Legal Studies Career Links

Career Opportunities   

           The continued growth and complexity of the law, the demand for affordable, quality legal services, and computer technology have created an increased demand for legal assistants.   Legal assistants are employed by law firms, corporations, federal, state, and local government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Legal assistants may not provide legal services directly to the public, except as provided by law.

         Corporate employers include banks, insurance, real estate, retail, and manufacturing companies.  Government agencies employing legal assistants include district attorney, public defender, attorney general, and legal aid offices.  Federal and state government agencies hire legal assistants to work in areas such as agriculture, civil rights, consumer affairs, criminal law, education, environmental law, health, labor, natural resources, taxation and transportation.

        Regardless of the employer, legal assistants typically work in one or two specialty areas.  Examples include civil litigation, criminal law, business, labor and employment, real estate, environmental law, probate and estate planning, family law, intellectual property, employee benefits, or bankruptcy.  Some legal assistants have used their education and experience to enter other law-related careers, such as legal administration, arbitration, mediation, computer consulting, sales, or law school.

General Links

National Association of Legal Assistants: http://www.nala.org

National Federation of Paralegal Assistants: http://www.paralegals.org/

Michigan State Bar Association: http://www.michbar.org

American Bar Association: http://www.abanet.org

American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Assistants:  http://www.abanet.org/members/faqs.html

Legal Assistant Management Association: http://lamanet.org

Grand Rapids Bar Association: http://www.grbar.org/

Institute of Continuing Legal Education:  http://www.icle.org/

Michigan Legislature:   http://www.michiganlegislature.org

Federal Law Links

Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute: http://www.law.cornell.edu

Emory Law Library Federal Court Finder:  http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDCTS/

Emory Law Library 6th Circuit Court: http://www.law.emory.edu/6circuit/

Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute U.S. Code: 
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/   

Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute Code of Federal Regulations:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cfr/

Federal Government

The White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Thomas - Legislative Information on the Internet:  http://thomas.loc.gov/

Supreme Court:   http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Links for Students Applying to Law School

Law School Admission Council On-Line:  http://www.lsac.org/

Search Engines & Legal Indices

Metacrawler:  http://www.metacrawler.com

AltaVista:  http://www.altavista.com

Law Crawler: http://www.findlaw.com

Google:  http://www.google.com

All Law:   http://www.allaw.com/

 General Legal Sites

Martindale-Hubbell Lawyer Locator: lawyers.martindale.com/marhub

The 'Lectric Law Library:  http://www.lectlaw.com/

LawSource.com:    http://www.lawsource.com/also/

 Miscellaneous Sites

Dumb Criminals:  www.dumbcriminals.com

CNN News:   www.cnn.com/

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