Day One: Penn Foster Paralegal Diploma
- Summarize how the role of paralegals have developed over the years
- Illustrate the duties and challenges of the paralegals in their different practices
- Explain the intricacies involved in working with attorneys and law firms
- State the education qualification and licensing required in paralegal practices
Paralegal = can perform substantial legal work, but ultimately works under attorney supervision.
Attorney = possesses the full law license and ultimate professional authority/responsibility.
Arizona LP = occupies an unusual space between those two, with independent authority within a defined scope.
Now you can probably see why Arizona compared the LP concept to the nurse practitioner model. š
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The National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) is a professional association of paralegals.
Jurisprudence is a system or body of law.
In 1986, the ABA formally acknowledged the contribution of paralegals
In 1997, the ABA modified this description to give full credit to the modern and well-educated paralegal professional.
The National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA), founded in 1974, is a professional organization of state and local paralegal associations.
Every two years, NALA publishes an annual report detailing the average compensation for paralegals in various locations and job positions (i.e., small law firms, working with solo practitioners, or working in a large firm). To review the entire report, one must become a member of NALA. However, the summary findings are available to anyone.
When writing documents used in a court case, lawyers will refer to, or cite, a published court opinion in support of the argument they’re making. This is because courts tend to follow decisions that have already been made by other courts, for the sake of consistency in the law.
When citing a decision, there’s a standard format that you should use that is based on state. Many states adopted The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. However, this isn’t true for all states. Some states rely on other citation methods. Since The Bluebook is commonly used, we’re going to use
Arizona is basically a Bluebook state, but with Arizona-specific citation rules/preferences layered on top of it.
The Arizona Supreme Court's own current materials explicitly refer to correcting citations into Bluebook form, while making an exception for Arizona appellate decisions: use Arizona's preferred citation format and don't add unnecessary parallel regional-reporter citations. Arizona Courts
So for your Penn Foster notes, I'd write:
Arizona generally follows Bluebook citation conventions, but Arizona courts have state-specific rules governing how Arizona authorities should be cited. For Arizona appellate cases, the Arizona Supreme Court prefers citation to the official Arizona Reports and does not require a parallel citation to the Pacific Reporter.
For example, you'll encounter Arizona cases looking like:
Smith v. Jones, 250 Ariz. 123, 126 ¶ 10 (2021).
Where:
250 = volume
Ariz. = Arizona Reports
123 = first page of the case
126 = specific page being referenced
¶ 10 = specific paragraph
(2021) = year
And Arizona statutes are cited as A.R.S. § [number]. The Arizona Courts materials themselves use that convention.
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LEGAL TERMINOLOGY
Before we look at the various job responsibilities a paralegal may have, let’s first define some terms.
Action—a lawsuit (there are civil actions and criminal actions)
Brief—a written statement submitted to a court for the purpose of persuading the judge of the correctness of one’s position
Burden of proof—the duty of establishing the truth of a matter, or proving a fact that’s in dispute (the burden of proof in a criminal case is always on the prosecutor, not the defendant)
Cause of action—circumstances that give a person the right to bring a lawsuit
Deposition—the transcript of a witness’s testimony given under oath outside of the courtroom, usually before the trial
Discovery—a way of providing a party, before trial, access to facts that are known by the other side, so that neither side is at a disadvantage
Interrogatories—written questions put by one party in a lawsuit to another before trial (interrogatories are a form of discovery)
Litigation—a legal action, or lawsuit; also an area of law having to do with trial work
Party—one of the opposing sides in a lawsuit
Pleadings—formal statements by the parties to an action which outline their claims or defenses
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A trial notebook is a book for keeping track of important dates, documents, witnesses, and outlines of trial strategy for a case.
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Since the 1960s, the freelance paralegal has been a reality within the justice system. Before this time, for a paralegal to manage an independent business that provided legal services to the community was unheard of.
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Paralegal Resources in my Area:
American Association for Paralegal Education
American Bar Association Standing Committee on Paralegals
Maricopa County Association of Paralegals
Maricopa County Bar Association Paralegal Division
Arizona Paralegal Association
International Practice Management Association
National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA)
National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA)
U.S. Dept. of Labor Employment Outlook
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Maricopa County Bar Association
Maricopa County Bar Association
Address: 3550 N. Central Ave., Unit 1101, Phoenix, AZ 85012
Telephone: (602) 257-4200
American Bar Association (ABA)
The American Bar Association was founded on August 21, 1878, in Saratoga Springs, New York. Seventy-five lawyers from 20 states and the District of Columbia met in the town hall courtroom there to establish the organization.
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A motion is an application made to a court for the purpose of obtaining an order that something specific occurs as a result of the motion. An example of this is a motion to dismiss, which asks the court to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim without further consideration.
A plaintiff is the person that files a lawsuit asking for damages (a money award). The defendant is the person the lawsuit is filed against.
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Clients need to be kept updated about their cases. Legal matters can make people anxious, frustrated, and impatient, so they may contact the law firm frequently asking what is happening.
The law firm should:
- Send clients copies of important documents and correspondence.
- Follow the supervising lawyer's instructions about what should be sent.
- Use the firm's case-management system, if available, to securely share documents and messages.
- Give clients regular updates, even when nothing major has happened.
- Follow the firm's policy about how often and how clients should be updated.
The main thing to remember
Don't make the client chase the law firm for information. Keep them informed regularly so they know their case hasn't been forgotten.
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Paralegals are expected to produce high-quality legal work. Once you're experienced, an attorney shouldn't have to completely redo your research, writing, or legal documents.
The important points are:
- You may draft pleadings, discovery requests, discovery responses, and other legal documents.
- Your legal research and writing need to be excellent.
- Many law firms have templates for commonly used documents—always find out whether one exists before starting from scratch.
- Different attorneys have different preferences, so learn how your supervising attorney wants things done.
- Ask questions when you need to, and you can suggest ideas—but think them through first.
- You need to understand the attorney's strategy for the case so that the documents you prepare support that strategy.
- Legal documents require extreme attention to detail and accuracy.
The big takeaway
Your attorney should eventually be able to hand you an assignment and trust that you'll produce accurate, professional work that supports the case.
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Law firms must keep case files organized, secure, and properly stored.
- Files may be stored in a Document Management System (DMS), online storage, or sometimes as physical paper files.
- Don't delete, destroy, or close out a file without checking with the supervising attorney.
- Legal files often must be kept for several years because of ethical or legal requirements.
- Firms may have specific procedures for securely destroying old files.
- Large, complicated cases involving multiple parties require extra attention because a lot of money may be at stake.
- When several people are using the same case files, make sure documents are returned to the correct place and kept organized.
The big takeaway
Treat case files like valuable evidence: keep them secure, organized, complete, and never destroy anything without authorization.
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Most law firms research laws and court cases online now, but some still keep physical law books.
Those books have to be updated regularly because the law changes.
A paralegal may be responsible for keeping the firm's law library current. That's important because you don't want an attorney accidentally relying on:
- A case that has been reversed → a higher court overturned it.
- A case that has been depublished → it can no longer be relied on as precedent.
- A statute that has been repealed → the law was removed and is no longer in effect.
The whole point
Before relying on a case or law, make sure it's still good law.
Reversed: A higher court says, “The lower court got this wrong.” The lower court's decision is overturned.
Depublished: The court basically says, “This decision should no longer be treated as legal authority.” Lawyers and courts can no longer cite or rely on that opinion as precedent.
Super-simple memory trick
Reversed = the decision gets overturned.
Depublished = the decision loses its value as precedent.
One important distinction: depublishing an opinion doesn't necessarily change who won the original case. It can simply mean the opinion can no longer be used as precedent in other cases.
So think:
REVERSED: “Wrong decision.”
DEPUBLISHED: “Don't use this decision as authority.”
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Paralegals need to keep learning about the area of law they work in.
If an attorney takes a case in an unfamiliar area, the paralegal may help research that area and find reliable information.
Paralegals who become skilled in a specialty—such as family law, criminal law, probate, or medical malpractice—may also earn more money.
Remember this:
Specialize → keep your knowledge current → potentially earn more.
If your family-law attorney suddenly takes a probate case, they might ask you to gather things like:
- Court cases — previous decisions that may serve as precedent.
- Statutes — the actual laws passed by the legislature.
- Court rules — procedures that must be followed.
- Legal treatises/practice guides — books or resources explaining how that area of law works.
- Legal journals and articles — analysis of complicated or changing legal issues.
- Recent legal updates — new cases or changes in statutes/rules.
So imagine your attorney says:
“Rachelle, I've agreed to handle this probate case. I haven't done probate in years. Find me the current Arizona law on whether this type of will is valid.”
You might find:
A.R.S. statute → Arizona court cases interpreting that statute → Arizona probate rules → a practice guide explaining the process.
Then the attorney uses those materials to figure out what the law is and how to handle the client's case.
So yes — cases to cite are absolutely part of it. They're just not the only reference materials.
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Paralegals need to know the court's filing rules so documents don't get rejected.
Every court has rules about how legal documents must be prepared and filed. Federal, state, and local courts can have different rules.
Your job as a paralegal may include:
- Knowing the local court rules.
- Making sure documents follow those rules before filing.
- Checking regularly for rule changes.
- Telling the attorneys when important rules change.
- Keeping a printed binder of current rules if the office finds that useful, although the rules are generally available online.
The main point:
Don't just know the law—know the court's PROCEDURES.
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ARIZONA COURT STRUCTURE
So you're really learning two parallel ladders:
Arizona law:
Arizona Supreme Court
↑ Court of Appeals
↑ Superior Court
↑ Justice/Municipal Courts
Federal law:
U.S. Supreme Court
↑ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
↑ U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona
And THAT distinction is going to become extremely important when Penn Foster starts throwing around phrases like jurisdiction, binding authority, precedent, state law, federal law, trial court, appellate court, etc.
For right now, tattoo this one concept onto your brain:
Trial court = where the case is originally fought.
Appellate court = reviews what the lower court did.
Supreme court = highest court in that court system.
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CASE MANAGEMENT & CALENDARING SOFTWARE
In many states, failure to respond to discovery requests within the time set by statute results in an automatic waiver of the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine. It's devastating to your client when the opposing lawyer calls your supervising attorney and demands notes of attorney-client conversations, research, and similar papers that had been confidential and protected. Such errors may expose the lawyer or law firm to an action brought by the client for negligence.
YES!!! š The category you're looking for is legal practice management software or case management software. And some of these systems are much more sophisticated than I made them sound.
For example, Clio is a major system. A firm can keep each client's matter in Clio with the documents, contacts, notes, communications, tasks, calendar events, deadlines, time entries and billing connected to that case. Its calendaring can use court rules, and its newer AI features can even extract dates from court documents and propose calendar events.
MyCase does something similar, and this is the feature I think is going to make you go OOOOHHHH: it can create deadlines based on local court rules, generate task lists for different case types, assign tasks to staff, send reminders, and connect everything back to the individual matter.
And PracticePanther has legal-specific calendaring with court-rule deadlines, workflows, statute-of-limitations tracking, and reminders through desktop, mobile, email and text.
So imagine you're a family-law paralegal and you log in Monday morning. Instead of having 40 folders sitting there terrifying you, the system gives you something conceptually like:
TODAY
š“ Garcia — Response due today
š“ Williams — Hearing at 10:30
š Johnson — Discovery draft due for attorney review
š Brown — Client documents still missing
š” Smith — 30-day client update due
š¢ Taylor — Follow-up call
Click Garcia, and you're inside Garcia's matter: documents, correspondence, tasks, calendar, notes, client information, billing, etc.
And here's the really cool part You could actually start learning one of these systems while you're doing Penn Foster.
Clio, for example, has Clio Academy training resources. Clio also offers a free trial, so you could eventually create a couple of completely fictional practice cases and learn what legal case management actually feels like.
Then your training starts stacking:
Penn Foster → teaches you what paralegals do.
Advanced Word → teaches you how to produce professional legal documents.
Practice-management software → teaches you how a modern law office organizes the work.
Now we're getting into skills you could actually walk into a Phoenix family-law interview and talk intelligently about, rather than only saying, “I'm taking a paralegal course.”
And THAT could become very useful for your job transition.
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LEGAL RESEARCH
A paralegal researches whether the attorney's legal argument will actually work under the law.
Here's the process:
1. Understand the facts of the case first.
2. Research the statutes and previous court decisions that apply.
3. Look for possible claims, defenses, and legal procedures.
4. Find out whether the attorney's proposed argument is actually recognized by that court.
5. Report what you find to the attorney—including cases or laws that hurt the attorney's argument, not just ones that help it.
The ONE thing to remember
Facts first → identify the legal issue → research the law → determine whether the attorney's theory is supported by the law.
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Tracking and Reporting on Pending Legislation
Paralegals may monitor proposed laws and alert attorneys when a change could affect the firm's clients or practice.
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Hint: Don’t get caught in the middle. If the attorney wants you to pass on advice to the client, your best choice is to put the advice in writing, have the attorney sign it, and then provide that to the client. If you pass on the advice verbally instead of taking this step, the client will be pointing at you in any subsequent malpractice lawsuit as the person that gave them advice.
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Jurisprudence is a system or body of law.
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