WHAT IS A LITIGATION PARALEGAL?
A litigation paralegal is someone who works under the supervision of an attorney who practices in criminal or civil litigation. A litigation paralegal assists the attorney with many case management duties, from the complaint through the trial and the appeal.
Three primary areas of case management responsibility include:
- Draft pleadings and discovery.
- Prepare for depositions, mediations, and arbitrations.
- Assist at trial.
Those paralegal job responsibilities can sound vague to someone who does not already work in the legal profession, so let’s take a closer look at a few key responsibilities of a litigation paralegal.
1. Draft pleadings and discovery.
What does that mean?
The attorney looks to the litigation paralegal to do the initial drafting of documents that will be sent to opposing parties, asking those parties to produce documents or answer written questions (“discovery”) related to the issues of the case.
Additionally, when the opposing party serves that discovery, it is typically part of the litigation paralegal’s job duties to start the initial drafting of the answers to those discovery requests and to start gathering the documents the other side is asking for in the lawsuit.
Many attorneys also rely on the paralegal to do the first-round draft of pleadings that will be filed with the court.
The paralegal also finalizes and proofreads the pleadings before they get filed. This can also involve gathering exhibits and affidavits that may be attached to the pleadings.
2. Prepare for depositions, mediations, and arbitrations.
What does that mean?
The paralegal is the team member who is searching the case database for potential evidence (emails, text messages, memos, contracts, etc.) that the attorney might want to use during these depositions, mediations, and arbitrations.
After the review and analysis of these documents, the paralegal organizes them into electronic or paper notebooks so that the attorney can easily find them during the deposition or other proceedings.
Find out everything there is to know about becoming a litigation paralegal.
3. Assist at trial.
What does that mean?
During the trial prep phase of a case, the litigation paralegal prepares a trial checklist for the team to keep them on track with deadlines set in the pretrial order.
They are also preparing the trial notebook (also known as the trial binder) containing all of the key information to help keep the attorney organized at trial. A trial notebook typically contains the parties’ exhibit lists, witness lists, opening statements, significant pleadings and discovery responses.
During the trial, the litigation paralegal is the attorney’s right-hand person. They are locating exhibits, assisting with trial technology to present the exhibits to the court, meeting with witnesses, taking notes, etc.
Essentially, the paralegal is the case manager and the person the attorney relies on to manage all of the other aspects at trial so that the attorney can focus on examining witnesses and winning the trial.