How To Become A Legal Secretary

Podcast Transcription

Hello, my name is Shilpa Wymer and I am principal of Pitman Training Centres in London and Manchester.

This Podcast has been produced exclusively for SecsintheCity. At our centres, we train hundreds of people who want to enter the legal world as a secretary.
Our first starting point is to find out if they have what it takes to be a really good legal secretary.

So, we'll start off explaining that a legal secretary is essentially a really excellent secretary with legal knowledge bolted on.

Now, we're clear on that, we need to know if the individual understands the main requirements for the job:
1. Ability to pay close attention to detail
2. Fast and accurate typing skills
3. Effective business writing skills, grammar and punctuation must be excellent
You'll notice at this stage I haven't mentioned legal knowledge. While this may be a requirement, the above 3 are likely to get you further.

So, here's what we recommend a Legal Secretary should study in order to enter the legal world:
1. Touch Typing -- Accuracy is paramount but average speed requirements for legal secretaries are higher than in any other field. Please do make sure you achieve speeds of 70 wpm or above.

2. Fantastic written business communication -- undertake a course that helps you brush up on your grammar and punctuation and teaches you how to lay out letters and other forms of communication in a formal business format.

3. Become an expert at Word -- I don't believe that undertaking a general Word course is good enough. You really need to become and expert and learn how to insert table of contents, mail merge, insert citation and track changes. You'll need to become an expert!

4. Learn Audio Transcription -- this requires a bit of skill and practice but look at any job description in this area and this will be a must!

5. Make sure all your Microsoft skills are up to scratch -- that includes Excel for billing time, Outlook for managing your boss and PowerPoint if they need you to create presentation.
Now you're ready to add on the legal bits. Remember your job will be to facilitate your boss in helping him/her complete a legal case. So now make sure you do a course that gives you a grounding in:
• How a legal office works, the rules and regulations
• The difference between the types of people you will be working for such as barristers, solicitors, lawyers, practitioners,etc

• An introduction to where the law comes from, the different classifications of English Law; case law; Acts of Parliament; rules of interpretation; statutes; European Law

• A knowledge of legal publications and journals.

• An overview of the English court structure and the difference between criminal and civil law

• How to deal with incoming and outgoing post and the DX system

• How you deal with documents in draft, endorsement sheets, engrossments and certifying a copy.

• How you open new files

• And finally understand about billing for time.

Now add on a specialism such as conveyancing, criminal law, wills & probate, family law or company law

To find out more about how we could help you become a legal secretary, contact one our Course Advisors in London's Notting Hill and Holborn or Manchester on 020 7025 4700 or for more information go to holborntraining.co.uk

Thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Keep an eye out on the SecsintheCity blog for more from me.

I wish you all the best in your careers! The copyright and content belongs to Holborn Training Ltd.

This podcast was recorded at Alaska Studios in Manchester.