Working In The Legal Industry As A Secretary or Word Processing Operator!
Working In The Legal Industry As A Secretary or Word Processing Operator!
This article from AdvanceTo Training and Consulting serves to inform the public as to how one can enter the legal support sector of a very large and dynamic industry. AdvanceTo trains people from basic through advanced legal and corporate MS Word, Excel, Power Point, Document Management Systems (DMS), Adobe Pro and Nuance as well as Outlook. We do Internet, phone, in person classes all Hands-On and Instructor Led. We can train at your office or you come to us. We also do top notch test prep training and test creation for both legal firms and employment agencies. We also help in the placement of our students. We are one of the very few that teach top-tier style training based on thousands of hours of situational experience within top-tier legal firms. We have held the positions of Coordinator, Lead Operator, Help Desk and IT Help Desk. We share high level material on a regular basis in our blogs as well as in our training.
When one has made the decision to seek employment in a law firm large or small, they have made a decision to significantly upgrade their MS Word skills. Someone who has not worked in the legal environment has not been exposed to MS Word, Power Point and Excel in the manner and level that these softwares are used in a law firm.
Employment agencies and law firms will test you on your generic MS Word skill level and they are looking to assess whether you have been sufficiently exposed to those functions specifically relating to day to day activity when working in corporate and/or litigation firm.
Some of the functions that you will need to know are the following: Table of Contents, Table of Authorities, Index of Terms, Cross References, Footnotes, Styles, Multilevel Outlines, Financial Tables, Black Lining, Track Changes, and basic knowledge of Power Point and Excel.
If you are to do well on hands-on tests then this opens you up to working in legal firms both large and small. The larger law firms operate on a 24/7 basis and three shifts have to be staffed on an ongoing basis. Keep in mind that this is going on in all large cities that have offices that represent the top 500 legal firms so there are always opportunities to break into the legal field not to mention the thousands of medium and smaller sized firms.
Another method of testing your Microsoft skills level is to administer a "Prove-IT" test. A Prove-It test is a computer based test that asks questions and simulates the Menu Systems so when you answer a question they want to see if you know where to go in order to access certain functions and features. Unlike the Hands-On test, the job agency may not be able to determine the depth of knowledge of a particular individual but they will get a general snap shot of where that candidate is in terms of knowledge at this point in time.
Although the legal firms and job agencies test you on your generic MS Word skills, many law firms namely medium to large firms, make use of third party software. The third party software covers procedures such as Innova and Softwise for Multilevel Outlining, Deltaview and Change Pro for Document Comparison Black Linings, Best Authority and others for running a Table of Authorities. Doc X Tools for Document Cleanup . These third party softwares serve to simplify certain major features in legal firms and they serve to diminish the learning curve so that larger groups of staff can be brought up to speed that much faster.
Smaller firms tend to make use of generic MS Word and therefore those secretaries become very good at using MS Word to its full capability.
If someone loses their position from a top-tier firm and have been using 3rd party software for a length of time, they usually become rusty on their generic MS Word skills and most probably need a refresher course in order to be Legal Test Ready.
When it comes to Document Management, large firms use programs such as IManage and Docs Open that serve to provide easy and quick access to a voluminous amount of documentation. While small firms rely on naming their documents, larger firms make use of the DMS that assigns a sequential document number to each individual document. This document number then is automatically placed at the bottom of the footer of the document for easy access by both attorney and staff that need to work on those those documents. The DMS also allows the IT Department to give specific access to specific individuals and groups thus protecting certain documents from public exposure.
Most legal firms use what is called a Client/Matter number system. These are numbering systems that identify the client as well as the nature of the work being done for that particular Client. So ABC Company is the Client and identified let us say by Document Number 34276 and the matters for that client unfold as the following: Lease Agreement, Maintenance Contract, Commercial Mortgage Agreement. Those matters would be assigned 001, 002, and 003 respectively. So, the Client/Matter number would look like this: 34276/001 identifying the client and the nature of the work being done for that particular matter. The Client/Matter numbers are then used for the billing of the client as to how much attorney, paralegal and secretary time was spent on the behalf of the client.
Secretaries key in the narrative of what the attorney did for the client based on either 6 minute intervals or 15 minute intervals using Time Entry Software. The accounting department then complies this information and creates an invoice for the client.
We at AdvanceTo hope that we gave you a nice overview of how the law firms operate and the level of training necessary in order to operate comfortably in a legal environment. Our students work as secretaries, and word processing operators, in firms large and small. We look forward for the opportunity to help you.
Feel free to contact us:
www.advanceto.com
888-422-0692 Ext. 1 and 2
This article from AdvanceTo Training and Consulting serves to inform the public as to how one can enter the legal support sector of a very large and dynamic industry. AdvanceTo trains people from basic through advanced legal and corporate MS Word, Excel, Power Point, Document Management Systems (DMS), Adobe Pro and Nuance as well as Outlook. We do Internet, phone, in person classes all Hands-On and Instructor Led. We can train at your office or you come to us. We also do top notch test prep training and test creation for both legal firms and employment agencies. We also help in the placement of our students. We are one of the very few that teach top-tier style training based on thousands of hours of situational experience within top-tier legal firms. We have held the positions of Coordinator, Lead Operator, Help Desk and IT Help Desk. We share high level material on a regular basis in our blogs as well as in our training.
When one has made the decision to seek employment in a law firm large or small, they have made a decision to significantly upgrade their MS Word skills. Someone who has not worked in the legal environment has not been exposed to MS Word, Power Point and Excel in the manner and level that these softwares are used in a law firm.
Employment agencies and law firms will test you on your generic MS Word skill level and they are looking to assess whether you have been sufficiently exposed to those functions specifically relating to day to day activity when working in corporate and/or litigation firm.
Some of the functions that you will need to know are the following: Table of Contents, Table of Authorities, Index of Terms, Cross References, Footnotes, Styles, Multilevel Outlines, Financial Tables, Black Lining, Track Changes, and basic knowledge of Power Point and Excel.
If you are to do well on hands-on tests then this opens you up to working in legal firms both large and small. The larger law firms operate on a 24/7 basis and three shifts have to be staffed on an ongoing basis. Keep in mind that this is going on in all large cities that have offices that represent the top 500 legal firms so there are always opportunities to break into the legal field not to mention the thousands of medium and smaller sized firms.
Another method of testing your Microsoft skills level is to administer a "Prove-IT" test. A Prove-It test is a computer based test that asks questions and simulates the Menu Systems so when you answer a question they want to see if you know where to go in order to access certain functions and features. Unlike the Hands-On test, the job agency may not be able to determine the depth of knowledge of a particular individual but they will get a general snap shot of where that candidate is in terms of knowledge at this point in time.
Although the legal firms and job agencies test you on your generic MS Word skills, many law firms namely medium to large firms, make use of third party software. The third party software covers procedures such as Innova and Softwise for Multilevel Outlining, Deltaview and Change Pro for Document Comparison Black Linings, Best Authority and others for running a Table of Authorities. Doc X Tools for Document Cleanup . These third party softwares serve to simplify certain major features in legal firms and they serve to diminish the learning curve so that larger groups of staff can be brought up to speed that much faster.
Smaller firms tend to make use of generic MS Word and therefore those secretaries become very good at using MS Word to its full capability.
If someone loses their position from a top-tier firm and have been using 3rd party software for a length of time, they usually become rusty on their generic MS Word skills and most probably need a refresher course in order to be Legal Test Ready.
When it comes to Document Management, large firms use programs such as IManage and Docs Open that serve to provide easy and quick access to a voluminous amount of documentation. While small firms rely on naming their documents, larger firms make use of the DMS that assigns a sequential document number to each individual document. This document number then is automatically placed at the bottom of the footer of the document for easy access by both attorney and staff that need to work on those those documents. The DMS also allows the IT Department to give specific access to specific individuals and groups thus protecting certain documents from public exposure.
Most legal firms use what is called a Client/Matter number system. These are numbering systems that identify the client as well as the nature of the work being done for that particular Client. So ABC Company is the Client and identified let us say by Document Number 34276 and the matters for that client unfold as the following: Lease Agreement, Maintenance Contract, Commercial Mortgage Agreement. Those matters would be assigned 001, 002, and 003 respectively. So, the Client/Matter number would look like this: 34276/001 identifying the client and the nature of the work being done for that particular matter. The Client/Matter numbers are then used for the billing of the client as to how much attorney, paralegal and secretary time was spent on the behalf of the client.
Secretaries key in the narrative of what the attorney did for the client based on either 6 minute intervals or 15 minute intervals using Time Entry Software. The accounting department then complies this information and creates an invoice for the client.
We at AdvanceTo hope that we gave you a nice overview of how the law firms operate and the level of training necessary in order to operate comfortably in a legal environment. Our students work as secretaries, and word processing operators, in firms large and small. We look forward for the opportunity to help you.
Feel free to contact us:
www.advanceto.com
888-422-0692 Ext. 1 and 2