Legal Secretary

[ulaboola]

I am working at the moment but have been looking into doing a legal secretarial course, its just too expensive.  Does anybody know a cheap place to do it or any places that would offer a job whilst doing the training along side working? 

I would be grateful for your help.

[ewand]

I think (though not sure) your best bet would be to try to get a job within a legal practice as effectively an office junior and then do your training alongside your job. It is unlikely you'll get paid anything substantial, though your money will rise with qualifications. Pester a few solicitors and ask them to fill you in on opportunities within the field.......i'm sure others will have some good suggestions too...

[Miss Zippy]

When I worked in practice, we did not require our secretaries to have a  specific legal secretarial qualification, but they did need the usual secretarial skills such being a fast typist (min 60 word per minute), pleasant telephone manner and also to look smart as the secretaries would have some client contact. If you do not already have a typing qualification (I think it is called CLAIT these days), you could do this at college in the evenings.  It should be inexpensive (about �40?) and only take a few weeks to complete.  The legal firms I worked for would often hire secretaries from local agencies before offering them permanent employment, this way firms get to �try before they buy� so I would suggest registering with a local agency that specialises in legal secretarial work and get experience and exposure with legal firms this way. Most agencies will be keen to take you on even if you have no legal sec experience (as long as you have the other skills), as they are usually crying out for people willing to do legal sec work. Invest in a good legal dictionary (a good one will only be about �20) as this will be invaluable in the early stages when you are typing from dictated tapes and are not familiar with the legal jargon being used

[ursula62]

Some of the large City firms take on trainee legal secretaries once a year - but they are usually people from secretarial colleges. Pay isn't great, but after 2 years you can apply for any secretarial vacancies in the practice and be paid the same as the ones who've been there a long time.

Try looking up in the Legal 500 and write to the HR manager of the big London firms.