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Edited on Wed Mar-08-06 02:51 PM by NYCparalegal
I've been a paralegal since I began working nearly 7 years ago. The only field I've been working in has been corporate immigration (that is, procuring employment and/or permanent residence for highly-skilled or educated foreign professionals and their families).
It is a very challenging field of law that tends to change everytime. In addition, it involves not only USCIS (formerly known as INS), but also the Department of State and the Department of Labor. Rules and regulations change all the time and vary from agency to agency and even from U.S. consulate to U.S. consulate.
As a paralegal in this field, you must be competent to draft and prepare petitions and applications for several types of non-immigrant visas (such as H-1B, TN, E, L, O, P, J etc.) and immigrant visa petitions (I-140) and lawful permanent residence, in addition to the occasional marriage cases (when a U.S. person marries a foreigner), naturalizations and labor certifications.
Although my work is reviewed by an attorney, I have enough experience that the attorney trusts my work and relies on me to prepare work that meets all the regulations and stands a reasonable chance of getting approved. It is a very interesting line of work where client contact is constant and not always pleasant; people can be very demanding and some are needed urgently or there may be deadlines that are important and may change (favorably or unfavorably) the life of a person.
In this field, it helps to be fluent in one or more other languages and, more importantly, to have very good cross-cultural communications skills. It pays very well, especially in those places where most immigration firms are concentrated (New York and Los Angeles/San Francisco).
In general, one does not need to have any degree to be a paralegal and it used to be that paralegals were usually legal secretaries who had been promoted by virtue of their experience and knowledge. Nowadays, however, most require at least a formal study in paralegal studies. Some programs, offered by colleges, technical institutes and universities, range from 6 months to 2 years (I completed a two-year program at a local community college that was highly regarded). Some of the schools offering these programs are recognized by the American Bar Association for their paralegal programs. Some firms may insist that a paralegal have such qualifications. Larger firms, those firms that are most distinguished and firms located in large urban centers (i.e., New York) require a bachelor's degree or higher to be considered as an entry-level paralegal.
Entry-level salaries are very low, even in New York; however, you can expect them to rise depending on two factors: (1) your experience and (2) the specialty of law you work with. Clearly, the more specialized and rare the field of law you work in, the more money you will be making. But this may also impact the geographical location of your work (in other words, if you work in maritime law, good luck finding a job in Nebraska). Of course, real estate and litigation paralegals are a dime a dozen, whereas there are relatively few intellectual property paralegals.
It seems to me that most paralegals are no longer working in the field after a few years and, indeed, in my own specialty is harder to find someone with over 4 years of experience, which is why those who work in our field for a longer time are compensated well.
You must be able to tolerate stress well; some firms have very stringent billable hour requirements that rival those of full-fledged attorneys. Then, you must deal with a wide variety of clients, some of whom are not pleasant to deal with. Moreover, you must also deal with the ego and superiority complex of some attorneys. Hours can be long, but the work is very interesting and this is especially true of a field of law that you truly enjoy. If I could not work in business immigration, I would not be a paralegal. I don't see myself doing anything in real estate, litigation or any other field except for business immigration (even family immigration would not interest me).
Needless to say, you must have decent writing skills, good telephone manners, good customer service skills and, more importantly, a sense for tact, diplomacy and professional ethics. It doesn't hurt to have a good sense of humor.
I found my first job by chance; I had applied to an ad seeking an employment paralegal, but when the attorney who interviewed me found out that I am Italian and I was interested in immigration, he sent me to speak with the immigration attorneys who hired me on the spot. As for salary, I am very close to $60K plus bonus and my salary when I began in 1999 was in the upper $20s (but remember, this was in NC, not a state known to pay a lot for paralegals). I'll also add that the longest it has ever taken for a firm to offer me a job was 2 days after the interview; I have received solicitations (instead of applying for a job, firms contact you; it's a small community and people sort of know of one another) and you can pretty much have your pick of a job here in NYC in my field with nearly 7 years of experience in just this narrow field.
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