Why This Text Matters for Legal Assistants and Paralegals

Although it is often misunderstood that lawyers comprise the entirety of the legal profession, a large component of the justice system revolves around the work of non-lawyer legal professionals such as court clerks, legal assistants, and paralegals. Spend a few minutes discussing daily tasks with any lawyer and you will hear some version of, “I could not live without my assistant”, or “our paralegal is the backbone of the firm”. Legal assistants conduct clerical responsibilities that are necessary for tasks like file management and communication with clients. Paralegals often conduct legal research and are involved with trial preparation necessary for a lawyer’s (and their client’s!) success. Let us not also forget the important role other legal professionals hold as clerks, assistants, or some variation thereof, whose work is essential in upholding the administration of justice here in Alberta.

Legal assistants and paralegals (“legal support staff” or “non-lawyer legal professionals”) are individuals who perform legal tasks under the direct or indirect supervision of lawyers. These individuals do not practice law and do not provide legal advice. They do in some cases, however, conduct a number of legal tasks requiring advanced legal knowledge. Legal assistants and paralegals play an important role in the delivery of legal services in Alberta, and their competence – or lack of competence – can have severe ramifications for their supervising lawyers and the clients they serve.

It is reasonable to argue, therefore, that this demographic requires a significant understanding of the fundamentals of law, which include knowledge of both substantive and procedural law. It would also be fair to say that soft skills in the form of customer service and technical skills are also required for competent non-lawyer legal professionals. However, despite the necessity of competent professionals working in these roles, legal education for this demographic remains unregulated or standardized and continues to be largely inaccessible outside of legal assistant or paralegal studies programs. The lack of standardized education, either through formal opportunities within post-secondary institutions or through informal opportunities within legal organizations, creates knowledge gaps that affect the daily operations of both private and public sector legal organizations and further create workplace barriers for individuals seeking career progression.

The absence of standardization in post-secondary programs in Alberta for legal assistants and paralegals alike creates difficulties for aspiring non-lawyer legal professionals to successfully enter the workforce. It is challenging for individuals to bridge the gap in knowledge and skills received from their formal education when law firms have high expectations for their legal support staff’s competence and abilities to conduct legal tasks. This is for good reason – when we make mistakes, clients could lose the right to sue, or even end up in jail (seriously)!

A conversation about the importance of legal support staff competency, avoiding misrepresentation, and the unauthorized practice of law, particularly in criminal law, is discussed in Criminal Law and Procedure for Alberta Legal Professionals.

Given the need to develop competencies for individuals working in these roles, it is surprising to see a lack of well-researched and accessible materials available for legal assistants and paralegals to develop their professional competence. There are expensive textbooks that cost $80+ (like the one above) and an inability to take out any legal materials on loan from the law libraries as non-lawyers – and all of this is occurring in a world where firm libraries, which were an accessible option, are becoming a thing of the past. Any free or easily accessible resource that a non-lawyer can access today is designed primarily to share general legal knowledge with the public, predominantly for self-represented individuals. However, paralegals and legal assistants find themselves in this weird place where they are not the “general public” with no legal knowledge, and they are not lawyers with extensive legal training – they fit somewhere in-between the two. As a result, there are few education opportunities (formal or informal) that apply specifically to them outside of formal paralegal or legal assistant diploma, certificate, or microcredential programs.

Most individuals providing feedback in LESA workshops that I have spoken at have commented that they wished there were more opportunities for legal support staff with a focus on procedural law in the area they work in, technical legal concepts (e.g., how to effectively use legal technology), and a sprinkle of substantive law (unlike lawyers, where their focus is almost entirely on substantive law). A paralegal working in a small real estate firm will have significantly different professional development needs compared to a floater or generalist working in a large law firm, for example. Although at a foundational level, both paralegal roles in this example are similar, developing competence to obtain a role with more responsibility requires a certain level of specialization and competence – not unlike their lawyer counterparts.

Formal professional development opportunities in academia for legal studies programs and other legal-related courses come at a high cost and are largely irrelevant to a legal support staff role, as legal studies focuses more on the sociological context of the law. Although an important conversation, it does not provide as much value to paralegals and legal assistants who wish to obtain a greater responsibility to undertake more complex legal tasks within a law office. As a result, most paralegals and legal assistants end up “learning on the job” to develop their expertise, which has both benefits and drawbacks, primarily because their knowledge is based entirely on the resources that their supervising lawyer can provide them in the form of support, guidance, funds, etc. or through informal and cost-effective learning opportunities, such as webinars through various organizations.

Industry professionals occupying legal assistant or paralegal positions typically have minimal professional development funds from their firm or legal organization, if provided at all. This is a disadvantage not only for legal support staff, but also for the lawyers who wish to provide learning opportunities for their staff and cannot afford the cost of continuing education for both the lawyers and their support staff. Although LESA has made attempts to provide seminars for legal support staff in recent years, the cost (upwards of $400 per full-day workshop) creates barriers to accessing that information. Christine Savoy of Mattlena Paralegal spoke about this topic from the perspective of an independent paralegal on the Paralegal Perspectives Podcast in June 2024. Although an advocate of lifelong learning, Christine notes that cost is a significant factor in continuing professional development in her area of expertise.

It is fair to say that legal education, regardless of your role in the legal profession, is inherently inaccessible and expensive. However, the inaccessibility of this information due to cost impacts those who make a lower income (legal support staff) more compared to those with a higher earning potential (lawyers). The Alberta Government (2023) stated that lawyers make an average yearly salary of approximately $145,000. On the other hand, in 2023, the Alberta Association of Professional Paralegals (AAPP) conducted a salary report on current non-lawyer legal professionals in their organization. Although the reports shared with the public are minimal, with no conversation surrounding the findings, it is reasonable to assume the following from their 260 responses:

• The average legal assistant salary in the province varies widely, ranging between $25,000 and $105,000, with most assistants receiving a salary between $56,000-$75,000 per year.
• Pay is significantly higher ($85,000+) for paralegals and legal assistants who have over 20 years of experience, particularly in the major city centres of Edmonton and Calgary.
• Without knowing the number of participants who responded with a location outside of the main city centres, it appears, and makes logical sense, that those who work in smaller towns or cities are making a lower annual salary compared to those working in Edmonton and Calgary.

Through anecdotal conversations and surveys from practicum hosts who have hired graduates of the MacEwan University Paralegal Studies program, I can say with some confidence that the average entry-level legal assistant/paralegal hourly wage for 2024 sits between $18-$22 per hour, equating to approximately $37,400 and $42,000 annually, respectively. To put this into perspective, the Calgary Herald (2023) quoted the VCC and the Alberta Living Wage Network, who stated that the basic wage needed to cover basic expenses in Calgary in 2023 was $23.70. Over a 20-year work period, this same demographic can expect to see an average increase in annual salary to an average upper limit of $75,000 per year (based on this limited data); however, in the beginning of their careers, their earnings may start below the cost of basic living expenses, using Calgary as an example.

Students in post-secondary programs are faced with a high cost of living, requiring students to acquire part-time, or in some cases, full-time, employment simply to cover cost-of-living expenses and the absurdly high cost of tuition. These social factors create even greater disadvantages to international students, and especially students from marginalized groups. New graduates of both law school and legal assistant/paralegal programs likely enter the legal industry with a significant amount of debt due to student loans to cover the cost of tuition. However, legal assistants and paralegals start their careers by making extremely low wages, with lawyers starting articles at $52,000 with an arguably unlimited earning potential (Alberta Court of Justice, n.d.). This creates a defined and infinite barrier to accessing education resources for legal support staff when they are without the support of a supervising lawyer who can afford to invest resources into their professional development.

For all reasons outlined above, this open-access textbook, Legal Research for Alberta Legal Professionals, hosted on the MacEwan Pressbooks platform, was created. Legal research is not a course offered in all legal assistant or paralegal programs, and it is a skill that is difficult to develop “on the job” without oversight, structured guidance, or some foundational knowledge. This resource is one step of many intended to help bridge that gap. I am hopeful that this open-access legal research text can be a step forward in equipping non-lawyer legal professionals with the skills they need to grow in their responsibilities and contribute meaningfully to the legal profession.

References

Alberta Courts. (n.d.). Information for law students. Retrieved from https://albertacourts.ca/cj/information-for/law-students

Alberta Paralegal Association. (n.d.). Salary survey. Retrieved from https://www.alberta-paralegal.com/salarysurvey

Bovill, C. (2014). An investigation of co-created curricula within higher education in the UK, Ireland and the USA. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(1), 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2013.770264

Government of Alberta. (n.d.). Occupation profile: Lawyer. Retrieved from https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/occupations-in-alberta/occupation-profiles/lawyer/

Scace, M. (2023, November 8). $100,000 a year is no longer a living wage for a family in Calgary: report. Calgary Herald. Retrieved from https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-families-struggling-living