Paralegal Student Uses Twitter for Class Assignment

Natalie Rutledge, a first year paralegal student in the ABA-approved four-year program at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, completed one of her assignments in her PARA 1101 class - to interview a paralegal, by finding one via Twitter, a great networking tool. She's @jellilorum (I'm a HUGE fan of Cats) and I'm @ExpertParalegal (but now I'm liking "rumtumtugger"). Last week, she tweeted a request for a paralegal to interview for a school assignment, and I sent her a direct message that I’d be glad to participate, if she’d e-mail me the interview questions. I think that she sent great questions, and with her permission, am posting Natalie’s homework.

1. What's your professional background? How did you end up working as a paralegal?
I have an associate degree in Paralegal Technology from Davidson County Community College and a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Salem College. (See also my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnedevenny). But I ended up in the paralegal profession the way many legal staffers did in the mid-'80s, by starting out as a legal secretary. At the time, I was a single mom. I had not quite finished my B.A. and needed a good job with health insurance benefits. I had a fast typing speed from all of those last-minute English papers, and legal secretaries earned higher salaries than regular secretaries, so I went that route to support my household. Within a few months, I was drafting correspondence, documents and pleadings, and found the legal field was a natural fit for my writing and communication skills. While working full-time as a legal secretary, I started the local community college paralegal program.

2. Which areas of the law do you work in?
While I specialize in workers' compensation and civil injury cases, I have also worked on employment (sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation, wage and hour cases), medical malpractice and civil litigation cases. Last year, my supervising attorney, J. Griffin Morgan, and I published a national workers' compensation textbook, Workers' Compensation Practice for Paralegals (Carolina Academic Press, 2008). I also assist with many of the marketing activities for our small civil rights firm.

3. What's a typical workday like for you? Specifically, what general job functions do you perform?
A typical work day for me involves a great deal of client assistance via telephone, helping injured workers obtain medical care and workers' compensation benefits. I also correspond directly with opposing counsel, adjusters and clients, and love it when people give me their e-mail addresses, because I find it faster than playing telephone tag. I write a lot -- letters, motions, fact summaries and other legal documents. Some days I might summarize medical records, value cases or write demand letters for most of the day. Other days, I might be trying to obtain medication or medical referrals for clients with emergent needs. Sometimes, I go with the attorney to depositions or hearings. In the 14 years I have worked here, I have never caught up!

4. Please give some examples of the kinds of cases you work on. Perhaps you could mention a couple of cases (attorney-client privilege is respected so I don't expect names or anything too specific)?
Currently, I work mostly on workers' compensation and personal injury cases. Most of the people I work with are seriously injured and going through some of the worst periods of their lives, physically, mentally and financially. One client was non-ambulatory for several months after he was struck by an elderly driver, while the client was riding his beloved motorcycle (he says he's not buying another one). Another client sustained serious head injuries and had the worst week of his life after being struck by TWO drunk drivers on the same night, the first time totaling his car and resulting in severe injuries, and the second time while the police were investigating the accident scene (luckily, the second time only his car was involved). Some of the most memorable workers' compensation cases I have worked on included getting a myoelectric prosthesis for a young forearm amputee and a standing electric wheelchair for a paraplegic. I really enjoy the advocacy, as well as the medical and legal research, and obtaining benefits that injured workers are unable to get without legal representation.

5. What do you wish you had known about working in the legal profession before entering the field? What do you really like about the profession?
Since I entered the field accidentally, I'm not sure that hindsight is "20/20" in my case! As a former paralegal instructor and an ongoing paralegal educator, I found many of my students in my introductory classes were somewhat clueless as to what a paralegal actually does and what skills they need to have. I recommend doing as much research as possible before entering a paralegal program. I don't think many new paralegal students realize how strong your analytical, communication and computer skills have to be to succeed in this profession. But these are the same reasons I love being a paralegal: the intellectual challenges, the opportunity to write, the variety of tasks I perform during the day, and the opportunity to advocate for those who need assistance navigating the legal system.

I think Natalie should get an A+ on this assignment for innovative networking via Twitter!