Legal professionals typically depend on quite a few authorized professionals with a purpose to extra effectively full authorized duties. Many attorneys make use of secretaries who deal with administrative duties, and a few attorneys make use of paralegals as nicely who deal with fundamental authorized work related to recordsdata. Prior to now, I appreciated the assistance of secretaries and paralegals who made my job simpler by dealing with among the fundamental duties related to working a legislation observe. Nevertheless, paralegals could make errors, often as a result of they’ve much less authorized expertise since they didn’t attend legislation college and shouldn’t have the identical wealth of information that almost all attorneys possess. Legal professionals shouldn’t excuse errors made by paralegals when a lawyer’s title is on the papers filed with a paralegal’s errors.
Earlier in my profession, I labored on a comparatively routine matter. Nevertheless, after I bought the papers, I observed that there have been errors in how the papers had been written. The case was primarily based on a lesser-used provision within the legislation, and I had by no means earlier than in my profession encountered a case that had been initiated on this foundation. After studying the statute upon which the case was primarily based and after researching the availability on Lexis, I knew that the timing of a given utility was flawed and that it required data had been excluded from the papers.
I ended up drafting opposition papers primarily based on the errors made by the opposite facet, and I cited a voluminous variety of instances and different authorities to indicate that the opposite facet actually tousled. It was potential that the court docket would excuse such errors, since courts typically train leeway to excuse technical points within the pursuits of justice. Nevertheless, I discovered quite a few cases wherein courts dismissed actions due to such technical points, which might be nice for my consumer since I used to be defending this motion on my consumer’s behalf.
Ultimately, the lawyer whose title appeared on the error-filled papers reached out to me. He mentioned that his paralegal drafted the paperwork and that was why so many errors had been included within the papers. The lawyer requested that I consent to amended papers as a courtesy in order that hopefully the court docket could be extra inclined to not dismiss the case, and presumably, this lawyer might save face in entrance of his consumer.
I’m the kind of lawyer who likes to increase courtesies, however on this occasion, accepting amended paperwork would lead my consumer to forgoing substantive arguments. I ended up declining to simply accept the amended papers, which put my adversary in a tough place. He tried to rectify the errors in his reply papers, which is the tactic of many attorneys who mess up their transferring papers, however this tactic shouldn’t be at all times profitable. Reply papers will not be supposed for use to right errors present in transferring papers, and this uncovered the errors made within the preliminary submission.
I’m not certain how my adversary missed the entire errors made within the transferring papers. Some had been evident errors that just about each lawyer studying the papers would acknowledge immediately. I do know that my adversary ran a high-volume observe, and this was possible the rationale why this lawyer employed paralegals within the first place. Nevertheless, since this lawyer signed the papers, he’s simply as accountable because the paralegal (and maybe moreso) for the errors contained in these papers.
All instructed, I do know firsthand that paralegals generally is a useful addition to a authorized crew, and I don’t want this text to be construed as arguing that paralegals shouldn’t be employed to finish authorized duties. Nevertheless, attorneys must intently supervise their paralegals to make sure that their work is error-free since attorneys shouldn’t be in a position to excuse errors as a result of they’re attributed to a paralegal.
Jordan Rothman is a companion of The Rothman Legislation Agency, a full-service New York and New Jersey legislation agency. He’s additionally the founding father of Scholar Debt Diaries, an internet site discussing how he paid off his scholar loans. You’ll be able to attain Jordan via electronic mail at [email protected].
