Inhouse paralegals are type of paralegals who often work with the legalities of a corporation. They are common in cities where many corporations are headquartered. Corporations have long used inhouse counsel to take charge on their legal needs. And now other legal staff have been added to the corporate legal team they are the inhouse paralegals.



Paralegals are quite different in terms of the job nature compared to that of paralegals working in law firms, since inhouse paralegals clients are primarily corporations. Unlike in law firms, paralegals work is not assigned by attorneys, instead, caseloads are dictated by litigation that comes into the company and falls under the corporations insurance policies. Also, paralegals no matter what department, do a lot more of their own daily work without administrative assistance, as such inhouse paralegals are often trained in both the professional and clerical tasks of their trade.

According to Marge Dover, Executive Director of the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA), more and more corporations of today employ inhouse paralegals. Insurance companies, financial institutions, medical corporations and research firms are just a few areas that increasingly prefer to hire inhouse paralegals instead outsourcing legal tasks. Companies are becoming very creative about using the skills of the paralegals.

Multi tasking and being able to handle complex projects are just some of the paralegal skills that are being utilized by the corporations. Paralegals often perform copious diverse tasks and communicate with different people every day. A paralegal may have little supervision, however they may report to more than one supervisor, such as the corporations inhouse counsel and the department head.

House paralegals may either perform the majority of the corporations legal work or specialize in one particular field. Some of the areas that hired inhouse paralegals participate in are contract compliance, litigation and intellectual property law. Inhouse paralegals may also work for the human resources department.

Daily tasks of paralegals may include writing reports to corporate clients, corresponding with other corporations, attorneys, and clients, docketing and file maintenance and inhouse training of employees.

Inhouse paralegals also serve as liaison between legal department and the rest of the company.

The other duties of inhouse paralegals include:

* Filings of company profiles.

* Creating and distributing company board books.

* Maintaining legal department files.

* Maintaining company and subsidiaries corporate minute books.

* Maintaining and coordinating files for employees personal trading files and

* The general paralegal duties such as filing, having agreements signed and distributing to appropriate parties.