You’ve found a job sent from the employment gods. You’re perfect, the company is perfect and the interview will be only a formality.

Before you apply and change your life forever, there is one vital thing to remember.

The CV.

Have you fallen foul of the classic CV mistakes that hundreds of thousands of job seekers make when applying for jobs? Well, with our guidance, you’re guaranteed to avoid the dreaded “no pile” and get that interview.

1.    Spellcheck

Despite the obvious problems it presents, you wouldn’t believe the number of CVs that have grammatical errors and typos in them when sent to prospective employers. If your CV has spelling errors, it WILL be binned, no question.

In the eyes of the employer, if your attention to detail is poor enough to allow typos, what does that say about you as a person and a worker?

Legal Secretaries have an important role in a legal office, providing administrative support to the Lawyers of the firm, and they are a vital part of the cooperative efforts of legal teams. Legal Secretaries need to have not only significant administrative and organisational skills, but also need familiarity with legal procedures and the law in general. Of course, the more specialised training a Legal Secretary has, the more valuable he or she is to the firm.

Paralegals play an important part in the legal profession, helping Lawyers with cases, research and paperwork. While the Lawyer that a Paralegal works for is ultimately responsible for the work that is done, most Lawyers rely heavily on the services that Paralegals provide. Because paralegal work is so demanding, additional training can be useful in helping Paralegals develop new skills and advance their careers. Although there are a variety of options available to get this training, choosing the AH Paralegal Practical Skills Course can help existing Paralegals, and those wishing to become Paralegals, develop needed skills without undertaking months’ worth of study in addition to their regular work.

Who Is the Course Suitable For?

The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs recently introduced a new Family Law unit to its Legal Secretaries Diploma course. This month we are considering possible changes to the law relating to marital property and prenuptial agreements. 

A prenuptial agreement is the term commonly used to describe a range of different agreements. These agreements are designed to set forth how property and finances will be dealt with if a married couple separate. A prenuptial agreement is one entered into before a marriage. A postnuptial or separation agreement is one entered into after marriage. 

An article was last published in this Journal about the law of intestacy in 2009. There had been a Law Commission paper published on the 29th October 2009 with a number of proposals that might be formed into a new bill. Well, nearly five years later that proposed bill has been made into an Act of Parliament as the Inheritance and Trustees’ Powers Act 2014, receiving royal assent on the 14th May. The commencement date for the Act is the 1st October. So what has changed?

Key changes include simplifying how assets are shared when someone dies intestate and recognising more modern family structures (i.e. the fact that many in today’s society choose to cohabit rather than marry). 

The Intestacy Rule Changes 

Finding and securing a job can be a protracted, often frustrating activity, but there are ways to streamline your search for the perfect law role, cutting out time and stress as you go. A massive trend in recent years has been the growth of highly targeted, specialist job boards, covering just about every career sector under the sun – from law to automotive to aviation to sales to travel sector jobs, to name just a few.

Legal Secretaries have to deal with a wide range of correspondence throughout the day. They not only interact with peers and colleagues on a daily basis, but also must effectively communicate with lawyers and other legal professionals regularly. This includes not only face-to-face communication, but also phone calls, email, written correspondence, and in some cases teleconferencing or other live video. Because of this, solid interpersonal and communication skills are a necessity when working in the legal field.

People Skills

Any legal case can involve a lot of paperwork, especially in large cases or cases in which one party is attempting to make a large number of claims against the other. Both parties may present evidence or make statements to help tell their side of the story, and this evidence may be presented in the form of a statement of case. While some countries, such as the United States, use a single form for these statements and use them merely to provide background information about the case being heard, English law gives a much more significant role to these statements in civil legal proceedings.

ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course covers Civil Litigation, and Students learn exactly what statements of case consist of. One of our achievement test questions covers this area of practice, so we would like to support our Students’ studies with this article.

The new website just launched by The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs is packed full of valuable information for both trainee and experienced Legal Secretaries and PAs.  One of the features on ILSPA’s website is an exclusive online Membership area, which includes a wealth of resources to help people in their studies and careers.  A bonus for Students is that ILSPA’s widely recognised Legal Secretaries Diploma course is now online.

Office* is taking place on 7-8 October and is now CPD-accredited – giving even more value to our cost-effective training seminars for you and your company.

You will be able to claim a CPD Certificate of Attendance for any paid-for training seminars that you go to across the two days – these can be used in your formal CPD record for a professional body, institution or employer, and each hour of contact learning time will equate to one point.