Legal Secretary Courses

A legal secretary is a real powerhouse behind a law company. While the solicitors and barristers may receive all the glory in the courtroom, they rely on legal secretaries behind the scenes in the course of their daily duties. As a legal secretary, you could expect to write contracts and draw up other types of legal documents. You’ll learn all about this exciting area on a legal secretary course.

What would I learn on a legal secretary course?

Legal Secretary Courses start from scratch – so no prior legal experience is necessary. Courses will take students through everything that they will need to know in order to work as a legal professional.

The course will include the following information:

Introductions to legal English, where students will learn the language of the law and the relevant terminology.
Basic legal principles. While Legal Secretaries are not lawyers, a sound knowledge of the legal system is extremely important. Students will also learn about the sources of the law and where it is derived from.
The English legal system – from which the Irish one is derived, and which is a popular destination for legal professionals in Ireland. This will also cover the English court system. This includes the English legal contract system.
European law. As Ireland is a member of the EU, dealing with the wider EU justice system is also very important for a legal secretary.
Contract law, a vital part of a legal secretary’s work.
Human Rights, police powers and confidential
Students will learn comprehension, reading, writing and logic skills that will be necessary to carry out their work.
Courses will also teach students how to manage data, handle correspondence and complete important everyday tasks such as telephone skills, organisation of meetings and mail handling, all of which are essential to the work of a legal secretary.

For students interested in working in the UK, there are also equivalent courses on offer with the relevant legal education to carry out the job in England, Scotland and Wales. The relevant award is a diploma and will qualify all graduates for work in Ireland as a Legal Secretary. With a range of flexible and distance-learning options, there is sure to be a course that is right for even the most crowded schedule. If you want to qualify as a Legal Secretary, now is a perfect time.

What can I expect to do after I finish?

If you want to pursue a career as a legal secretary in Ireland, then you should consider a legal secretary course as absolutely essential. While a course to become a legal secretary is quite narrow – you are unlikely to be able to use it as evidence of qualification in many other fields, work as a legal secretary can be both well paid and interesting.

If you decide after finishing your course that you do not want to be a legal secretary, then don’t worry. The skills you will learn in this course are highly regarded by most employers and will demonstrate organisation and sound judgement in graduates. A prestigious qualification such as this also makes it easy to apply to alternative courses in future.

While completing a diploma does not signal to employers that you are qualified to be a solicitor, it does qualify you perfectly to work in a legal practice. With courses available from prestigious providers, getting certified as a legal secretary will give you a fantastic grounding
in what it is really like to work in the legal profession. Should you decided that you would like to go on to study law at a University level, you will be able to prove that you are qualified to begin a course.