I hope you find the following information on Legal Secretarial/PA jobs useful.

THE ROLE

Legal secretaries assist in all aspects of running a law firm. The legal secretaries¡¦ jobs can include basic tasks such as word processing, audio-typing and dealing with general clerical work. Some legal secretary work can include meeting clients, arranging meeting and some even attend court or police cells.

Legal Secretary jobs can incorporate all areas of law – from criminal and civil law to property, family, corporate, private client and banking.

SKILLS and INTERESTS

If you are looking for a Legal Secretary job you should:

Have an interest in law

Have excellent secretarial skills

Be PC literate

Be accurate and methodical

Be discreet when dealing with confidential information

Have a good standard of English, spelling and grammar

Work well under pressure and be good a meeting deadlines

Of course, a polite friendly manner helps!

A mix of these skills would provide a solid foundation for anyone looking for jobs as a legal secretary

Click here for Legal Secretary jobs

QUALIFICATIONS

There are no formal qualifications to becoming a Legal Secretary, athough a high standard of general education is required. To become a Legal Secretary office and administration experience is useful as is some existing knowledge of the law.

Career Development

Employers often offer on the job training. There are different pathways that lead to legal secretarial qualifications:

** The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PA¡¦s

The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PA¡¦s offer a diploma that¡¦s has been recognised as the most comprehensive qualification for Legal Secretaries. The diploma is extremely useful if you are looking for jobs as a Legal Secretary. The syllabus for the general diploma is divided into five main units:

Outline of the English Legal System

Outlines of the Law of Contract and the Law of Tort

Conveyancing and an outline of Land Law

Civil Litigation

Succession (Wills, Probate and Administration)

The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PA¡¦s also offers courses for Legal Secretaries who would like to specialise in one are of law.

The subjects covered are:

- Civil Litigation

- Company and Corporate Law

- Conveyancing

- Criminal Law and Practice

- Matrimonial Law and Family Practice Succession

Click here for Institute Of Legal Secretaries Website and further information: http://www.institutelegalsecretaries.com

** ILEX Legal Secretaries Certificate & Diploma

ILEX offer a Legal Secretaries Certificate (Level 2) and a Legal Secretaries Diploma (Level 3)

The ILEX Paralegal Programmes (ILEXPP) for Legal Secretaries are now considered the benchmark for those aspiring to or working in a legal environment as secretaries or personal assistants. Reflecting the National Standards in Administration, the programmes offer: a flexible route,
no entry requirements (although a Grade C or above in English Language GCSE is desirable),
a choice of when and where to study, task based assignments which are all accompanied by up to date training manuals.”

The ILEX Legal Secretaries Certificate covers the following areas:

Legal Word Processing

Administration in the Legal Environment

Communication Skills in the Legal Environment

Information Processing in the Legal Environment

The ILEX Legal Secretaries Diploma covers the following areas:

Advanced Legal Word Processing

Advanced Administration in the Legal Environment

Advanced Communication Skills in the Legal Environment

Advanced Information Processing in the Legal Environment

Click here for ILEXPP Website and further information on the ILEX Tutorial (Training to be a Legal Secretary) Web pages

** OCR (RSA) Legal Word Processing

OCR(RSA)offers specialised qualifications in legal text and legal word processing. The course is for those with previous word processing experience who wish to specialise in legal work. This programme is ideal for those who are in employment or wish to gain employment in the legal sector. You will be taught about the production of a range of documents in a legal context. Legal styles and formats. Legal terminology and English grammar are also covered
Legal Text Processing is part of the OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA) suite of qualifications in text processing which are widely recognised by employers as benchmark qualifications in text processing.

Candidates who are successful in achieving accreditation will be able to extend their range of text processing skills at intermediate level and progress to different optional units within the suite of units at Level 2 or to progress to the OCR Text Processing Advanced (Level 3) qualification.

Legal Secretaries work in all areas of law from solicitors offices, barristers chambers through to law courts, police stations and within in house legal teams. It is possible to start as a legal secretary and work towards becoming a legal executive, paralegal or a licensed conveyancer. You could even study for a law degree.

1) Time Freedom – L.O.V.E. is spelled T.I.M.E. For most people, they go to work in order to pay the bills and don’t even get to see their family. With time freedom, think about what you can actually do with your family or close friends. Would you go to the beach or travel to another country? How would you spend time with your family? Think about this.. you can replace money but cannot replace time. Most people work all their lives and never really get to do the things they’ve always wanted to do. By having a successful home based business, you can finally have all the time you want to do all the things you are truly passionate about and with the people you love most.2) Financial Independence – Speaking of replacing money, do you know what residual income is? Residual income is doing something one time and getting paid over and over and over again for life. And how would you feel if you received so much residual income you didn’t have to go to work anymore, worry about paying your house, groceries, and paying off your car note? You’d feel amazing, right?Because you’d be free.. financially free. With a home based business there is unlimited income potential.3) Work Your Own Hours – You can start part time even if you’re still at your job. Then when your residual income surpasses your monthly income, you can now fire your boss.4) Be Your Own Boss – Work when you want, where you want, and if you want. What more can I say. You are the boss.5) Work From Anywhere In The World – Imagine working in your shorts from home. I meant the office. No, what I really meant was the beach. Truth is, you can work anywhere in the world with just having a cell phone and a laptop.6) Choose To Work Independently Or With A Team – You can choose whether to work by yourself or with a team. You’re in a business for yourself but never by yourself. You can create the environment you want by choosing the people you want to work with.7) Create Long Term Wealth – Generational Wealth. Heard of it? All successful millionaires and billionaires have generational wealth. It’s where their money makes more money onto the next generation and even the next generation after that. You can change your family’s finances and create long term wealth through a home based business.8) Low Start Up Cost – Compared to a franchise business like McDonald’s (which takes about $1.5 million to start up), you can buy a into a proven system that will allow you to leverage both your time, effort, and money. But instead, when starting up you only invest a couple hundred to a couple of thousand dollars into a home based business.9) Tax Advantages – Just by having a home based business, you will get to experience the same tax advantages as the wealthy. That also means you get a lot more money back which is usually more than you initially invested into the business.”Having a home based business is one of the best tax strategies ever.”-In the Tax Times newspaper”Why you would be brain dead not to start a home based business (if you don’t already have one).”-In Lower Your Taxes – BIG TIME by former IRS attorney Sandy Botkin10) Give Back/Help Others – Home based businesses can allow you to donate to charities, good causes, churches, volunteer work and help build communities. Also with a home based business in itself, you are helping people everywhere and changing the world.

The United Nations does it. Governments do it. Companies do it. Fund managers do it. Millions of ordinary working people – from business owners to factory workers – do it. Housewives do it. Even farmers and children do it.

‘It’ here is investing: the science and art of creating, protecting and enhancing your wealth in the financial markets. This article introduces some of the most important concerns in the world of investment.

Let’s start with your objectives. While clearly the goal is to make more money, there are 3 specific reasons institutions, professionals and retail investors (people like you and me) invest:

For Security, ie for protection against inflation or market crashes
For Income, ie to receive regular income from their investments
For Growth, ie for long-term growth in the value of their investments
Investments are generally structured to focus on one or other of these objectives, and investment professionals (such as fund managers) spend a lot of time balancing these competing objectives. With a little bit of education and time, you can do almost the same thing yourself.

One of the first questions to ask yourself is how much risk you’re comfortable with. To put it more plainly: how much money are you prepared to lose? Your risk tolerance level depends on your personality, experiences, number of dependents, age, level of financial knowledge and several other factors. Investment advisors measure your risk tolerance level so they can classify you by risk profile (eg, ‘Conservative’, ‘Moderate’, ‘Aggressive’) and recommend the appropriate investment portfolio (explained below).

However, understanding your personal risk tolerance level is necessary for you too, especially with something as important as your own money. Your investments should be a source of comfort, not pain. Nobody can guarantee you’ll make a profit; even the most sensible investment decisions can turn against you; there are always ‘good years’ and ‘bad years’. You may lose part or all of your investment so always invest only what you are prepared to lose.

At some point you’ll want to withdraw some or all of your investment funds. When is that point likely to be: in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or 25 years? Clearly, you’ll want an investment that allows you to withdraw at least part of your funds at this point. Your investment timeframe – short-term, medium-term or long-term – will often determine what kinds of investments you can go for and what kinds of returns to expect.

All investments involve a degree of risk. One of the ‘golden rules’ of investing is that reward is related to risk: the higher the reward you want, the higher the risk you have to take. Different investments can come with very different levels of risk (and associated reward); it’s important that you appreciate the risks associated with any investment you’re planning to make. There’s no such thing as a risk-free investment, and your bank deposits are no exception. Firstly, while Singapore bank deposits are rightly considered very safe, banks in other countries have failed before and continue to fail. More importantly, in 2010 the highest interest rate on Singapore dollar deposits up to $10,000 was 0.375%, while the average inflation rate from Jan-Nov 2010 was 2.66%. You were losing money just by leaving your savings in the bank.

Today, there are many, many types of investments (‘asset classes’) available. Some – such as bank deposits, stocks (shares) and unit trusts – you’re already familiar with, but there are several others you should be aware of. Some of the most common ones:

Bank Deposits
Shares
Investment-Linked Product1
Unit Trusts2
ETFs3
Gold4
1 An Investment-Linked Product (ILP) is an insurance plan that combines protection and investment. ILPs main advantage is that they offer life insurance.

2 A Unit Trust is a pool of money professionally managed according to a specific, long-term management objective (eg, a unit trust may invest in well-known companies all over the world to try to provide a balance of high returns and diversification). The main advantage of unit trusts is that you don’t have to pay brokers’ commissions.

3 An ETF or Exchange-Traded Fund comes in many different forms: for example, there are equity ETFs that hold, or track the performance of, a basket of stocks (eg Singapore, emerging economies); commodity ETFs that hold, or track the price of, a single commodity or basket of commodities (eg Silver, metals); and currency ETFs that track a major currency or basket of currencies (eg Euro). ETFs offer two main advantages: they trade like shares (on stock exchanges such as the SGX) and typically come with very low management fees.

The main difference between ETFs and Unit Trusts is that ETFs are publicly-traded assets while Unit Trusts are privately-traded assets, meaning that you can buy and sell them yourself anytime during market hours.

4 ‘Gold’ here refers to gold bullion, certificates of ownership or gold savings accounts. However, note that you can invest in gold in many other ways, including gold ETFs, gold Unit Trusts; and shares in gold mining companies.

With the advent of the Internet and online brokers, there are so many investment alternatives available today that even a beginner investor with $5,000 to invest can find several investment options suited to her objectives, risk profile and timeframe.

Diversification basically means trying to reduce risk by making a variety of investments, ie investing your money in multiple companies, industries and countries (and as your financial knowledge and wealth grows, in different ‘asset classes’ – cash, stocks, ETFs, commodities such as gold and silver, etc). This collection of investments is termed your Investment Portfolio.

Some level of diversification is important because in times of crisis, similar investments tend to behave similarly. Two of the best examples in recent history are the Singapore stock market crashes of late-2008/early-2009, during the US ‘Subprime’ crisis, and 1997, during the ‘Asian Financial Crisis’, when the price of large numbers of stocks plunged. ‘Diversifying’ by investing in different stocks wouldn’t have helped you very much on these occasions.

The concept and power of compounding are best explained by example. Assume we have 3 investments: the first returns 0.25% a year; the second returns 5% a year; and the third returns 10% a year. For each investment, we compare 2 scenarios:

Without compounding, ie the annual interest is taken out of the account.
With compounding, ie the annual interest is left (re-invested) in the account.
Let’s look at the returns over 25 years for all 3 investments, assuming we start off with $10,000 in Year 0:

With 0.25% return a year, your investment will grow to $10,625 after 25 years without compounding; your investment becomes $10,644 after 25 years with compounding.

With 5% return a year, your investment will grow to $22,500 after 25 years without compounding; your investment becomes $33,864 after 25 years with compounding.

With 10% return a year, your investment will grow to $35,000 after 25 years without compounding; your investment becomes $108,347 after 25 years with compounding.
This shows the dramatic effects of both higher returns and compounding: 10% annual returns coupled with 25 years of compounding will return you more than 10 times your initial investment. And 10% returns are by no means unrealistic: educated investors who actively manage their portfolio themselves and practise diversification can achieve even higher returns, even with some losing years.

People of all ages and backgrounds need practical and customised guidance in developing their financial knowledge and skills in order to reach their financial goals. In this article we’ve tried to describe in simple terms some of the most important concepts and principles you need to understand on this journey.