Network, Network, Network (Locally & Online)

1.     Join your local legal assistant, legal secretary or paralegal organization.  Attend the meetings regularly.  Volunteer for committees.  The friends you make could be real lifesavers when you find yourself looking for your first legal job or are perhaps without a job unexpectedly.

2.     Is there a legal administrators website in your city which lists available jobs?  If so, watch the website regularly, especially when new jobs are added.

3.     Become familiar with the owner(s) of the placement agencies in town.  We have one in the city I live in which is owned by an attorney, catering to the legal community only.

4.     Visit the following websites for networking online:

www.yahoogroups.com

Become a member of Yahoo and sign up for the “Paralegal” group; “litigation_support” group; “paralegalgateway”;  “allparalegalsnetworkingetc” and “Lsclass”

Important Note:  Groups (aka “listservs”) are just that – a number of people who come together for a common purpose.  Not everyone agrees all the time.  My warning here is join whatever group interests you but do not be disheartened by some of the petty bickering that occurs within these groups.  Simply ignore it.

Each group has a moderator who will hopefully keep the groups’ level of professionalism high.  Just ignore some of the “ugly” postings and learn what you can from the rest.