Lewis and Clark Community College

Lewis and Clark Community College

Enroll at Lewis and Clark Community College Paralegal Program

The goal of our Paralegal program is to prepare individuals for employment as paralegals. Paralegals are qualified, through education, training, or work experience, to perform substantive legal work requiring a sufficient knowledge of legal concepts, under the direction and supervision of an attorney. The employment opportunities that Paralegals enjoy are wide and varied, including private law offices, corporations, real estate and title companies, bank and trust agencies and government and judicial offices.

Paralegals, or legal assistants, are taking on more responsibilities in law offices, as stated in the Occupational Outlook Handbook. All types of organizations need paralegals, but law firms, corporate legal departments, and various government offices are the most frequent employers of paralegals. Law, including litigation, personal injury, corporate law, criminal law, employee benefits, intellectual property, labor law, bankruptcy, immigration, family law, and real estate are just some of the areas of law in which a paralegal may find work. The responsibilities of paralegals differ largely based on the type of organization in which they work for. However, in all areas of paralegal work, computer skills and technical knowledge have become essential.

To keep students from being granted a degree or taking a course where they would be crippled by a lack of understanding of new developments in the field of study, courses taken over eight years ago may be refused to be considered as a prerequisite course or another part of the program requirement, depending on the significance of changes in the field of study.

Students must successfully meet the requirements to complete their A.A.S. paralegal program degree in the Paralegal Program, and it is required that a student earn a grade of C or higher in the following courses: PLGL 130, PLGL 140, PLGL 150, PLGL 160 and PLGL 240.

Students must enroll in the Paralegal Cooperative course during the last semester of the program, and by that time it is required that they have taken all the courses that start with a PLGL prefix.