Unique Paralegal Programs
These innovative programs provide exciting paralegal
education options.
By Debra Levy Martinelli
January/February 2004 Issue
Paralegal education isn’t just about torts, business law and
legal ethics anymore. While those areas continue to comprise the
backbone of programs throughout the country, many of those programs have
developed unique philosophies, curricula or facilities and have evolved
as the needs of techno-savvy students and prospective modern employers
have developed. For example, a number of education programs expose
students to agencies or organizations providing the underserved with
access to justice or using both classroom and distance learning to
educate a new generation of future paralegals.
After several decades of offering a solid foundation of legal
knowledge and practice, paralegal educators across the country are
branching out by developing and fine-tuning a plethora of options
designed to enhance the educational experience and introduce legal
assistant students to some not-so-traditional career options taking hold
in the employment marketplace.
The schools mentioned in this article are only a few of the
many paralegal schools that offer unique and innovative education
programs.
35
Years and Counting
St.
Louis Community College
St. Louis
www.stlcc.cc.mo.us
(314) 539-5000
As the 1960s came to a close, Richard Nixon began his first
term as president of the United States, Neil Armstrong walked on the
moon, the four-day Woodstock music festival in the Catskill Mountains
became a part of the cultural landscape and “Sesame Street” debuted on
public television. In America’s heartland, one of the first
degree-granting legal assistant programs in the nation was born at St.
Louis Community College.
Still on the cutting-edge 35 years later, this past summer,
the Legal Studies for the Paralegal program began offering a legal nurse
consultant certificate in addition to the paralegal certificate and
associate’s degree it has offered since the program was created in 1969.
Back then, said Nancy Simmons, who has served as the
program’s director since 1983, most of the certificate-seeking students
were legal secretaries who wanted to further their careers in law. Now,
she said, the majority of students seeking a certificate in legal
studies fall into one or both of two categories: people who hold degrees
and work in other fields but want to change jobs, or legal professionals
employed by law firms that want to make sure their paralegals have the
credentials necessary for the firms to bill their time.
Simmons noted the program’s student body can’t definitively
be divided into those seeking a certificate versus those seeking an
associate’s degree because many want both. “A lot of students take the
course work necessary for a certificate on the way to getting an
associate’s degree,” she said. “For some, their work experience gets
them in the door to work toward the certificate, but they want to go on
for the degree.”
Courses are offered on two of the community college’s three
campuses, which serve both the city and county of St. Louis. On the
Meramec campus, where Simmons is based, the four core classes are
offered during the day and others are held in the evenings, while at the
Florissant Valley campus, courses are offered primarily on weekends.
“The curriculum was designed to offer a wide variety of course selection
and flexibility,” she said. “Offering the core courses as day classes
works out very well for people returning to the job market and using
their retraining money to make sure their new career path is what they
want and what they like. For others returning to the job market after
leaving it for a period of time, it gives them a chance to learn new
skills that will provide them with better employment opportunities.”
The legal nurse consultant program was unveiled in summer
2003, through both the Legal Studies program and the nursing program:
“The national nurses organization wants legal nurse consultant programs
to be operated through nursing programs [rather than legal studies
programs]. In our program, students must be RNs. They take continuing
education classes taught by nurses or other medical professionals to
update their skills in specific medical areas and also take classes in
our paralegal program,” Simmons explained. “It’s going great. I am
amazed at how many nurses are looking at doing legal nurse contracting
on the side or changing careers to become paralegals.”
One of the goals for the future, Simmons said, is to focus
more on technology. “I think we do a great job on technology now. We
teach an introductory course on computers in law and our
technology-based legal research courses use Westlaw and Premise, a
CD-ROM and magnetic media search software using natural language, fields
templates or traditional Boolean search queries. But as more and more
courts are being technologically innovative, we need to make students
really comfortable with it,” she said.
Multidiscipline Major
Montclair State University
Upper Montclair, N.J.
www.montclair.edu
(973) 655-4000
The Paralegal Studies Program within the Legal Studies
Department at Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, N.J., has a
number of “firsts” and “onlys” on its résumé. According to Marilyn
Tayler, the founding director of the program who continues to serve on
the faculty, in 1979, the university’s paralegal program became one of
the first to be encompassed within a four-year institution. “We started
with a unique concept — a paralegal minor — so that a student could
major in any subject and complete a 24-credit paralegal minor as part of
a baccalaureate degree,” Tayler said.
Since its inception, the minor has included as an option a
Hispanic area of interest for bilingual students, which grew out of a
need to teach the skills necessary in a bilingual legal environment to
students who are fluent in both languages. Tayler said mastering Spanish
legal terminology is critical. “Here in the United States, a notary
refers to someone who authenticates a signature, while in Latin America,
a notary is an attorney with most of the qualifications of a judge,” she
said.
Tayler said the Montclair State program was the first in the
country to offer a multidisciplinary major, and remains one of only a
handful of such programs nationwide. What Tayler terms a “truly
multidisciplinary major” in Justice Studies combines the disciplines of
law, sociology and psychology. “Students learn about the interaction of
law and justice and develop a consciousness about justice and how it
relates — or doesn’t relate — to the practice of law,” she said. All
students take legal research and social science research and have an
externship experience. Beyond that, they choose a concentration in
justice systems, child advocacy or paralegal studies, the last of which
mirrors the program’s undergraduate paralegal minor.
In addition, Montclair State has one of only seven legal
studies master of arts programs in the country not directly connected
with a law school. Initially, Tayler said, the goal of the program,
established in 1995, was to provide a vehicle for paralegals who wanted
to move up the corporate or law firm ladder to positions as supervisors
or managers. “What we discovered is there isn’t really a market for
that,” she explained, “so the focus of the master’s program has shifted
to providing advanced training in paralegal-related areas. We have
concentrations in dispute resolution, legal management and information
technology, and a new one for people in human resources.”
Among the Montclair State program’s other innovations, Tayler
counts establishing the nation’s first paralegal public interest law
clinic, which gives students “the full feel of public interest law” by
interning at a nonprofit legal services organization, and the
Educational Opportunity Program, which provides support services such as
mentoring and tutoring to minority and disadvantaged students.
Distance learning
Essex County College
Newark, N.J.
www.essex.edu
(973) 877-3000
The Legal Assistant Program at Essex County College in
Newark, N.J., is unique not because of its curriculum, which is similar
to those of many other programs around the nation, but because of an
innovative partnership forged between Essex County College and Thomas
Edison State College, New Jersey’s distance learning college for adults.
The partnership allows students to earn a certificate or associate’s
degree in paralegal studies and then transfer to Thomas Edison to
complete a four-year degree.
“Until three years ago, when this program with Thomas Edison
began, we offered an associate of applied science degree, which was
geared more toward starting a paralegal career and getting a job,” said
Bill Mulkeen, director of program and curriculum development and
transfer/articulation for all of Essex County College and director of
the Legal Assistant Program, who also serves on Thomas Edison’s academic
council and the American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE)
board of directors. “But employers — in Newark alone, there are
administrative courts, administrative agencies, federal and state trial
courts and some state appellate courts as well as numerous law firms,
corporations and not-for-profit organizations — want to hire paralegals
with the broader education that comes with a bachelor’s degree. And
students want to get a bachelor’s degree. So now we offer an associate
of science degree because the credits are more easily transferable than
those earned for an associate of applied science degree.”
The Degree Pathways Program at Thomas Edison allows students
to take up to 80 credit hours at Essex County College, which then
transfer to Thomas Edison, where they can complete, through distance
education, the additional 40 hours necessary for the bachelor of science
in Human Services degree. What makes the program even more unique is
Thomas Edison allows students to take proficiency tests to opt out of
courses, conducts a “portfolio assessment” — an examination of a
student’s previous certificates, licenses, degrees and work experience
that translates to credit hours — and includes an advanced level
practicum constituting the last six credit hours completed by the
student writing and defending an in-depth paper about his or her
paralegal employment. If a student has course credit from other
institutions in another state, Mulkeen said, Thomas Edison will review
all of those courses and, in many instances will allow application of
those credits toward the bachelor’s degree.
“There’s no other program in the country like this one. It
provides a seamless way for students to earn a bachelor’s degree while
they work as paralegals,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation.”
Access to Justice: More Than a Pro Bono Buzz Phrase
Highline Community College
Des Moines, Wash.
http://flightline.highline.edu/paralegal/
(206) 878-3710, ext. 3910
Joy Smucker is understandably proud of the success of the
Community Justice Project, part of the paralegal program at Highline
Community College in Des Moines, Wash., near Seattle. What began as a
desire to provide students with real life experience about access to
justice — or the lack thereof — has in just three years quite literally
changed the course of some of those students’ professional career paths.
Incorporated into the program’s legal ethics course, the
Community Justice Project (CJP) requires each student to locate an
association or organization that provides or promotes better access to
justice for the traditionally unserved or underserved. The student
spends a total of 24 hours during the course of an academic quarter
learning about that organization from within.
“The focus of the Community Justice Project is not so much
learning how to do paralegal work in that environment as it is working
for an organization that is trying to provide better access to justice.
We want to raise students’ level of awareness of the ethical issues
associated with access to justice,” Smucker explained. In addition to
volunteering to work at the organization of their choice, students keep
a journal about their experiences and discuss their observations in the
classroom setting.
Many of the sites students choose for their CJP experience
are classic examples that typically spring to mind when one contemplates
government and nonprofit organizations dedicated to equal access to
justice. For example, with the Housing Justice Project, an attorney
assigned by the local superior court oversees a morning calendar of
eviction procedures involving mostly low-income tenants without legal
representation. The paralegal students assist local attorneys who
represent the tenants by interviewing the client, organizing witnesses
and otherwise coordinating the matters with the attorneys. The
experiences often prove so rewarding for the students, Smucker said,
they choose to serve their internship with the Housing Justice Project.
Other students’ CJP projects are less predictable. One
student chose to design a pamphlet that served as a resource guide to
patrons of a local library searching for information ranging from state
statutes (on the shelves in that very library) and case law (in any of
the libraries of the three law schools in the area) to telephone numbers
of domestic violence hotlines and contact information for congressional
representatives (listed in the pamphlet itself).
Another student who became hearing-impaired as a result of a
viral illness, wanted to work with a deaf advocacy program. And a local
elementary school developing a peer mediation program for students to
resolve conflicts among themselves, offered training to community
volunteers, including Highline paralegal program students, so they, in
turn, could train the elementary school children.
For many of the approximately 200 students who have
participated since 2000, the Community Justice Project has had an effect
far beyond fulfilling an academic requirement. Some students springboard
their CJP experience into an area of specialization they had not
previously considered, Smucker said, while others are simply exposed to
an environment they wouldn’t otherwise experience during their paralegal
education or careers. “Students have said, ‘I am planning a career in
corporate law, but this has really been an eye-opener,’” she said, which
is the whole point.
A
Legal Library and 30 Laptops
Phoenix College
Phoenix, Ariz.
www.phoenixcollege.edu/legalstudies
(602) 285-7833
As the Legal Assisting Program at Phoenix College in Phoenix,
Ariz., approaches its 30th birthday, it can boast of a couple of
complementary resources that make teaching and learning legal research
fundamentals easier and more effective: an on-site legal library within
the college’s library and an electronic classroom with a capacity for 30
laptop computers connected to the Internet.
The holdings in the law library stacks of the greater Phoenix
College are impressive. Legal Assisting Program Director Scott Hauert
said among them are: Federal Supplements, Federal Reporter, Pacific
Reporters, Federal Practice Digests, the United States Code, the Arizona
Code, a complete set of restatements and treatises for every area of law
taught in the program, including criminal and civil procedure, real
estate and probate.
In the nearby electronic classroom, the program’s
approximately 400 students learn legal research by doing it. “When I
first came to the program as an adjunct in 1996, it was before the time
of the Internet as we know it. We sent our legal research students to
the Westlaw training center in downtown Phoenix to learn Westlaw, and we
had only a single computer with a modem for use by the entire program.
We were very limited in what we could teach,” said Hauert. “At the same
time, the cost of paper [library] holdings skyrocketed. In 1996, it cost
$20,000 to keep the library current; by 2000, it cost $40,000. We were
under enormous pressure from the college to find a way to save money,
but also under pressure from the American Bar Association to provide our
students access [to legal research resources]. In 1998, computer labs
were added when the library was remodeled. But you could only have
access to the computer labs for certain blocks of time each week. We
could teach LexisNexis ourselves, but students had to go off on their
own to complete assignments at computers somewhere else.”
Hauert and his colleagues searched for a solution.
Ultimately, they determined to reduce their paper holdings by shifting
the paper to electronics. This way they are still able to fulfill their
role as a teaching library. The money they saved went to purchasing the
laptops. “Not only do the laptops allow us to teach all of the legal
research ourselves, they also give students a lot more hands-on computer
time,” he said.
In addition to the legal research course, the computer lab is
used for instruction in interviewing and investigation and computerized
litigation support. It’s also used by the Library Department to teach
freshman English students factual research methods on the Internet.
“You have to find a way to partner and share resources,”
Hauert said. “As a public community college, if we had to pay for those
resources through student fees, the fees would put the program out of
reach financially for many of our students.”
Updating a Classic
Cumberland
County College
Vineland, N.J.
www.cccnj.net
(856) 691-8600
In 1970, when paper copiers had purple ink and were called
mimeographs and electric typewriters were just beginning to take the
place of manual ones, what was then known as the Legal Technicians
Program at New Jersey’s Cumberland County College in Vineland, N.J.,
about 45 miles south of Philadelphia, opened its doors after intensive
study and planning by the Cumberland County Bar Association and the
college. The curriculum included a core two-semester course — Techniques
of Legal Practice and Procedure — as well as courses in business law,
estate planning, property transactions and family law, and a strong
grounding in
legal ethics. In keeping with the times, it also required courses in
accounting, office business machines and physical education.
Fast-forward 33 years, and the program — one of the first
paralegal degree granting programs in the nation — has changed with the
times and flourished in the process. In what is now known as the
Paralegal Studies Program, the business machines course has given way to
one in legal technology in which students have access to both LexisNexis
and Westlaw; courses in civil litigation, legal research and writing and
law office management have been added; and, yes, the physical education
requirement has been abandoned.
The philosophy of the program, however, remains constant:
Provide a solid background in law practice and procedure geared toward
the general practice of law. “The root of the original courses is still
apparent in the curriculum because Cumberland County’s lawyers are
mostly general practitioners. Their type of practice hasn’t changed
significantly, and neither have their areas of practice,” explained Mary
Herlihy Fay, the program’s coordinator since 1989. “Our curriculum is
constantly being updated, but it’s still designed to meet the needs of
general practitioners. A lot of specialty courses wouldn’t serve either
our students or their prospective employers.”
That a program of this depth and breadth developed in a small
southern New Jersey county is still a bit startling, even to Fay. “It’s
kind of amazing that out of this rather rural county came this
innovative thinking,” she said.
The evolutionary nature of the program continues on Fay’s
watch. To meet the needs of the significant Spanish-speaking population
of Cumberland County, Fay is developing a curriculum with a
concentration in Spanish language skills in which students will be
required to take 13 credits in Spanish, including a course in legal
terminology in Spanish. She hopes to welcome the first group of students
to the new curriculum in fall 2004.
Shaping Education
From coast to coast, in large metropolitan areas and small rural
hamlets, quality paralegal education is not only available — it’s
thriving. Through the vision of lawyers, legal assistants and educators
— and the growing demands of evolving, conscientious legal clientele —
curricula have grown and expanded to include specializations and
advanced programs catering to the needs and special interests of a
variety of prospective students and to the employers who, over the past
few decades, have come to know just how valuable paralegals are to the
practice of law.
There is a program out there for just about everybody. It
just takes a little research to find the best fit.
Would you like to read an annual feature on unique paralegal
schools? LAT is interested in hearing from you. We also would like to
hear from other unique paralegal schools about their programs. Please
e-mail
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