Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

New Florida Paralegal Program Registers More than 3000

By ParalegalGateway.com

Another tool to help elevate the profession of paralegals was created through a collaboration between paralegals throughout Florida and the Florida Bar and the Florida Registered Paralegal (FRP) Program has been well received.

The FRP reached its one-year anniversary March 1 and over 3,000 paralegals have registered. About 200 (95 percent women, 5 percent men) of those practice in Jacksonville.

?The interest in the program has far exceeded our expectations,? said Lori Holcomb, Florida Registered Paralegal Counsel at the Florida Bar.

A paralegal is defined as a ?person with education, training or job experience who is supervised by a member of the Florida Bar and who performs substantive legal work for which the attorney is responsible.? Paralegals are not required to sign up for this voluntary program, but some feel it is a good way to advance the profession.

?The standards the program has are, by and far, better than any other organization,? said Tana Stringfellow, who has been a paralegal for about 20 years, the last 11 with Foley & Lardner. ?They hold the person who registers to a higher ethical and educational standard. It helps present a higher level work product.?

The FRP was approved by the Florida Supreme Court in Nov. 2007 to help provide a better service to the public by creating higher professional standards for paralegals.

In order to qualify for the FRP applicants must meet one of the following requirements: work experience or education, certification or grandfathering. The work experience or education requirement includes a variety of educational degree and years of work experience requirements. (details are available at flabar.org). The certification requirement can be fullfilled through successful completion of testing through either the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) or the National Federation of Paralegal Assistants (NFPA). The NALA certification was created in 1976 and the examination consists of five sections: communications, ethics, legal research, judgment and analytical ability and substantive law. An applicant must score 70 percent or above on each section to earn certification. The NFPA exam was developed in 1994 and it involves a two-tier approach with each tier addressing different areas. Tier I addresses general legal issues and ethics. Tier II addresses specialty sections.

The third requirement, grandfathering, can be met if an applicant can provide verification that they have worked as a paralegal for the previous eight years.

The work isn?t over after the check for the $150 application fee, due annually, clears and the ink dries on the certificate. Registered paralegals are required to complete 30 hours of continuing education courses over three years with five of those hours covering professionalism or ethics courses. This requirement differs from the NALA certification, which has applicants complete 50 hours every five years.

Both certification and registration are voluntary programs that are not a requirement to work as a paralegal, but that could change in the future, according to Stringfellow.

?A number of people involved in crafting this program believe it will become a mandatory requirement for paralegals in the future,? she said.

Other plans for the future include offering more benefits from the Florida Bar for FRP program members, said Stringfellow, who is a member of the FRP Standing Committee.

Stringfellow was not alone in her enthusiasm for the success of the program in the future.

?I?m glad it is a success,? said Peggy Adolphson, a member of the District Paralegal Committee from Jacksonville. ?I did campaign for it, so I hope it will be successful in the future.?

Source: JAX Daily Record

Full post as published by ParalegalGateway Blawg on April 13, 2009 (boomark / email).