Name of Host: Moira Carroll

Relation to You: Mother

Place of Work: Grant Kovacs Norell Litigation Council (Law Firm)

THE INTERVIEW –

• What is our job title? Legal Assistant.
• What is your job description? Works for two lawyers and assists with document production, scheduling and filing documents in court.
• What are the duties and/or tasks you perform at your job? Prepare legal documents, communicate with opposing law firms, and make appointments.
• What qualifications do you have for this job in the following areas:
  1. Training? On the job training at the law firm.
  2. Education? Legal Administrative Assistant Certificate via Douglas College.
  3. Experience? New employee…
  4. Skills and attributes (personal qualities)? Good writing skills, accurate multitasker and efficient.
• What are some of the things you like about this job? Preparing legal documents, working with lawyers.
• What are some of the things you dislike about this job? It can be stressful at times.
• How do you anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years or so? Doesn’t think will change much, but may become more tech-savy.

Other question(s):

• How do you become promoted in this field? Get Paralegal Training and become a Paralegal.

STUDENT REFLECTIONS:

• Give three reasons why you would like this job (be specific):
  1. Schedule oriented; deadlines must be met. (I like deadlines, don’t judge me.)
  2. Detail oriented as well; you have to be very specific and make sure there are no errors in your work.
  3. There is no need for talent, just being able to finish your work on time and being consistent is what you need for this job.
• Give three reasons why you would not like this job (be specific):
  1. Stressful at times because a trial may come up and it becomes utter chaos.
  2. There is sometimes need to stay overtime to finish work.
  3. You really can’t do anything if there is an annoying colleague, because the lawyers never fire anybody…
• Is this job for you? Why or why not? Maybe, I like studying about the law and prefer it over most subjects in a job description. I’ve thought about becoming a lawyer or a paralegal, and the thought interests me ever since I visited the Law Firm.
• Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to your ideas about your post secondary (after high school) plans (Education? Training? Travel? Work?). It’s really made me consider a future in law, and it’s made me think more about what I might end up doing after high school.

Other Notes: When I visited the law firm, I was able to meet the lawyers my mother works for as well as her colleagues, and one of them decided to give the task of finding cases similar to that of what they had at the moment. Although details such as names are confidential, I can say that the case is about a child who is currently tied up in the middle of an argument between a mother and father about where the children want to stay (the father lives in BC and the mother in Europe). The two kids say that they want to stay with their father in the province after a two month vacation, and the lawyer I worked for the day is working as the father’s representative. So my job was to find cases that were relevant to this one, and after a grueling two hours of typing in key words and reading through 20 cases, I was able to come up with three, one of which may very well be used as an example in the court.

Later on in the day I visited the courts across the street (the firm is in Vancouver), and was guided by another one of the lawyers. I got to sit in on a murder trial, and watch as there was a cross-examination. It was quite fascinating, and I wish I could’ve spend more time there! 🙂