Becoming a commercial Legal Secretary
Legal Secretaries are individuals who work within the legal industry. They also go by other names, such as ‘Administrative Assistants’ or ‘Legal Assistants’. Their duties include performing daily ‘clerical functions.
What are clerical functions?
Clerical functions are found in many industries. They are basically what one would refer to as an office job; where people work in an office environment. The duties of a clerical worker vary depending on the industry.
But mainly clerical functions refers to answering phone calls, filing documents, scheduling meetings, sorting the company’s incoming mails and bills such as accounts by clients, and also preparing documents, which is mainly the ‘typing’ of documents.
As a Legal Secretary, you will be performing clerical functions. Your duties will include assisting a Legal professional such as a Lawyer or an Attorney.
Commercial Legal Secretaries
As a Commercial Legal Secretary, you will be working for commercial Legal companies. What this means is, you will being working for commercial law or business law companies. Companies that deal with financing and loans, and legal companies that deal with both issues of private and public law.
If you intend on acquiring a job as a Commercial Legal Secretary, having a general understanding of commercial business can put you in the front line in a job interview. However, this is not a requirement.
What are the Skills required to become a Commercial Legal Secretary?
Some of the skills will have to match with what you will be required to do as a Legal Secretary. So having basic secretarial skills will put you in a position to better perform the job. Other skills also include the ability to answer the phones, typing and the filling of documents.
Also, being able to maintain this job will require you to have an understanding of legal terminology.
Education
You can get a Secretarial Certificate with colleges such as:
Institute of Secretarial Studies
College SA
Damelin Correspondence College
This is not to say you need qualifications to become a Legal Secretary however, most job posts with higher paying jobs require you to have some formal training. The above colleges will provide you with the basic secretarial skills and training to become a Secretary or Assistant.
If you have you have the qualifications or the passion to perform legal jobs, visit or browse through the Job Mail website for Legal Secretary Jobs and other ideal jobs in South Africa.
