How paralegals can help reduce your legal costs
Need help with a legal issue but worry you can’t afford a solicitor? Find out how paralegals can help reduce your legal costs.
Any paralegal services provider can help with almost all legal issues, from assisting a business or a private individual who is owed money, to seeking help and advice through divorce proceedings.
They can help landlords and tenants with disputes over unpaid rent, and small businesses that need an employment contract to be drafted or a commercial contract to be checked. Aside from a handful of reserved activities, a suitably qualified paralegal can help with the same legal issues as a solicitor.
And with the economic squeeze affecting all of us, paralegals can significantly reduce legal costs.
How much does a paralegal cost?
Solicitors charge fees that range from £250 per hour to £600 per hour depending on the seniority of the solicitor in question.
A paralegal practitioner may only charge between £30-£80 per hour for their services depending on the nature of the case. This makes paralegals much more affordable, for the same service, than a solicitor.
What can a paralegal do?
Paralegals are trained and educated in a similar way to solicitors. Some have law degrees and others have successfully completed nationally recognised paralegal qualifications.
They can do mostly everything that a solicitor can do except the practice of some activities which remain the monopoly of solicitors. These include:
- The exercise of a right of audience
- The conduct of litigation
- Reserved instrument activities
- Probate activities
- Notarial activities
- The administration of oaths
While these are activities that paralegals cannot perform, in some cases they can assist you with the preparation in order to cut down the time and money spent on a solicitor.
What’s the difference between a paralegal and a solicitor?
The main difference between a paralegal and a solicitor is the fact that the paralegal profession is not statutorily regulated.
This means that anyone can refer to themselves as a ‘paralegal’ and it would not be an offence to do so. Whereas, to describe yourself or even imply that you are a solicitor when that is not true, could give rise to criminal proceedings.
Studying law as a paralegal means studying the same law that an undergraduate studies during their law degree. So, what’s the difference between a paralegal and a solicitor?
Those who go on to qualify as a solicitor after graduation, need to qualify through the SRA prescribed route for qualification as a solicitor, which includes taking a course on practice and procedure and the requirement to gain qualifying experience.
To qualify as a professional paralegal, academic and procedural law qualifications need to be attained, together with a period of relevant legal experience or, via the experiential route, at least five years’ relevant legal experience in the area of law the paralegal wishes to practise.
Are solicitors more qualified to practise law?
The argument that solicitors are more qualified to practise law does not hold water. Solicitors do not have a monopoly on good practice. Just reading the number of resolved cases on the Legal Ombudsman site confirms that.
Between 2019 and 2021 approximately 11,000 complaints were resolved. These figures do not take account of the number of complaints made against solicitors in the first place – just those that were resolved!
How many paralegals are there in the UK?
As at 31 July 2021, there were just over 153,000 solicitors practising in England and Wales according to The Law Society statistics.
There are, however, an estimated 200,000 paralegals working in the UK. Some work in-house, some work in the private and charity sectors, but many do work within the legal sector and an increasing number work as practitioners offering legal services to consumers directly.
How to choose the right paralegal
As a consumer, ensure the paralegal you are engaging is a member of a recognised membership body for paralegals.
NALP (National Association of Licensed Paralegals) is the foremost professional paralegal body in the UK and has a steadfast reputation within the legal sector and beyond. The membership categories have strict eligibility criteria that have to be fulfilled before an individual is accepted as a member.
In addition, any NALP member that wishes to gain a licence to practise must provide evidence of relevant legal experience in the area in which they wish to practise and must have PII (Professional Indemnity Insurance). Due diligence is undertaken on each applicant before a Licence is granted.
The National Paralegal Register is a great place to start if you are looking for a paralegal to help you. You can search by geography, specialisation, and qualification/experience level.
Amanda Hamilton is Chief Executive of the National Association of Licenced Paralegals (NALP), a non-profit membership body and the only paralegal body that is recognised as an awarding organisation by Ofqual (the regulator of qualifications in England).
