Question for Practitioners

How would you go about sourcing, evaluating, selecting, training, and retaining a top-notch legal assistant? 

Comments

beats me. I'm on a gov't payroll. There are many factors involved in hiring, and I'm not in the loop.

[Susan]

I'm not a practitioner, but one good place to begin would be the National Association of Legal Assistants. They certify, set standards and have all sorts of good info to get started, including a section for HR professionals: www.nala.org

[OLS]

Since I'm not in the US, I have no idea on sourcing (in Aust, there are recruitment firms that specialise in legal secretaries and paralegals - I'm assuming by "legal assistant", this is what you mean?), but I do know a bit about evaluating, selecting, training, and retaining, since I've done that (or been part of the process) in both private and government.

It could end up a bit of an essay though - how much do you want to know?

- OLS

[patrick]

Hey - why not ask whether God really exists?

All I know is that all truly good lawyers have 3 things: high legal ability, business acumen, and a fantastic assistant.

I think the trick is to be sure the candidate (and his or her kids and significant other) don't have meth problems. But I am in Georgia, so that might just be a local concern.