Paralegal Requirements in Texas: Education, Certification and State Rules

Texas does not license paralegals.

The Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS) makes paralegal board certification available, but it is individual and voluntary: no paralegal must be certified to work under a licensed Texas attorney.

The State Bar of Texas has a Paralegal Division, though our research verified only that the division exists, not its membership rules.

And a change could come: in August 2024 the Supreme Court of Texas preliminarily approved rules to license legal paraprofessionals and court-access assistants, then delayed the rules' expected effective date on November 4, 2024 — the proposed program is covered in more detail below.

Our research found no Texas rule setting an education minimum for paralegals: the state requires no certification, and the state pages we read record no education requirement.

What Texas employers ask for is therefore not established in our research — read the job posting and ask the employer.

The voluntary credentials' eligibility rules show the preparation routes each recognizes: NALA's qualifying paths include graduation from a paralegal program with ABA approval, an associate degree program, a post-baccalaureate paralegal certificate program, a bachelor's degree in paralegal studies, or a paralegal program of at least 60 semester hours with at least 15 semester hours of substantive legal courses, and its experience path asks for a high school diploma or equivalent, five years of paralegal experience and at least 20 hours of substantive CLE completed within the two years before applying.

One vocabulary note, as NALA draws it: a certificate recognizes completion of a learning program, a certification validates mastery against a professional standard, and finishing a paralegal course does not by itself make you a certified paralegal.

The state-level option is TBLS paralegal board certification.

NFPA's regulation page counts 16 state-level voluntary paralegal certifications and lists the Texas Board of Legal Specialization Certified Paralegal among them.

TBLS certification asks for at least 5 years of paralegal experience by December 31 in the year of application, Texas experience in the specialty area in each of the prior 3 years, an education credential (or 7 years of total experience), 30 specialty CLE hours in the prior 3 years and a passing score on a written exam; the certification lasts 5 years.

Nationally, NALA's Certified Paralegal runs a Knowledge Exam and then a Skills Exam, stays valid for five years and renews on 50 CLE hours per five-year period including at least 5 in legal ethics; NALA's statistics report 6,665 active Certified Paralegals as of August 1, 2026.

NFPA's entry-level PCCE earns the CRP designation and its advanced PACE earns the Registered Paralegal (RP) designation, and NFPA says someone without substantive paralegal work experience is not eligible for either exam under its current criteria.

NALS offers three certifications — ALP (Accredited Legal Professional), CLP (Certified Legal Professional) and PP (Professional Paralegal) — with no NALS membership required for its exams.

Our research did not identify specific paralegal programs in Texas, and we could not confirm how many Texas paralegal programs hold ABA approval: the ABA's directory page was not readable when we researched, so we state no count.

What our research does establish is how ABA approval works — a program chooses to seek it, the process runs through a self-evaluation report and an on-site visit, the ABA House of Delegates gives final approval, and approval lasts seven years — and that it approves programs, not individual paralegals.

For current options, search the ABA's paralegal program directory and confirm a program's approval status with the ABA before you enroll; check each program's catalog for its certificate length and credit hours — details our research does not cover.

Not as of the latest order our research found.

In August 2024 the Supreme Court of Texas preliminarily approved rules (Miscellaneous Docket No. 24-9050) to license legal paraprofessionals — in family law, estate planning and probate, and consumer debt — along with court-access assistants, to serve low-income Texans.

On November 4, 2024, the Court delayed the rules' expected effective date pending further order of the Court, and our research found no final order since.

Under the proposed rules, applicants would have needed to be at least 18, hold a high school diploma, and hold a credential such as the TBLS Certified Paralegal, the NALA Certified Paralegal or the NFPA Registered Paralegal, or have completed a paralegal program with ABA approval.

Until the Court acts, the program is proposed, not in effect: Texas does not license legal paraprofessionals as of the latest order our research found.