A paralegal performs specifically delegated substantive legal work — investigating case facts, researching laws, drafting documents, gathering and organizing files, and filing with courts and agencies — under an attorney's supervision.
The attorney stays responsible for the work; the paralegal makes it happen.
This page breaks the job into its core duties, shows how they shift by practice area and firm size, and draws the line paralegals may not cross.
What does a paralegal do? The short answer
The American Bar Association's current definition — adopted by its House of Delegates at the February 2020 Midyear Meeting — is the cleanest short answer, because every phrase in it does work: "A paralegal is a person, qualified by education, training or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible."
Three things follow from the definition's own words.
The work is substantive legal work.
It is delegated — a lawyer assigns it, and it is work "for which a lawyer is responsible."
And the employer can be a law office, a corporation, a governmental agency or another entity, which is why one job title covers several kinds of workplaces.
The industry split tells you where the work sits: BLS reported that 75% of paralegal and legal assistant jobs were in legal services in 2025 — local government 5%, federal government 4%, state government 3%, finance and insurance 3%.
The title comes with a footnote: the 2020 definition replaced the 1997 version and dropped the term "legal assistant."
NALA treats "legal assistant" and "paralegal" as synonymous, and firms often use "legal assistant" for a secretarial role, so usage varies by employer.
The paralegal career guide covers the role in depth.
Core paralegal duties: research, drafting, case files, deadlines and client contact
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook lists the duties that recur across the occupation: investigating case facts; researching laws and regulations; gathering and organizing documents; drafting correspondence and documents such as contracts; obtaining affidavits; filing documents with courts and agencies; helping at trial with exhibits and notes; and scheduling interviews, meetings and depositions.
Grouped the way the job actually feels, those duties fall into five buckets.
- Research. Researching the laws and regulations that bear on a matter.
- Drafting. Drafting correspondence and documents such as contracts, under the attorney's delegation and supervision.
- Case files. Gathering and organizing documents and obtaining affidavits — the case-record work.
- Deadlines and filings. Filing documents with courts and agencies, and scheduling interviews, meetings and depositions.
- Client contact. NALA's canons regulate paralegals' professional relationships with clients — Canon 5 requires disclosing paralegal status at the outset of one — and Canon 3 keeps the direct relationship with the client with the attorney.
That last boundary is written down.
NALA's Canon 3 lets a paralegal perform any task properly delegated and supervised by an attorney, as long as the attorney stays responsible to the client, keeps a direct relationship with the client and takes professional responsibility for the work product.
The pace belongs in the description too.
BLS says most paralegals work full time, and that the work may be stressful because it can be fast paced, with multiple projects under tight deadlines; occasional travel to depositions or trials may be required.
Paralegal duties by practice area
BLS's duty list is occupation-wide, not a specialty-by-specialty breakdown.
NALA's Canon 3 means the day-to-day mix is set by what the supervising attorney delegates — which is why the mix a posting describes can differ from firm to firm.
One split the list itself supports is between court-facing and document-facing practices:
- Court-facing practices. Where a practice is built around court work, the items on BLS's list that face the courts and agencies are filing documents with courts and agencies, obtaining affidavits, scheduling depositions, and helping at trial with exhibits and notes.
- Document-facing practices. Where the work is contracts and paperwork rather than filings, the list's drafting-side items are drafting correspondence and documents such as contracts, researching laws and regulations, and gathering and organizing documents.
Two duties in NALA's code are stated generally, not practice area by practice area: the delegation rule itself (Canon 3), and confidentiality — Canon 7 requires a paralegal to protect client confidences.
Specialty duty lists live in the postings
Paralegal duties at a small firm vs a large firm
BLS draws the firm-size contrast directly: "In small firms, for example, they may work on all aspects of a case from beginning to end.
In larger firms, they may work on a particular phase of a case, such as helping to prepare witnesses for deposition or trial."
| Small firms | Larger firms | |
|---|---|---|
| Case involvement | May work on all aspects of a case, from beginning to end | May work on one particular phase of a case |
| What that looks like | The same paralegal may investigate facts, draft documents, file with the court and help at trial | The work may concentrate on one slice, such as helping to prepare witnesses for deposition or trial |
Note the "may" in both halves — BLS is describing patterns across the occupation, not drawing org charts.
When you compare postings, ask which pattern a role follows: a job that touches a case from beginning to end builds a different resume than one that works a single phase.
Browsing current paralegal jobs shows how individual firms draw the line.
What tasks are paralegals not allowed to do?
The boundaries are easiest to state from NALA's Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility — first adopted in May 1975 and organized into 10 canons.
Canon 1 bars a paralegal from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, and from establishing attorney-client relationships, setting fees, giving legal opinions or advice, or representing a client before a court or agency unless authorized.
The same code states the positive rule.
Canon 3 says a paralegal may perform any task properly delegated and supervised by an attorney, provided the attorney stays responsible to the client, keeps a direct relationship with the client and assumes professional responsibility for the work product.
Canon 5 adds a disclosure duty: a paralegal must disclose their paralegal status at the outset of any professional relationship with a client, attorney, court, agency or the public.
The American Bar Association's Model Rules address the same boundary from the lawyer's side.
Comment [2] to Model Rule 5.5 says the definition of the practice of law varies by jurisdiction and that the rule does not stop a lawyer from delegating functions to paraprofessionals, so long as the lawyer supervises the delegated work and retains responsibility for it — a comment that cross-references Rule 5.3, the Model Rules' provision on a lawyer's responsibilities regarding nonlawyer assistance.
Two caveats keep this honest.
The Model Rules are a model — Rule 5.5 binds lawyers, and the rules that reach nonlawyers directly sit in each jurisdiction's own law.
And NALA's code is a professional-responsibility code for paralegals, not the statute that defines unauthorized practice where you work.
The line is drawn jurisdiction by jurisdiction
Sample paralegal job description
A sample shows where the duties land in a posting.
No real firm wrote this one — it is illustrative, and every line in it traces back to the sourced lists on this page.
Position summary
Paralegal — performs delegated substantive legal work under attorney supervision on the matters the supervising attorneys assign.
Responsibilities
- Investigate and gather the facts of a case
- Research laws and regulations
- Gather and organize documents
- Draft correspondence and documents such as contracts
- Obtain affidavits
- File documents with courts and agencies
- Help at trial with exhibits and notes
- Schedule interviews, meetings and depositions
Qualifications
- Associate's degree or certificate in paralegal studies
- Strong research, organization and communication skills
- Paralegal certification preferred
The qualifications lines are where real postings diverge, and BLS describes the range: the typical entry-level education for the occupation is an associate's degree, some employers prefer a bachelor's degree, others consider candidates with a high school diploma and experience, and some hire people with no legal education and train them on the job.
On certification, BLS says it is not required but that some employers prefer or require it — the posting tells you which kind of employer wrote it.
Paralegal duties for a resume
On a resume, duties become evidence.
Each bullet should name a duty from this page and pair it with the matter or outcome it served — what you researched, drafted, organized or filed, and for what kind of case.
The BLS duty list doubles as a vocabulary check.
Write your bullets in the posting's own words: if a posting says "gather and organize documents," a bullet that says you built and maintained case files should say it in those terms.
For a skills line, BLS names communication, detail orientation, interpersonal, organizational and research skills as the important qualities for paralegals and legal assistants — a sourced checklist that maps directly onto the duties above.
Keep the education and credential lines honest and plain: your degree, and any certification exactly as the credentialing body names it.
BLS's finding that certification is not required but is preferred by some employers is a reason to list yours when you have it — and no reason to invent one.
Career information, not legal advice. Where the line sits between paralegal work and the unauthorized practice of law is set jurisdiction by jurisdiction — confirm anything that matters to your plans with the state bar where you work or plan to work.