What Methods of Organization Do You See Paralegals Employ?

Paralegals use all different kinds of ways to organize documents. One thing they can do is put them into a notebook, and you might organize them from the beginning of the case to the end of the case in a notebook all organized with tabs, that tell the attorney exactly where everything can be located.Another way a paralegal might organize documents is with file folders. You might have to sort through several documents and then figure out which file they go into. Then, when you’re done, you hand the file over to the attorney, and then they have it all organized so they can figure out where everything is. Another way that you might organize documents is on the computer. You might want to make up files under your client’s name, and then in each file you put different things. You have one that’s called ‘correspondence,’ one that’s called ‘evidence,’ one that’s called ‘discovery.’ You might have one called ‘pleadings.’ Then they’re all filed away, and they’re readily accessible.

The most important thing to organizing documents is they have to be accessible. You have to be able to find what you’re looking for, and find it quickly. A lot of times, attorneys like a section that’s called ‘law,’ so you would put all the case law in there that you find, any cases that are similar to yours, or you might put the roles in there. Then the attorney can have ready access to it. A lot of times, when you go to court, you don’t have a lot of time to find things. You have to think on your feet, you have to look quickly, and it’s very nice to have the documents organized, so you can quickly go to whatever page you want, and usually with the use of tabs in a notebook or with files folders inside of a box, you can quickly find what you’re looking for.