The Successful Legal Assistant/Paralegal

The more I grow into my job and the more I work with legal assistants we hire, the more I have realized that the important qualities to be successful in such a position are not measurable and can't be determined in a brief interview.

A successful Legal Assistant/Paralegal must:

1. Think beyond the task given to him/her and question what appears to be inconsistent
2. Anticipate what is to come (I love the days my boss asks for things I have already prepared and are sitting on my desk waiting for him.)
3. Not ask a question that could be answered by looking it up - I hate when I watch a legal assistant bother an attorney about where a file might be before they even look in the file cabinet.
4. Have the ability to switch tasks as ever constantly changing priorities shift - a linear approach to tasks rarely works in a law office.