“What’s in a Name?”
(a discussion of titles, and other thoughts)
by
Patricia E. Infanti, PLS
When it comes to recognizing the difference between appearance and actuality, Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet, said it best: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” We’re also familiar with other (less poetic) urgings to look beyond appearances, such as “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” and “Looks can be deceiving,” as well as the decidedly unpoetic “No matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.”
And so it is with job titles as well. As ALA members know all too well, you can’t judge an applicant’s qualifications by the title she held with her previous employer.
Job titles are a hot topic these days. Take, for example, the job titles of “paralegal” and “legal assistant.” While bar associations and state supreme courts scramble to define (or redefine) the scope of duties and responsibilities of the legal paraprofessional in the context of the “limited licensure” versus “attorney-supervised” debate, the legal paraprofessionals themselves are unable to agree on whether to call themselves “paralegals” or “legal assistants.”
Similarly, debates have arisen concerning the job title of “legal secretary.” Many secretaries have come to feel that their job title no longer conveys the breadth of their responsibilities. In response to this, firms have been changing the “secretary” designation to variations on the term “assistant”: administrative assistant, legal assistant, executive assistant, etc. Whether these titles are truly more descriptive of these positions is questionable, but secretaries/assistants generally agree that at least they do not carry the current near-stigma of the term “secretary.”
Call me a dinosaur, but I still feel a sense of pride in being a legal secretary. When I was in school, legal secretary was the most respected - and best-compensated - of the secretarial science fields. (The fact that there was a field called Secretarial Science speaks of that time’s very different perception of the status of secretaries.)
Most of what I know today about what it means to be a legal secretary I learned at my very first law office job. The year was 1977, and because I was eager and fascinated by the law, I applied for the job and took a cut in pay to just get my foot in the door. I was hired to handle the overflow work of the senior partner’s legal secretary. This consummate professional was in her twenty-fifth year as a legal secretary (exactly where I am now), and she taught me everything I needed to know – from the big picture to the smallest detail – from what ethics in the law office means, to stocking the office supplies, to law and legal procedure, to opening files, to dealing with difficult clients.
I learned the value of genuine teamwork, that each member’s work is important, that no one (including clients) has the right to treat any employee badly, and that every employee’s efforts contributed to the firm’s success. The senior partner held all of us to high standards, and through his enthusiasm and personal example, he led everyone to embrace the firm’s goals – not simply because we were proud of the quality of the work and the reputation of the firm (to which we knew we had contributed), but also because we were respected, valued for our contribution, and rewarded for our dedication. And a “title” had nothing to do with it.
Having said that, allow me to pose a question to you. Would you encourage one of your children to become a legal secretary? I do not think many would. Neither do school counselors. Why not? If all positions in a law office are important to the firm’s success, why does hardly anyone, including those who work within the legal profession, encourage young people to enter the legal secretarial field? Perhaps part of our reluctance comes from our desire to encourage young people to aspire to a career which enjoys respect and our recognition of the fact that a career as a legal secretary may not offer that reward.
While some of us “dinosaurs” still bear our legal secretary titles proudly, many experienced legal secretaries have either become legal assistants/paralegals, or have opted for the newer “assistant”-styled titles. Some are leaving legal work entirely, moving to corporate environments where experienced assistants enjoy more latitude (and upward mobility).
And the new generation of potential legal secretaries? For the most part, when these young people hear the term legal secretary, they do not think of it as a viable path to becoming a well-respected, well-compensated professional. No incentive, no interest.
Because of this lack of interest in the field, there are virtually no schools teaching basic secretarial skills, let alone legal secretarial skills – this in an era when law firms everywhere are searching for that special legal professional with the necessary skills to fill challenging and diverse positions; positions that are rapidly increasing in number as a generation of skilled legal professionals begins to retire.
Ironically, law firms’ overestimation of the capabilities of computer technology, and their underestimation of the true value of experienced, professional legal secretaries, were significant contributors to the staffing crisis that now threatens them (and to the “cheapening” of the image of the legal secretary).
Once computer technology was firmly established, law firms started looking for ways to get their money’s worth out of this incredibly expensive equipment. Some reasoned that since computer technology had made it so easy to produce a presentable document, and since the computer’s spelling and grammar functions could compensate for language arts deficiencies (or so they thought!), legal secretarial positions could now be filled by entry-level applicants who possessed adequate word processing skills. Experienced legal secretaries were deemed overqualified and unnecessarily expensive.
Years later, firms are desperately seeking trained, experienced, professional legal secretaries with a fuller range of knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, the marginally‑qualified individuals whom the firms have designated “legal secretaries” are de facto representatives of the legal secretarial career path.
Unless something is done to raise public awareness of the legal secretarial profession as a viable, important career, by 2010 there may not be enough of us to fill a staggering number of available positions. As members of your professional association – especially if you have served on the membership committee – you already know what that “something” comes down to: recruitment and retention.
Recruitment would involve raising awareness of the many good reasons for pursuing a legal secretarial career. Here are just a few:
* The excitement of working in the legal field and learning about the law
* The opportunity to work with bright, interesting people
* The challenge of working on complex projects
* The mental stimulation of performing internet research
* The sense of professional price in being an important part of a team
* The pleasure of interacting with clients, vendors, court personnel, etc.
* The gratification of doing work that makes a difference in people’s lives
* Stable employment; in-demand career
* Competitive compensation and benefits
* Flexible hours; availability of overtime work.
Office administrators should seek out educational programs and schools which will provide the staffing requirements for the future. If learning institutions feel that there is sufficient interest, perhaps they will again offer the courses needed to train the staff of 2010.
Retention is equally important. As we have seen, keeping experienced staff is a lot less expensive in the long term than finding and training a replacement. Retention also preserves irreplaceable “institutional memory.”
Administrators can help by fostering a firm culture that encourages those who currently hold the title of “legal secretary” to hold themselves to high ethical standards; to treat every other nonlawyer employee with respect and consideration; to strive to be qualified, skilled, and knowledgeable assets to the firm; to become contributing members of the firm’s success and reputation; and to believe themselves to be legal professionals worthy of being treated as such.
Firms can also cultivate their current staff by providing educational programs in‑house training, allowing compensated professional leave days and/or reimbursing staff for attendance at profession-related programs, establishing recognition programs for helpful suggestions and special accomplishments, etc.
There is one national professional association that is working to support professionalism of nonlawyer employees: NALS . . . the association for legal professionals, of which the Philadelphia Legal Secretaries Association (PLSA) is a local chapter. NALS provides continuing education at the national, regional, state, and chapter levels (and on line). NALS offer two rigorous national certification programs for legal secretaries/legal assistants (one for entry‑level candidates, the other for seasoned professionals). A third certification, the Certified Paralegal Professional, will become available in September 2004. (Visit www.nals.org and www.philalsa.org for further information on NALS and PLSA).
And as for the problem of titles . . . maybe what we need is a Truth-in-Titling policy. Since legal secretaries are almost always the first line of defense against procedural errors, conflict check glitches, statute date “misses,” etc., their new title could be changed from secretary to, say, “Guardian of the Practice.” Or, since secretaries communicate so frequently with co-counsel, opposing counsel, court personnel, court reporting services, and clients, what if we “re-title” secretary as “Goodwill Ambassador of the Firm” (or even “Goodwill Ambassador of the Legal Profession”)?
To paraphrase the immortal Shakespeare, “What’s in a title? That which we call a legal secretary by any other word would be as indispensable.” For by whatever title we are called, in the end we are truly measured by our actions, our contributions, and by how we view ourselves – true legal professionals.
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Patricia E. Infanti, PLS, is a legal secretary with over 25 years’ experience. She is the 2003-2005 President of NALS of Pennsylvania, the state affiliate of NALS and was the 1999-2001 President of PLSA. Patricia currently supports three attorneys in the commercial real estate department of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, in Philadelphia. She can be reached at 215-864-8780 or infanti@ballardspahr.com.
Information for Sidebar:
Regular education at reasonable rates through NALS:
July 25-27, 2003
NALS Region 2 Seventh Annual Educational Conference
Heritage Hills, York, Pennsylvania
Seminars and Workshops
$95 for full weekend; Daily registration also available.
For more information, contact Marlene L. Oiler, PLS
908-806-5144 or ronoiler@att.net
Infanti about NALS available at www.nals.org
November 14-16, 2003
NALS of Pennsylvania
Mid-Year Meeting
Scranton, PA
Eight hours of CLE
For more information, contact Patricia E. Infanti, PLS
215-864-8780 or infanti@ballardspahr.com
Philadelphia Legal Secretaries Association
Regular Monthly Educational Conferences and Lunch-n-Learn Programs
NALS Educational Institute in February 2004
www.PhilaLSA.org