The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions; the responses were written by the Center for Legal Studies. If you cannot find the answer to your question here, please call The Center for Legal Studies at 303-273-9777 or email info@legalstudies.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How soon after the course will I receive my certificate?
- Do I have to be online at a specific time everyday to take the online course?
- Are there any prerequisites?
- Do I have to take the Paralegal Certificate Course from a school in my state?
- Can I get college credit for this course?
- Can I get financial aid for the Paralegal Certificate Course?
- Does The Center for Legal Studies provide help with job placement?
- Are books included in the tuition price for the Paralegal Certificate Course?
- Can the Paralegal Certificate Course adequately prepare students to be competent paralegals?
- What are the advantages of the Paralegal Certificate Course to a prospective student?
- What are the advantages to law firms who place employees in the Paralegal Certificate Course?
- How can the Paralegal Certificate Course be designed for both students with law firm experience and those with no law firm experience?
- Is the Paralegal Certificate Course offered by The Center for Legal Studies approved by the American Bar Association?
Q: How soon after the course will I receive my certificate?
A: Within six to eight weeks
Q: Do I have to be online at a specific time everyday to take the online course?
A: No. Students can check in at their convenience, but are required to submit tests and assignments by a specified date and time. Tests and assignments can be submitted previous to the required date and time.
Q: Are there any prerequisites?
A: For most of our courses, students should have a high school diploma or GED. The Center for Legal Studies recommends previous college or law office experience, but we have had plenty of successful graduates who have had neither. If we have a course with additional requirements, they will be listed in the course description for the course.
Q: Do I have to take the Paralegal Certificate Course from a school in my state?
A: No. The paralegal profession is not regulated on a state by state basis, except in California. Students may take the course in any state, and use their certificate in any state.
Q: Can I get college credit for this course?
A: Students taking the course through the Colorado State University at Pueblo or at Adams State College can receive six undergraduate upper division elective credits. The remaining colleges and universities offer the course through their continuing education or extended studies departments. As a continuing education course, the Paralegal Certificate Course taken with CLS and the University of Georgia is not likely to transfer to another paralegal program, should the student wish to go to an alternative school.
Q: Can I get financial aid for the Paralegal Certificate Course?
A: Traditional financial aid (Pell grants, Stafford Loans, etc.) usually do not apply to this course due to its continuing education status. Please view our Financial Aid information for other alternatives.
Sally Mae Financial Loans
SLM Financial, a Sallie Mae company, helps students and families achieve their education goals through its student loan division. Loans are now available for Georgia Center courses priced over $450. The Sallie Mae Loan application process is fast and they have among the highest acceptance rates in the industry. For more details about qualifying for a Sallie Mae Financial Loan, click here.
Q: Does The Center for Legal Studies provide help with job placement?
A: The Center for Legal Studies does not provide job placement, but will provide internship assistance to those live lecture students graduating with an "A" average and in the top 25% of their class.
Q: Are books included in the tuition price for the Paralegal Certificate Course?
A: In most cases, books are not included in the course tuition. Students will be required to purchase their books for the course. An approximate cost of books for the Paralegal Certificate Course is $280. This amount can vary based on the purchase of supplemental text books and shipping.
Q: Can the Paralegal Certificate Course adequately prepare students to be competent paralegals?
A: Yes. Thousands of students have successfully completed our course since 1980. Please note that the total number of class hours is comparable to almost all other paralegal programs offered by the significantly more expensive proprietary paralegal "institutes". The structure and presentation of materials is designed for maximum efficiency of instruction. Students are expected to perform an average of fifteen hours of homework outside of class between the sessions.
For example, manual and computerized legal research is scheduled to be taught over the final two sessions of the course. As early as Session Two, however, the foundations of legal research are already being established. Session Two includes training in the rules of civil procedure. Students are not only made familiar with the most important rules, they are taught how to access the rules. The skills learned at this level are a precursor to the more advanced techniques acquired later in the course.
Q: What are the advantages of the Paralegal Certificate Course to a prospective student?
A: First, the course is of the highest quality. The colleges and universities sponsoring the program expect courses they offer to meet their high academic standards and the "academic rigor" of our curriculum has long been established justifying the awards of academic credit through select universities.
Second, the weekend, weeknight, and online formats are advantageous to many students. For instance, a single parent can usually arrange for child-care over this short period of time. However, the prospect of a significantly longer and more expensive course could very well present such a hardship as to discourage a potentially excellent paralegal from registering in a paralegal program. Taking our course through the independent study formats allows students to schedule course work around their own schedules.
Third, the course is affordable to virtually any potential student. It is our view that a student is not well served if he or she must go deeply in debt to obtain Paralegal training.
Q: What are the advantages to law firms who place employees in the Paralegal Certificate Course?
A: Legal secretaries, file clerks, and paralegals without formal paralegal training comprise a large percentage of the enrollment in this course. Law firms which encourage employees to take this course receive in return employees who are:
- competent to perform paralegal duties
- able to bill their hours to clients at paralegal rates, and
- more likely to remain with the firm.
In addition to the increased efficiency gained by lawyers who employ paralegals, another major incentive exists for the use of paralegals. Federal and state caselaw is now holding that fees paid to paralegals may be assessed, and recovered at trial, under those circumstances where the recovery of attorneys' fees is proper [see, e.g. Gill Savings v. International Supply, 759 S.W.2d 697, 703 Tex.App.- - Dallas 1988)] Thus, properly trained paralegals provide major profit centers for lawyers.
Q: How can the Paralegal Certificate Course be designed for both students with law firm experience and those with no law firm experience?
A: This course is designed with the knowledge that some students will have little or no law office experience, so we provide a strong foundation in areas such as legal terminology and ethics. A legal secretary may use a given word or perform a given task for years without an accurate understanding of its meaning or purpose. This course thoroughly and accurately prepares each student for paralegal employment, regardless of background.
Q: Is the Paralegal Certificate Course offered by The Center for Legal Studies approved by the American Bar Association?
A: No. In our opinion, there is no need to seek the approval of the American Bar Association ("ABA") for any paralegal course of study. Our opinion is apparently shared by the vast majority of paralegal programs since most paralegal programs are not ABA approved. The ABA is a voluntary association of lawyers, and recognizing this, only about half of all practicing lawyers are members of the ABA. If the ABA should be approving any course of studies, it should be for law schools, but not even all law schools have sought ABA approval.
In our twenty two years of experience in training and educating paralegals, we have never had one of our graduates contact us and tell us that he or she was not interviewed, or employed by a lawyer or law firm because he or she graduated from our course as opposed to an ABA approved course. Our course is sponsored by well-known academic institutions which are held in high national esteem, so most students actually prefer a Paralegal Certificate from a University of South Carolina or a University of Texas rather than a private, proprietary "Paralegal Institute" which may have paid a large sum of money to receive ABA approval. So, we have found that our lack of ABA approval has not impacted the job opportunities of our graduates. We are members of the National Federation of Paralegal Associations ("NFPA") and many of our graduates choose to join as associate members of the ABA or their state bar associations, but, again, these are voluntary memberships.
