According to the American Bar Association, 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.” Paralegals play a crucial role and are the invaluable support staff in preparing for a case; helping to ensure that everything is running efficiently. So what does a paralegal do? Lawyers depend on the effectiveness of the paralegal to complete or assist with various tasks such as background research, discovery, document preparation, and client communication, ultimately contributing to the smooth and successful handling of cases.
Here at Plakas Mannos, we embrace a "team" approach when working with our clients, tackling the necessary tasks where everyone collaborates toward a shared objective; to achieve excellent results for our clients. Each person plays an essential role in meeting our clients' needs, from the initial phone call to the day we represent them in court. This type of team mentality also helps to promote a healthy balance of mutual respect and individual autonomy within our office here at Plakas Mannos.
One of Plakas Mannos’ Paralegals, Kelli Walsh, shares her perspective as a paralegal and her experience working at Plakas Mannos.
Q: What skills and experience do you contribute to the team here at Plakas Mannos?
A: “I personally have been a litigation paralegal for over 25 years, so I have a good understanding of how personal injury cases work. Because of that, the attorneys can focus on legal strategies while I can anticipate some of their needs. For instance, I’m kind of a subrogation nerd. So, I know where to look to make sure we identify all potential lienholders so there are no surprises in the eleventh hour of settlement. But truly, all of the paralegals in our office are on the front line of information gathering. So, it is crucial to our cases that we not only know what information the attorneys are going to need but it is equally crucial that we keep the files organized so the attorneys can find information when they need it.”
Q: How would you describe your experience working at Plakas Mannos as a paralegal?
A: “Plakas Mannos is honestly the best place I have ever worked. Even though we all have our specific job duties, the culture here is ‘TEAMWORK makes the dream work!’ (You’ll literally see that phrase in emails quite often!) The shared priority at Plakas Mannos is to make sure each and every client gets stellar representation. For us paralegals, sometime that looks like jumping in to help on a case to which we may not necessarily be assigned.”
Q: What support has Plakas Mannos given you, to help you advance your skills and career as a paralegal?
A: “By supporting us in our efforts to grow and continue learning by allowing us to use work time to hold monthly office paralegal meetings where we collaborate with each other to attend conferences both online and in person. The Partners encouraged me to become a member of OAJ – Paralegal Section and I recently attended the annual paralegal conference networking event in Columbus. I had the opportunity to listen to guest speakers, who discussed everything from Wellness to changes coming to the Medicaid portal. My membership also comes with access to a quarterly Zoom meetings and access to a Listserv where members regularly share ideas and important contacts.”
Q: How would you describe the culture here at Plakas Mannos?
A: “Plakas Mannos really is a unique place to work. I like the artist analogy…an artist can’t create a masterpiece without supplies and supplies are just brushes and paint without an artist. Here at Plakas Mannos, we all have individual skill sets that actively work together to achieve the ultimate goal… justice for our clients. Now, with that said, that doesn’t mean we are robotic workhorses all day! Our office has an amazing chef, Chef Heather, who makes us healthy meals every workday. Around 11:00 a.m., you can start to smell that something delicious is cooking. Around noon, we start filing into the lunchroom and catch up with other – we watch a lot of the same shows on TV and read a lot of the same books; We even have a book club we call the Literary Lions.”
“Some of our paralegals have more courtroom time than entire law firms, because as part of our team concept the paralegals are involved. The paralegals communicate with clients, help us prepare the case, and the thing that we do differently and have done from the beginning, before many firms even thought about it, we bring the paralegals into the courtroom with us during trials.”
“I can’t be everywhere, at all times, and when I can’t be there our paralegals have ALREADY been there to make sure our client’s questions are being answered.”
“At our firm, the role of a paralegal is extremely, extremely important. We trust our paralegals to communicate with clients, to help us prepare our cases and most importantly to help us during trials.”
- Partner Maria Klutinoty Edwards
“One of the first lessons I learned when I joined the firm was that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And the attorneys here, the paralegals, the entire staff; that is a sentiment that we all walk with, that is a sentiment that we all have in the back of our minds when we are representing our clients.”
At Plakas Mannos, all of our paralegals are a critically important part of the team and play a crucial role in our cases from start to finish, working alongside the attorneys to provide our clients with the very best representation for their case. Because… “teamwork makes the dream work.”