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Depends on the firm half of the time but to me:
Legal support specialist - never heard of this one where I’ve been but it sounds like a copy service type of role or a description similar to a legal assistant but perhaps more task based
Legal assistant - clerical work like scheduling, efiling, maintaining calendars, entering attorney time, creating basic shells, etc.
Paralegal - billable role, involved in discovery handling like responses and requests, analysis of all materials coming in, trial prep and attendance, etc.
Again. Depends on firm and probably the area of law. I’m more use to litigation so that’s my perspective.
As someone who started as a litigation support assistant and then moved up to a legal assistant role in same firm from my experience the LSA is more so the office administrative assistant think conflicts checks and setting up files, scanning in and circulating mail, doing mail requests, ordering office supplies, processing invoice and expense reimbursement requests.
In the legal assistant role I don’t do work for all of the office rather my dedicated attorneys and the assigned attorneys I support also have a paralegal and for those attorneys I communicate on their behalf with clients and opposing counsel, draft pleadings, do transcriptions, manage calendars, communicate with the court, docket and ensure deadlines are met, efile pleadings, serve discovery requests and responses, send out acknowledgment letters and letters or rep and prepare other correspondence, handle settlement check and release exchanges etc. while the paralegal I work with will interview client for discovery and prepare responses, do file summaries, med record and billing chronologies, medical record and deposition summaries and other stuff requiring more specialized and focused legal training.
For me, Legal assistant and Paralegal were used interchangeably. However, this may be regional.
The difference in my opinion is the pay. If they want to pay you less, they call it something else. My role is legal assistant and I do the jobs of the lawyers, and I mean all of it - from the beginning to the end.
Wow. Then, in my own opinion, you are a Senior Paralegal hands down.
Legal support specialist is another name for a clerk backing up the Legal Assistant. In our firm the secretaries are now called Legal Assistants and are generally not billable ( but in some firms they use the LA term so that they can bill their time for certain type of matters) Paralegals do legal work at a lower billing rate than associates
Legal assistant is a secretary for many large firms (think AM100). Litigation Support Specialist works on the ediscovery side setting up databases, collections and productions. I have never heard of a "legal support specialist" but could be a term for a specific role in a firm or in house might use. A litigation specialist is usually an in house role dealing with active lit matters and legal hold for the company.
That honestly varies by firm in my experience. I worked for one firm where legal assistants and paralegals were the same, and the next firm I went to, the legal assisant was basically the assistant to the paralegal. So the definititions can vary by firm.