Discussion 5 Pleadings and Discovery Phase of a Lawsuit
For this discussion, I chose organizational skills and attention to detail.
When looking at organizational skills some tools that a paralegal can utilize are the use of a calendar which can track client meetings as well as the dates of when pleadings need to be filed and the dates that discovery requests and responses must be submitted. They can also use different filing systems to create backup documents in case the documents you have saved in the computer become corrupted or lost.
Attention to detail is extremely important because being able to identify even the most minor errors or inconsistencies can be a great asset to the client and your legal team. This is also helpful
when needing to pinpoint very specific information that could impact a client's case when reviewing long and complicated documents such as those that are included in discovery, as well as proofreading pleadings.
Hypothetically speaking, Martha Kline is a paralegal working for the Russel Law Firm and she was tasked with making sure the pleading for Mr. Dunmeyer's case is filed by February 7, 2024. Ms. Kline used her organizational skills by entering the pleading into her calendar on her computer and setting it to alert her on February 5, 2024, to remind her to file it that day. However, before filing the pleading she used her keen attention to detail to go over it one final time so that she could ensure that it did not have any errors or inconsistencies and that all the information was accurate.
