Legal Secretary Training Curriculum

Starting Your Program

Succeed by learning how to use your Penn Foster program.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand how to use your Student Portal.
• Access the Penn Foster Community and use it to find answers.
• Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.

The Legal Secretary

In this lesson, you’ll get a brief introduction to many duties of the legal secretary.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand the roles and duties of law office staff.
• Describe some of the personal qualities and skills necessary for a legal secretary.
• Explain the procedure for becoming NALS certified.
• Set up a business letter and an interoffice memo.
• Outline rules for typing legal documents.

Your Professional Image

The image that you project plays a critical role in developing your career. This lesson focuses on what it takes for you to develop and improve your professional image.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Identify strategies for developing and enhancing your professional image.
• Identify resources to assist you in developing and maintaining a professional image.
• Evaluate your professional image.
• Write goals and action plans to improve your professional image.

Stress and Time Management

This lesson teaches you how to apply stress-reducing techniques to tense situations.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Identify common stressors and symptoms of stress.
• Discuss effective stress management coping strategies.
• Set goals and determine priorities.
• Establish efficient, effective daily routines

Interpersonal Communication Skills

This lesson is designed to help you develop professional relationships in the workplace.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand and explain the components of communication, both verbal and nonverbal.
• Develop effective listening and observation skills.
• Recognize prejudice in interpersonal relations.
• Describe personal traits essential for successful interpersonal relations

Administrative Office Procedures

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to professionally administer and manage office communications and procedures.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand important aspects of good human relations.
• Professionally answer and place telephone calls within an office.
• Handle incoming and outgoing mail and email.
• Analyze where your time is spent and identify common time wasters.

Travel and Meeting Planning

This lesson covers your role in making travel arrangements and planning meetings and conventions.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Make travel arrangements and generate a travel itinerary.
• Plan meetings and conventions for your company.

Filing Techniques

In this lesson you’ll learn how to set up, arrange, and maintain a filing system suitable for whatever type of office you’re working in.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Group files alphabetically, geographically, numerically, and by subject.
• Establish and maintain a paper-based and electronic filing system.
• Identify procedures for handling active, inactive, and permanent files.

Records Management

In this lesson, you’ll learn what a record is in an office environment and how records are managed.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Store, track, classify, and retrieve records.
• Differentiate between centralized and decentralized files.
• Define and differentiate various types of micrographics.

Math for Office Professionals

This lesson is a review of basic math operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Calculate discounts and series discounts.
• Calculate shipping charges.
• Use a calculator to solve or check math problems

Technologies in the Workplace

New ways of creating, processing, and communicating information are revolutionizing every aspect of any job. To perform your job effectively and efficiently, you must learn about the technology that’s available in the computerized workplace.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Describe major communication technologies and services.
• Understand the network systems used to communicate information.
• Navigate office computer systems and identify components used for input and output.

Resources and References

This lesson is designed to teach you how to use resources and references to search for information efficiently and effectively.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Compare and contrast various resources available within your organization.
• Use a dictionary and thesaurus to find information and improve your vocabulary.
• Find information in libraries and online references.

Introduction to Writing

This lesson deals with basic writing skills and grammar. You’ll look at the process of writing, as well as the parts of speech and how to use them.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Know the parts of speech.
• Use correct capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
• Develop sentences and paragraphs.
• Improve your writing.

Using the Parts of Speech

In this lesson, you’ll work on polishing your writing so letters and documents look professional and communicate clearly.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Use pronouns and modifiers properly and effectively.
• Use consistent sentence construction.
• Explain subject-verb agreement.

Punctuation and Capitalization

In this lesson, you’ll cover various types of punctuation, rules for capitalization and spelling, and documentation of sources when doing research. While you may already know some of these standard principles, it’s important that you carefully review each topic.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Use end marks, commas, and other common punctuation marks.
• Use capitalization correctly.
• Explain common spelling rules and use them in your writing.
• Cite research sources.

Writing Sentences and Paragraphs

By expressing yourself with correct grammar, organizing your ideas, and focusing on the topic, your writing will become more effective and professional.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Compose a variety of sentence structures.
• Construct unified, coherent paragraphs.
• Connect paragraphs to build a well-organized, logical document.

Improving Your Writing

This lesson is designed to help you make the best use of the writing tools you already have by making them work for you as you plan, develop, revise, and present your work.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Identify your audience, medium, and purpose.
• Focus and organize your ideas.
• Plan both informal and formal writing projects.
• Revise, edit, and proofread to make your final copy accurate and professional.

Types of Business Writing

In this lesson, you’ll prepare for the various kinds of writing you’re most likely to use in your career.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Write well-structured, professional letters.
• Format business letters, memos, and emails.
• Process routine information requests and complete typical office forms.

Microsoft® Word™

Learn how to use Microsoft® Word™ to create, edit, and illustrate documents.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Create, edit, format, and merge Word™ documents.
• Add graphics and tables.

Graded Project: Microsoft® Word™

This project gives you a chance to use your Word™ skills. Create four promotional documents for a company’s training event: a cover letter introducing the company, a facts sheet highlighting product features, a flier promoting the event, and a registration form.

Microsoft® Excel®

In this lesson, you’ll learn about the most widely used spreadsheet program, Microsoft® Excel.® Excel® can perform numerical calculations and is also useful for non-numerical applications such as creating charts, organizing lists, accessing data, creating graphics and diagrams, and automating tasks.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Use the basic elements of Microsoft® Excel.®
• Add, delete, and sort data.
• Create and use simple and complex formulas and functions.
• Incorporate charts and graphs.

Graded Project: Microsoft® Excel™

In this project, you’ll use your Excel® skills to create a spreadsheet that tracks the cost of elementary school supplies distributed to teachers over a two-month period.

Microsoft® PowerPoint®

Microsoft® PowerPoint® is a powerful graphics presentation program for communicating ideas to an audience.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand the basic elements and fundamentals of Microsoft® PowerPoint.®
• Apply Slide Master.
• Insert hyperlinks, illustration objects, and media clips.
• Work with advanced tools, tables, and charts.

Graded Project: Computer Applications

In this project, you’ll use many of the concepts and techniques you’ve learned in your program to practice your skills.

Legal Terminology, Part 1

Familiarity with common legal words and phrases is required when creating and interpreting legal documents. This lesson will introduce you to a broad range of basic legal terminology and documents.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Define and understand common Latin legal terms and terms associated with litigation.
• Compare the various kinds of documents used in litigation and types of jurisdiction.

Legal Terminology, Part 2

A solid understanding of the language of law is essential in your career as a legal secretary. This lesson will continue to introduce you to a broad range of legal terminology and documents.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Understand criminal procedure and common criminal defenses.
• Recognize the elements commonly included in contracts.
• Describe the ways in which contracts may be terminated.
• Explain the various legal actions associated with family law.
• Understand the terminology used in recording ownership of real property

Ethics, Professionalism, and Risk Management

This lesson will prepare you to recognize and avoid the most common ethical problems that lawyers and legal secretaries face. It’s important that you understand both your responsibilities and the responsibilities of the attorney to help you to be a valuable contributor to the success of your employer’s legal services team.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Explain the purpose of formal ethical guidelines for lawyers and how these guidelines apply to you as a legal secretary.
• Describe the interrelationships among ethics, professionalism, and risk management in the practice of law.
• Identify client confidentiality issues and conflicts of interest.

Legal Writing

This part of your program will provide you with concrete examples of the kinds of documents you’ll create in a legal office and give you actual experience in creating them.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Identify the kinds of writing you’ll do in the law office.
• Discuss the importance of precision, purpose, and audience in legal writing, and the need to be aware of ambiguity in language.
• Appreciate the negative effect grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors can have in making an impression on the judge.
• Perform some basic techniques to enhance your writing.
• State and characterize facts to best advance your position.
• Write an effective legal memorandum that formally answers questions of law.
• Construct a memorandum in support of a motion.
• Explain how local rules of court affect the documents you file with that court.

Legal Research

In this lesson, you’ll learn about the levels of authority in American law. You’ll also review the many references you’ll use to find relevant information for your research.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Define written law and precedent law and understand their importance in the American legal system.
• Use the library catalog to locate books in a law library.
• Use Shepard’s Citations to “Shepardize” a case.

Office Finances

In many offices, employees are expected to handle a variety of bookkeeping tasks, such as keeping a record of payments as they arrive, sending out bills to those who owe money, and making bank deposits.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Identify accounts receivable.
• Settle a bank statement.
• Complete the entries for a bank deposit.
• Understand how computers are used in bookkeeping.

Office Management

Most offices require a manager to keep things running smoothly and efficiently.

 

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

 

• Plan an effective office layout.
• Recruit, interview, and motivate employees.
• Identify legal issues in office management.
• Use effective oral and written communication skills.