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Q&A
Ideal ratios of paralegals to lawyers and their roles
8:48:03
ยท
3 min
Council Member Yusef Salaam inquires about the ideal ratio of paralegals to lawyers. The discussion expands to cover the different roles of paralegals and litigation assistants in handling discovery and case preparation.
- Ideal ratios of paralegals to lawyers are discussed, ranging from 10:1 to 4:1
- The distinct roles of paralegals and litigation assistants are explained
- A specific example is given of how a litigation assistant's work led to a case dismissal
Yusef Salaam
8:48:03
So I wanna know also, is there a ratio of paralegals to lawyers that you would find ideal?
Tina Luongo
8:48:13
There's a standard that historically we use which is 10 to one and I'll tell you that's not sufficient.
Juval Scott
8:48:21
I was going say that in federal offices it was about four to one
Tina Luongo
8:48:24
And that was what we had been asking for a number of years.
8:48:29
But it's also the training that paralegals should be getting.
8:48:34
Our paralegals, we call them again, we have paralegals and we have litigation assistants.
8:48:39
They do very different things.
8:48:40
A paralegal will file motions and go to file subpoenas, prepare paperwork.
8:48:46
A litigation assistant sits on the case with the defense attorney and organizes all the evidence, indexes it, organizes it, and then presents that to the lawyer.
8:49:04
The lawyer then says watch the body worn camera and give me a synopsis of that.
8:49:10
And I'm going to give you a story of a litigation assistant that started last year, sorry in September.
8:49:16
Litigation assistant, a case was pending a long time.
8:49:19
We heard that we're still working out of COVID backlog.
8:49:23
This case was pending a really long time.
8:49:25
The lawyer had looked at some of the evidence but did not have the time to look at all of it.
8:49:30
The litigation assistants watched the body worn camera.
8:49:34
And after our client was out in the community, not in luckily at Rikers.
8:49:41
The litigation assistant found information on the body worn camera that when it was presented to the district attorney, the case was dismissed because it showed that actually the client had not done what the police had alleged to do.
8:49:57
That's the power of people.
8:50:02
Changing a law will not help that, especially the governor's version that would have probably allowed a prosecutor to perhaps not turn over all the body worn camera evidence.
8:50:16
Right?
8:50:17
Because they could in essence choose.
8:50:21
So the other issue that I think is really a solution that we need to lean on, and I'm going to credit D.
8:50:29
A.
8:50:29
Gonzales for talking about it, And that is the pilot in Brooklyn that OCA, Judge Zayas, has actually implemented.
8:50:38
And what I heard D.
8:50:39
A.
8:50:40
Gonzales to say and I agree with him is that the pilot is working.
8:50:45
Placing a judge and senior members of OCA to negotiate and convene a meeting that talks about DAs would you turn over?
8:50:58
Defense what do you still need?
8:51:00
How much more time do you need?
8:51:02
Okay we're going to set it down for trial is working.
8:51:07
Is working.
8:51:08
And so that should be our goal.
8:51:11
Our goal that has not rolled out yet in the other four boroughs.
8:51:16
It's in process.
8:51:18
But that's a solution that doesn't require a law to be rolled back.
8:51:24
It actually will move things and are moving things quickly.
8:51:29
So funding people and the OCA having a judge call conferences, which again happen I think in the federal system all the time, Mirroring our system to more efficient systems across the country and in the federal system is the answer we should all be leaning on.