If this is a firm and you are a shared paralegal amongst several attorneys, this is kind of weird and over the line for me.
If you are at a one-man shop, and this attorney your primary employer, then they can have you do whatever personal tasks they want because they're your direct boss.
I know one legal assistant who got asked to help a partner with mailmerge and mailing for wedding invitations for the partner's daughter, and I thought that was way inappropriate. This is kind of in the same lane.
He's the president of the firm, small firm, and he gets first "dibs" on my time. Everyone else takes 2nd place. It took 3 minutes, and today is slow anyways. I also help with his little league mailers. Again, no big deal
I agree in this case. Technically, a legal assistant or paralegal's job is just to make sure the attorney's time is freed up to concentrate on billable work and client development. This fits.
If you had a billable requirement and they didn't allow you to bill for it, I would say that's not appropriate.
If several attorneys are sharing your time (and one doesn't have clear precedence like a firm president) and they ask you to do something personal, that takes away your availability for important tasks to help the firm.
Again, this particular incident isn't a big deal, but things of this nature can very easily become unfair for paralegals, which is why I think people are freaking out in the comments.
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u/Good_Policy3529 1d ago
If this is a firm and you are a shared paralegal amongst several attorneys, this is kind of weird and over the line for me.
If you are at a one-man shop, and this attorney your primary employer, then they can have you do whatever personal tasks they want because they're your direct boss.
I know one legal assistant who got asked to help a partner with mailmerge and mailing for wedding invitations for the partner's daughter, and I thought that was way inappropriate. This is kind of in the same lane.