Difference Between Paralegals and Legal Secretaries
In Ontario, Canada, a paralegal can apply to the Ministry of the Attorney General to be appointed as a Commissioner for Taking Affidavits (aka Commissioner of Oaths - the U.S. equivalent of a notary public). If a paralegal holds a valid licence, they are assumed to be a member in good standing with the Law Society of Upper Canada.All applicants (regardless of background or standing) are subject to a criminal background check, and depending upon its outcome, a time-limited commission will be granted.
This link is not necessarily the norm in other jurisdictions. In the United Kingdom for example, notaries are a distinct group, and tend to be solicitors.
Read more about this topic: Paralegal
Famous quotes containing the words difference between, difference and/or legal:
“Friends serve central functions for children that parents do not, and they play a critical role in shaping children’s social skills and their sense of identity. . . . The difference between a child with close friendships and a child who wants to make friends but is unable to can be the difference between a child who is happy and a child who is distressed in one large area of life.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)
“There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedient’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)