1.1

The Essential Skills

• Segment ProgressBar


LECTURE NOTES

These Lecture Notes are intended to provide similar commentary that would have been provided by an instructor in a classroom. Not every section has a corresponding lecture note since some sections in the manual speak for themselves and need no further commentary.

We have tried to be direct and to-the-point in these commentaries. The goal here is not to overwhelm you with online reading, but to further enlighten you as to the material being covered. We hope you find these notes helpful.

Let's get started!

P.R.C.P.

The Paralegal Rules of Classroom Procedure (found in the forward of your manual) are intentionally written in a similar form to actual court rules. Of course, there may be aspects of the rules that don't apply to online students taking this program, such as attendance, but they do provide a general understanding as to what is expected of the student.

Rule 3 relates to Written Assignments. Instructions will be provided for you as Assignments arise!

Section 1.1
Orientation: Setting the stage for education

Chapter Outline
Each chapter in the manual will begin with an outline of what is included in that chapter. This also acts as a set of objectives, stating what the student can expect to learn within that chapter.

Assignments
Any assignments that are related to a chapter will be noted within the outline.

Term Pronunciation
There are many terms that are hard to pronounce in the legal profession. We will try to help. You should be aware there are multiple ways to pronounce many terms. We will always try to give you what has been found to be the most common pronunciation.

One such term is "prima facie." It is pronounced:

prime-uh faysh-uh

Uh-oh, here's another one! "Writ of Certiorari" is pronounced:

sersh-or-are-ee

Writ is pronounced: rit

Besides the pronunciations, don't lose the focus of these pages. You now have the opportunity to enter a new and exciting profession! Let's begin by assigning you a client! Read Chapter 1. You will need to pick a client from the scenarios presented in Section 1.2. Almost all the research and writing assignments will be based upon this client. You will also be asked to maintain a client file by placing any documents created for your assignments in the file. This will help you to understand file management procedures.