I believe in any position a person is in, whether it be receptionist or administrative assistant to office manager or executive, employers like to see that you will take that extra step beyond your assigned role to provide a better quality of work than they are accustomed to.

I had a discussion the other day with another Paralegal who stated that as a Bankruptcy Paralegal our role is to “just put in the information the attorney or client provides us and that is it.” This person could not be more wrong. As a freelance Bankruptcy Paralegal our role is not just to provide data entry services, because if that was the case a trained monkey can do it.

A Bankruptcy Paralegal should be able to read beyond what is provided, put together the missing pieces and formulate the correct questions that need to be resolved prior to filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition. The most common errors that occur in bankruptcy cases is having the petition not properly put together and not catching the issues that will come up once the case is filed so that the attorney will know how to proceed accordingly, or better yet, catching those major issues prior to the bankruptcy petition being filed.

As a Bankruptcy Paralegal, and with any position you are in, you should take pride in your work. Do your due diligence and remember that if you perform your task to the best of your ability and get it right the first time around you won’t have to spend countless hours attempting to rectify those errors that could have been avoided.