WHAT ARE ALL THOSE LETTERS AFTER YOUR NAME?

By Kathy Miller, CLA, CAS
Costa Mesa, California

Originally Published in The National Association of Legal Assistants, Inc.’s March 2001 Membership Newsletter

When people see the CLA and CAS designation after my name it invariably provokes questions about the meaning of these acronyms.  After I explain that achieving the CLA requires passing a two-day exam and that the CAS requires a further four-hour exam-and that this is all voluntary-they look at me like I am crazy.

I remember thinking for years: "I don't need to take the CLA, I'll be grandfathered in."  Well, after way too many years of waiting for the grandfather call (and after the first of my colleagues at work passed the CLA), I decided to study for and sit for the CLA exam. 

For those who have taken the CLA you know this exam is not easy.  Since I do better in a classroom setting than independent study, I enrolled in a CLA Review course, bought the thick textbook, and submitted my application with necessary transcripts to NALA.  Midway through the review course, I announced to all my fellow students "If I hadn't paid approximately $500 for this I would walk out and not take the !@#%#@!$^ exam." 

You could spot me as the person with the stack of vocabulary flashcards, yellow highlighters, and a dog-eared book by Virginia Koerselman on my lap instead of my trusty lap-top computer, writing mock essays with a pencil.

The first weekend in December of 1996, on a rainy Friday, there I was with my #2 pencils (and more nerves than I knew I had) taking the CLA exam.  After a short debate with myself I went back on Saturday for the second day.  I still don't remember how I got home that night after finishing the exam – I was in a non-alcoholic daze.

Then, the real anxiety started.  After a seemingly interminable six-week wait for results I was thrilled when I finally received the letter from NALA announcing that I had passed all sections and was now a Certified Legal Assistant.

NOW WHAT

After all this, why would I study for the California Advanced Specialist certification?  Because the CAS was my ultimate goal.  Those who take the Louisiana state specialty exam can take it before the CLA, but cannot use the designation until they successfully pass the CLA.  If California had offered this option, I would have taken the exams in reverse order – the CAS, then the CLA. 

I have been a litigation paralegal since the dinosaur ages – at least it seems I have been around since then.  From Senior Partner to Baby Associate, I am the one they call with litigation questions.  I can remember the “new” Discovery Act, Selectric typewriters, carbon paper and the requirement that file your 1,000 interrogatories with the court.  Luckily, I did not let my veteran status lull me into not studying for the CAS exam.  Some of the questions were easy, but some were not. 

Again, the endless six-week wait, and this time I suffered from a case of “examination remorse.”  I had the horrifying experience of looking up some of the questions I remembered from the exam, only to discovery that I had answered them incorrectly.  So the tension was palpable when the envelope arrived that would reveal whether I could call myself a CAS.  I opened the letter like a gambler squeezing the last card out of a possible straight flush, and screamed for joy to discovery that I was a new CAS.

WHAT’S IT WORTH?

I wish I could say I got an immediate pay raise by adding “CLA and CAS” after my name, but that would be a stretch.  My annual raises after passing each exam were better than expected, but I can’t say they were directly tied to the exam results, although my achievements were noted in my annual reviews and announced via e-mail to the rest of my firm.

I can confidently state that one of the greatest rewards of certification was becoming part of a special society.  I was only the 13^th paralegal in California to achieve the CAS designation in civil litigation. When I put those letters after my name on letters or e-mails, I am proudly proclaiming: "I know California Litigation!”

Another benefit of certification is informally serving as a "Certification Ambassador" educating paralegals and attorneys on the CLA, CLAS and CAS credentials.  We have 10 paralegals at my firm, and when the first earned her CLA, none of the attorneys knew about the exam - what a perfect opportunity to explain the CLA to over 100 lawyers.  As we increased the number of CLAs, we continued our in-house publicity and education.  We now have five CLAs and one of our part-time paralegals recently divulged that she felt extreme pressure to take the CLA exam.

A NATION-WIDE NETWORK

Taking and passing the CLA makes me part of a club that has more 10,000 members.  These are peers who have met the challenge of learning a host of legal terms, proper grammar, and legal research techniques.  They are versed in new substantive areas of law, have revisited their high school civics lessons, and successfully written a timed essay using only the principles of law stated in the question. 

Although I knew California procedures and did preliminary research about Nevada’s requirements, various courts (as every litigation paralegal knows,) have their “local rules” or peculiarities.  Since the impending deadline for this deposition precluded any possibility of redoing a kicked document, I dusted off my NALA Convention list of attendees and located a CLA in Las Vegas.  After a quick phone call, I had a facsimile of the required Nevada form, leads for a court reporting service and conference room and an invitation to visit the next time I was in town.

CLA SETS THE STANDARD

One of the arguments I have heard for not taking the CLA is that the paralegal does not practice Federal Law and, thus, the test is not relevant to them.  The relevance of the CLA, however, can be illustrated by the experience of a paralegal who recently worked at my firm in California and fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to Arizona. 

She polished her resume and responded to paralegal job advertisements, but did not receive many calls (perhaps 10 percent) for interviews.  When she did go for an interview, she was invariably asked about her non-CLA status, and discovered that because Arizona is third in the nation (behind Florida and Texas) with the greatest number of CLAs, certification is expected of paralegals there. 

She wisely took the necessary steps to sit for and pass the CLA exam, and again sent out her resume.  This time, she received requests to interview on 90 percent of her inquiries.  She also happily discovered that her starting salary was higher than that of another paralegal who started at the same public entity on the same day.

ACCOMPLISHMENT AND EMPOWERMENT

I have talked to paralegals who have taken the CLA and to some with CAS or CLAS designations.  They almost universally speak of being "empowered" by the process, even is situations outside the legal profession (one was encouraged to participate in a 60-mile walk-a-thon benefiting breast cancer research.)  Others enjoy the respect that certification evokes from the legal community. 

A friend of mine with her CLA and CAS unexpectedly found herself looking for a job after working for the same attorney for over a decade.  Although her job interview skills were a bit “rusty,” she was pleased to find that each of the attorneys with whom she interviewed commended her for her certification achievements.

AN ADDED BENEFIT FOR ME

Most practicing legal assistants have heard: “you should go to law school” more times than we care to remember.  So, an unexpected benefit of certification for me is that I now have a clear perspective of one of the reasons I will not be going to law school.

To become an attorney in California requires three years of classes in torts, constitutional law, contracts, legal research and the rest of the law school curriculum (demanding a significant percentage of your waking hours).  Then you face the bar exam – which is three days not two, as for the CLA – and you either pass the entire exam or have to retake it in its entirety.  And you have to wait six months, not six weeks, for the results. 

I now realize how much I love the career fulfillment that comes from being a legal assistant.  I delight in being recognized as a person with specialized knowledge, and I am proud to declare my professional commitment and expertise with two sets of initials after my name.