Another profession that is not much older than that of IBCLCs is the
paralegal / legal assistant. Ten years ago, attys in my city were not
really interested in having their LAs sit for the Certified Legal Assistant
examination (CLA). Legal Assistants usually began as secretaries and were
trained by their employing attys in the needed skills to be an LA. They
became an LA when their atty said so and gave them that title. The quality
of training depended on the teaching atty and what skills that atty needed
the LA to have. If the LA wanted to work for a different firm, s/he had to
spend a long time at that new firm proving skills and earning trust.

Today, the CLA seems to be the minimum required proof of skills and
knowledge. With the exam comes an educational and skills standard. The CLA
makes the LA much more marketable in their profession. Their exam is two
days long (x8 hrs per day). One section is on basic knowledge and skills.
Four other sections are on selected areas of substantive law. If you don't
pass one section, for an add'l fee, you can re-sit that section; same as
for the CPA exam.

After that, if you want a specialty certification (CLAS) you have to pay
another fee and sit another much more detailed exam on that area of law. In
either case, they don't have to take their exam again, but they do have to
prove continuing ed credits in various forms. If they miss deadlines on
continuing ed, they are put on probation. They are at risk of losing their
CLA or CLAS if they don't meet the continuing ed requirements.

Go to their professional association web site at   www.nala.org   It's
called the National Association of Legal Assistants. They are like a
combination of ILCA and IBLCE for the lactation field. I think there are
many parallels in these professions and maybe LCs could learn something
from LAs.

Any attys or LAs out there who want to correct my information, please do
so. Whenever I get frustrated with the LC field, I start thinking about the
CLA. But it's been 10 years since I went to LA school and the level of
study needed to get back to that level, much the level needed to sit for a
mind-numbing 2 day exam... I'll stay in the LC field. I have to our own
exam again in July. That's enough for now.


--- Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC
--- Glendale, AZ, USA
--- [log in to unmask]
--- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html