UHD Paralegal Certificate Program

Paralegal Certificate Program
by Jac Brennan

In 2006, the University of Houston Continuing Education Department asked me to teach part of its fledgling Paralegal Certificate Program. After that class graduated, UH asked me to revamp the program, find new textbooks, and write a comprehensive, skills-based curriculum so that the Paralegal Certificate Program would build its reputation in the legal community by turning out paralegals who were job-ready when they graduated. With the support of UHCE and the hard work of the paralegal students, I did that. I became the director, and sole instructor, of the program. Between 2006 and 2017, at the University of Houston Main Campus, this program had more than 1100 graduates. In 2017, UH Main closed the Continuing Education Department, so the Paralegal Certificate Program moved to UHDowntown. That same year, we added several options for Advanced Paralegal Certificate courses that can be taken after getting the Paralegal Certificate.

Through the years and the many classes (56 graduating classes, at this point), I made lots of changes in the curriculum, as well as in classroom procedures, but the basics have been consistent. I provide a challenging classroom experience that encourages students to do things, and to find places inside themselves, that they never knew existed.

An important feature of our program is how condensed it is. Students can have a new career in less than three months. Still, there are 126 classroom hours in this demanding course, and lots of homework hours to hone the skills and internalize the knowledge needed to be a successful paralegal. Condensing the class makes it more demanding, especially since it focuses on paralegal skills. We have a file-to-trial mock trial in which students do everything that a litigation paralegal might be asked to do. We have at least twenty attorney guest speakers who not only share their own passion for their area of the law, but also talk about how they utilize paralegals in their practices.

Our graduates often say that they think everybody should take this class, just because they learned so much practical information about the function and form of the different parts of federal, state, and local governments and court systems, as well as basic legal concepts that citizens should understand.

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