My name is Selena Dougherty, and I'm the Lead Paralegal Instructor here at Surry
Community College. I'm also a North Carolina Certified Paralegal, and I have
a master's degree in Criminal Justice. A lot of you watching today have
absolutely no idea what a paralegal is or what a paralegal does. A paralegal is
to an attorney as a nurse to a doctor. In other words, their right hand.
The Paralegal Technology program at Surry has many options. We have two
certificate programs, one of which is a Real Estate Certificate and the other is
a Litigation Certificate. Both of these certificate programs can be completed in
one year or two semesters and are open to everyone, but they're also Career and
College Promise, which means they're open to high school students. The associate's
degree can be completed in two years and when you complete the associate's degree
you are eligible to sit for the North Carolina Bar Paralegal Certification
Exam. We also have many exciting classes that you can take while you're a student
here at Surry in this program. One of the classes that you can take or two of the
classes that you can take are Legal Research and Writing I and II. During
these classes, you are taught how to do legal research and writing, and during
those two classes over, two semesters you, will learn how to write memorandums of
the law and briefs. And at the end of Legal Research II, you will actually write
a memorandum of law and you will argue your memorandum of law against other
students in the class just as attorneys do. Another class that you will take will
be Family Law. In Family Law, you will learn how to write child support orders,
custody agreements, and you'll learn everything there is to know about family
law. You'll also learn about wills, trust and
estates, and you will also dissect different celebrity wills including, for
those of you who live in this area and watch The Andy Griffith Show, you'll know
about Aunt Bee. Well one of the wills that we look at is Aunt Bee's will, and
this is a public record will. We're not invading her privacy or anything, but we
do look at her will and look at all the parts of her will during that class.
Another class that we have, which is our most important and fun class, is Criminal
Law. That is a class that we take and the students like that class so much that
they always ask me at the end of the class if we can please make a Criminal
Law II class, and well, we can't do that, but they love that class so much that
they wish we could. And then we have Civil Litigation I & II. In Civil
Litigation I, we learn how to be a litigation paralegal, and at the end of
Civil Litigation II, we actually have the students perform a mock trial, a mock
jury trial, and the early college students sit in as our jurors. And
tomorrow, as a matter of fact, our students are performing a mock trial in
this very classroom that we're sitting in today. So these are just some of the
classes that we offer during this program. Another thing you might want to
consider is all but five of our classes are offered online, and so if you're a
working adult or a working student, you can take all but five of the classes
that we offer in this program online. And another thing that you might want to
consider is I am a full-time instructor, and so even though you're taking the
classes online, I am available on campus and you can come to my office anytime
and ask questions. So some of you might wonder what would I make as a paralegal,
what are the options I might have for jobs or how can I make any money if I
take this program and graduate. Am I going to make any money? Well the
average salary or the range in salaries is between about $14 to $24
an hour, and your job growth should be, between now and 2026,
the increase in jobs is about 15%. So how do you apply? You
go to www.surry.edu and apply online and send in your transcripts and that's how you
apply. So I hope to see you in a class very soon. If you have any questions, just
let us know. Again my name is Selina Dougherty, and I hope to see you in the
class very soon. Thanks for your time.