Ethical Guidelines violated in the Case
A paralegal is an individual who under formal education, training, and experience is employed in a legal environment and can be delegated legal tasks, which he or she will be supervised by the attorney (Bernardo, 2015). The typical professional duties delegated to paralegals are described by the National Association of Paralegals (NALA), the National Federation of Paralegal Association, the Association of Paralegal Professionals, and the International Paralegal Management Association.
One of the ethical guidelines that were violated in the case is the closing task being carried out was not delegated by the supervising attorney and that he or she was not present the review the prepared documents (Mongue, 2017). In the case, Ann prepared the closing documents and schedules, but when it was time for her to contact the supervising attorney so that he or she could review the documents, her efforts to reach the lawyer were unsuccessful (Bernardo, 2015).
The other ethical guideline violated in the case is the conflict of interest. A paralegal can protect oneself from conflict of interest if he or she confides to the supervising attorney on the clients that he or she had worked with before (Bernardo, 2015). If there is any potential conflict the paralegal should excuse herself or himself (Mongue, 2017). In this case, the paralegal establishes that the borrower had been represented before by her supervising attorney’s firm. In as much as there was no serious activity between the client and the attorney for three years, it still raises questions for conflict of interest. As such, she would have withdrawn from the task through the advice of his or her supervising attorney.
References
Bernardo, A. (2015). Students On-the-Job-Training Performance of AB Paralegal Studies. Multilingual Academic Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 2(2). doi: 10.6007/majess/v2-i2/1388
Mongue, R. (2017). From Apprentice to Paralegal: The Rise of the Paralegal Profession in America. Issues in Legal Scholarship, 15(1). doi: 10.1515/ils-2016-0261