Paralegal 30th Anniversary

Our longest-running certificate program, the Paralegal Certificate, turns 30 this year. Created in 1985, the program has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception, welcoming hundreds of aspiring paralegals each year.

The Paralegal program was originally designed with guidance from an experienced and respected local attorney, Richard Moore. While the quality and rigor of this Georgia law-based course has stayed the same, we’ve made a few changes in the past 30 years to keep up with the times, adding new courses like Law Office Technology and Legal Research and Writing II. We also began offering a job and internship board just for our students and recent graduates, connecting law firms with qualified paralegals. Currently, more than 50% of our students secure positions from these postings.

In the past year, we’ve also added nearly a dozen new instructors. Just like when we started, all our instructors are practicing or retired lawyers in good standing with the American Bar Association who have professional experience in the specific area they teach.

In 2014, we reached three major milestones for the Paralegal program. In January, we added daytime classes, doubling our course offerings from 26 classes per year to 52. Then in the spring, we unveiled the Joe R. Edwards Law Library. The library features more than 3,000 donated law books worth in excess of $50,000. The site of our daytime classes and all Legal Research and Writing classes, it’s housed right here at KSU Center. The University Professional & Continuing Education Association also named the Paralegal Certificate a Program of Excellence at its fall 2014 UPCEA South awards conference.

Our Paralegal program has definitely come a long way in the past three decades, and so has the rest of the world. Here’s a look back at 1985:

In 1985…

• Gas cost $1.20 per gallon.
• The top movie at the box office was Back to the Future.
• Wreckage from the Titanic was discovered.
• The song of the year was What’s Love Got to Do With It.
• Coca-Cola changed its formula, introducing the unpopular “New Coke.”
• The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the U.S.

Here at the College of Continuing and Professional Education, we look forward to another 30 years of excellence for our award-winning Paralegal program. For more about the program, visit our FAQ page, or meet our program manager and course instructors in person at an upcoming Open House.