Legal assistants and paralegals perform many functions helping attorneys prepare for hearings, trials and meetings. They investigate and identify laws, decisions, legal articles and other things that would be relevant to the cases they are working on. They can specialize in all sorts of areas including litigation, criminal law, general practice and corporate law. Paralegal training is comprised of concepts of legal research and legal writing along with the application of principles included in family law, business law, property law and the like. They also learn how to draft basic legal documents like contracts, separation agreements, trusts, mortgages, leases and such.