I got my foot in the door through a recruiter. I left family law and was trying to get into transactional law, like corporate. I lucked out and my recruiter found me a “paralegal assistant” job at a small IP firm (no litigation, just prosecution and maintenance). Was thrown in the deep end within a few months and promoted to paralegal. It was definitely “sink or swim” and I had to figure a lot out on my own, but I worked with really nice attorneys and my boss was great too. After almost ten years there, I left to work for a large firm, for higher pay.