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Practical Paralegalism's Recommended Reading This Week

By Lynne DeVenny

I blog for paralegals, legal assistants, legal secretaries, legal staffers, paralegal students and instructors - and the attorneys who want to get to know us better. I try to share information they might helpful for professional development, or a much needed laugh during a hectic week working for lawyers. Once a week (or every other week when Life happens) I share links to a half dozen or so articles focusing on legal news and humor, practice tips and professionalism, and technology. I also share links of interest at Practical Paralegalism's Facebook page, and via my Twitter stream (@ExpertParalegal).


I suspect some of my male readers might be either rolling their eyes or feeling left out when I talk about career-dressing for female legal staffers, so this one's for you.

What the well-dressed male paralegal might wear to a business lunch. (TheWorkingWardrobe.com)

They'd Better Be Taking Notes (Divorce Discourse) - Straight from a successful lawyer's blog is the advice every legal staffer should heed: always have a notebook and pen at hand to record instructions. Even a digital world, the old-fashioned note pad still has a critical role for directions on the fly.

Five Best PDF Tools (PDF for Lawyers) ~ Lifehacker readers voted for their favorite PDF utilities, several of which are free or low cost, perfect for the law firm on a tight tech budget or the home office.You can also use free Google Docs to convert a PDF to text. (Thanks again, Divorce Discourse!)

10 Utilities to Secure Your Data (PCWorld) ~ Digital security is critical in today's mobile law practice.  See also PCWorld's Five Big Security Threats for 2011.

Twitter Management Tools: Get Your Tweets in a Row (Lawyerist.com) ~ Twitter is much more enjoyable and informative via a management tool like Hootsuite or TweetDeck. If you are using Twitter, see The Huffington Post's 11 Things Your Tweeps Don't Need to Know. (Thanks, FutureLawyer!) I personally hate location tweets.

Lack of Ellipses Leads to Public Reprimand for Massachusetts Lawyer (ABA Journal) ~ The Grammar Police Court was not pleased to have key references left out of an appeal, without any ellipses indicating that the quoted text had been edited. The Court also didn't care that it was the lawyer's first appellate brief.

Finally, from Oddee's Another 12 Strange Handbags and Purses comes an episode of Definitely What Not to Wear. I don't care if it is Louis Vuitton:

You know I love both fashion and dogs. But not this much.

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on March 13, 2011 (boomark / email).