Legal Research

Non-lawyer legal bloggers

By emma wood

I really enjoyed Laurie Mapp’s latest post over at Halo Secretarial Services. In it, Laurie explains why non-lawyers have an important place in the legal blogosphere:

“Non lawyers are important and valuable assets, whether to brick and mortar law firms or virtual practices. In fact in every law firm I have worked at the non-lawyer staff members were a critical part of the success of the team. The secretaries helped manage timelines, completed dictation and often completed the first draft of pleadings.  Paralegals did the research, helped organize large files and oversaw support staff. The library staff were always so amazing, especially when a deadline was looming and the supporting caselaw for a brief had to be quickly found! Oh and let?s not forget the IT staff who made sure our information was all backed up and accessible!”

I completely agree, and would add that every person - from the hostess to the name partner - who keeps a law firm running has a unique perspective on how it operates: what works, what doesn’t, what’s helpful, what’s a pain, and I think we all benefit from hearing others’ voices.

Just as an articled student learns pretty quickly that a librarian can be his new best friend, and a librarian learns quickly that an ornery partner’s secretary can be her greatest ally, we could all learn something from our fellow support staff. So, in the Canadian legal blogosphere, we’re pretty well represented. We have blogging lawyers, students, librarians and library technicians, webmasters, marketing consultants, and entrepreneurs such as Laurie who support law firms. But do we have blogging law firm IT staff? Paralegals? Secretaries? I can’t be the only one who’d be glad to read about their experiences!

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On a related note, my own nominations are forthcoming, but don’t forget to nominate your favourite Canadian legal blogs for the 2008 CLawBies!

Full post as published by Ballad in Plain E on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).