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Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

: Practical Paralegalism

Practical Paralegalism Goes to NCPA's 30th Annual Meeting & Seminar

By Lynne DeVenny

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I'm still energized from spending the last weekend with an amazing and dedicated group of paralegals, members of the North Carolina Paralegal Association, Inc. They celebrated the organization's 30th anniversary with an outstanding continuing education conference from March 18 - 20, 2010, held at the beautiful Holiday Inn Resort in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. I was fortunate enough to both present "Preparing for Workers' Compensation Mediations and Hearings" (including how to present value lifetime disability claims) and attend for CLE credit.

I'm not going to re-cap the entire conference, although I tried to share highlights of the excellent information presented via my Twitter feed @ExpertParalegal. (You can click on the RSS button and add me to your RSS reader if you don't want to actively tweet). You can also search the hashtag #NCPA10 in Twitter for tweets about the conference. NCPA has a Facebook group as well.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from some of the conference presenters:

"I appreciate all that you do and your talents," said Judge Ola Lewis, who presented "An Ethical View from the Bench."

"When I see a piece of paper, it doesn't mean anything to me - I want to see where it came from," said Giovanni Masucci of National Digital Forensics during his presentation, "Digital Evidence Is Involved In Your Case: So What's the Next Step?"

"You need other paralegals; you need those friendships to succeed," Vicki Voisin The Paralegal Mentor emphasized during her keynote speech. Although we've worked together on various projects over the last year, including our monthly podcast, The Paralegal Voice , at Legal Talk Network, this was actually the first time I'd met her.

"Networking is not about keeping score - it's about helping people out," said Debbie Lawrence of Huseby, Inc. Litigation Support during the presentation she gave with Camille Stell of Lawyers Mutual, titled "Trends Affecting the Paralegal Profession: A Discussion of Challenges and Solutions."

"I don't know why ya'll invited lawyers to talk to you; you should be inviting YOU to talk to you," said attorney David Parker during his HIPAA presentation (with attorney Leighton Roper), after he consulted with his paralegal, Jenny, who was in the audience.

"You are a hero if you pull someone's mobile phone out of the toilet and dry it out," said attorney Lee Rosen during his "60 Technology Tips in 60 Minutes" presentation with attorney Scott Allen.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't share a picture of the awesome chocolate mousse pie we had for dinner on Friday night.

Special thanks to NCPA's sponsors and exhibitors not only for their support of and attendance at NCPA's annual conference, but for their commitment to paralegals as well, including 4NCRECORDS.COM, Case-Closed Investigations, National Digital Forensics, Huseby, Inc. Litigation Support, Envision Discovery Document Services, CaseWorks, Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly Carolina Paralegal News, NC Academy of Superior Court Mediators, Black Diamond Services, CourtSearch, Vicki Voisin, Inc. The Paralegal Mentor, and National Association of Legal Assistants.

I know that times are tight and many of us are trying to economize on CLE by going virtual, but sometimes you need the positive energy generated by a large and lively group of other enthusiastic paralegals, and a major annual paralegal conference is just the place to get it.

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).