Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

Practical Paralegalism's Recommended Reading This Week

Posted on January 23, 2011
Here's this week's list of recommended reading for paralegals and other legal professionals. Got a suggestion for an article or post to include next week? Feel free to mail it to me at lynne.devenny@gmail.com. It is cold as all get-out. I must have these hand warmers...

Today's Quote: When Bed Bugs Are Actually Blessings

Posted on January 23, 2011
"It was a blessing in disguise. I was blessed to find another position. We're not trying to be Orkin or Terminex; we just want to make a living." ~ Sandy Honess, a 30-year legal assistant, lost her job, but then discovered the lucrative world of sniffing out bed bugs...

AZ Paralegal Opens Estate Plan Store

Posted on January 23, 2011
I can't help but wonder if Arizona paralegal Susan Faris is a harbinger of the way affordable, basic legal services may be accessible to everyone in the future. The Phoenix Business Journal featured Faris and her new startup business, The Estate Plan Store®, in a recent profile: Susan Faris spent more than two decades working in the field of law, mostly as a paralegal, before she decided to open her own business...

Want to Start Jeans Day at the Law Firm?

Posted on January 23, 2011
(That Is, If You Aren't Wearing Jeans Right Now) United Way is throwing out its out-dated mom jeans poster, and business casual has made jeans less unusual at work, but that doesn't mean the support organization has given up raising funds through official Jeans Days celebrated by participating employers...

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Scholarship Opportunities for CA Paralegal Students

Posted on January 23, 2011
The Stanislaus County Legal Professionals Association, an affiliate of Legal Secretaries, Inc., is offering local paralegal, legal secretary and court reporting students the opportunity to apply for over $8,000 in available scholarship money, including the Eula Mae Jett Scholarship...

Representing the Paralegal Profession Well: 10 Ways to Dress to Impress

Posted on January 19, 2011
Lawyerist.com recently posted ?Look Like a Lawyer: Dress to Impress in 2011,? which has plenty of good advice for paralegals and other legal professionals who want a competitive business advantage, too. I think it?s easy for paralegals, especially those who work behind the scenes and have little contact with the public, to think their appearance doesn?t matter as much as a lawyer?s, but it does...

Reader Question: How Do I Get a Job as a Litigation Paralegal?

Posted on January 19, 2011
Preferably raspberry-filled An entry-level paralegal employed in a Georgia law firm emailed me recently with this question: Would being a litigation paralegal at a worker's comp defense firm give me experience that would be applicable to any litigation paralegal job, or is workers' comp litigation so specific that it would limit my horizons? I responded as follows: Whether being a litigation paralegal for a workers' comp defense firm would give you solid litigation experience really depends on the firm and the job description...

Stress Relief Tip No. 93 for Paralegals: Yell "That's So WHACK!"

Posted on January 19, 2011
Stop. Don't yell that. And don't tell anybody that I told you to. What I'm really suggesting is that you buy this USB Whack It toy for your desk, and whack it instead of your supervising attorneys, passive aggressive co-workers, clueless court clerks, and that guy at Subway that messes up your sandwich every day, even tho' you're standing right there...

But Are These Consumers Really Divorced?

Posted on January 19, 2011
If Carter's Paralegal Service in Gallatin,Tennessee had helped me get my divorce, and I read in the news that the Tennessee Attorney General and Division of Consumer Affairs had ordered the company to refund my legal fees, I'd be less worried about the money and more worried about my marital status...

Scholarship Opportunities for FL Paralegal Students in Hernando County

Posted on January 19, 2011
The Hernando County Bar Association has two $1,000 scholarships available to Hernando County, Florida residents who attend Pasco-Hernando Community College full or part-time, are majoring in a law-related field such as paralegal studies, and have a GPA of 3...

Today's Quote: How Do Ya Spell @!*@!!*?

Posted on January 19, 2011
By 18 I was working as a legal secretary accompanying my boss to Cardiff Jail interviewing the prisoners. Good job I had shorthand, I could never have written the swearwords they used. Everything had to be written in full in a legal document and as nothing remotely rude was in the Oxford dictionary, I would blush every time I had to ask Mr Saunders how to spell @!*?@!!* ~ Ros Curtis, writing for Wales Online, muses over her work history as she contemplates looking for an employer who wants to hire an "overweight, 60-something" for very part-time "sitting-down" work...

Elite Law Firms Prefer Pedigree to Paralegal Experience

Posted on January 18, 2011
You guys would probably like Annulkah (whose friends call her ?Ann??um, don?t write that down, I?m just guessing...), who?s trying to get a job as a lawyer at a top tier firm. She has done her time in the legal trenches, even working as a paralegal to gain experience and help pay her tuition at a local law school...

Paralegal Profile: Andrea A. Schultz, CP

Posted on January 18, 2011
Job Title: Senior Paralegal Employer: Rice, Amundsen, & Caperton, PLLC; Memphis, Tennessee Years of Paralegal Experience: 5 Education/Degrees: Summa Cum Laude; AAS in Paralegal Studies ? General Practice Specialty Areas: Family Law Career Highlight: Volunteering with Wills for Heroes through my local bar association and earning NALA?s Certified Paralegal distinction...

Legal Assistant Declared Legally Sane

Posted on January 18, 2011
Yes, the headline is designed to grab attention, but seriously, can I get certified legally sane, too? Really seriously, congratulations are in order for California legal assistant and former Army Ranger Sargent Binkley, who is enjoying a fairy tale ending to a story that could have ended with a long imprisonment instead...

Michiana Paralegal Association?s 2010 Paralegal of the Year

Posted on January 18, 2011
Congratulations to Indiana paralegal Cherylan Shearer. She is the Michiana Paralegal Association?s 2010 Paralegal of the Year. Shearer works for Yoder Ainlay Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP in Goshen. Kudos as well to Shearer?s employer who recognized her achievement on its website: Ms...

Today's Quote: Lucky Lawyer Doesn't Have to Choose Between Paralegal and Wife

Posted on January 17, 2011
?If I had to make a decision about keeping her as a paralegal or as my wife. I don't know what choice I would make.? ~ Kentucky attorney Donald K. Brown, Jr. credits his wife, paralegal and ?unofficial jury consultant? Cheryl Parrot, with his 28 medical malpractice case winning streak since 1999...

Paralegal Accused of Theft Withdraws Guilty Plea

Posted on January 17, 2011
When I last blogged about Florida paralegal Kristen Collins Lausberg and her former employer, disbarred attorney Jessica Miller, they had been charged with multiple felonies involving the theft of client funds. They allegedly used the funds to live really large, shopping at Victoria?s Secret and Macy?s, and treating their families to resort vacations...

Retired Legal Secretary Ordered to Paint Her House Yellow

Posted on January 16, 2011
I?m thinking the same thing you are, ?It?s a free country, and she can paint her house any color she wants to!? Not so much in Crewkerne, Somerset, England. Two years ago, retired legal secretary, Sheila New, spruced up her 230-old cottage by painting it a lovely shade of light blue to complement her roses...

Saturday LOL: How to Create a Sparkling Clean Desk Top

Posted on January 15, 2011
Or Just a Sparkly Desktop Are you totally disgusted after reading my last post, which showed how grossly germ-infested our desk tops and our desktop computers are? Me, too. So I was very happy to almost immediately run across an example of a sparkling desk top that no other colleague in the office would be caught dead using, much less sneezing or crumbling cookies on...

TGIF: The Argument for Wearing Rubber Gloves at Work

Posted on January 13, 2011
Or Telecommuting I've been digitally out of the loop for most of the week, having succumbed to The Crud. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was in a fevered alternate pity party reality for at least two days, because I thought January 12 was next week, and well, it was yesterday...

What Attorneys Wish Their Paralegals Knew - and Vice-Versa

Posted on January 10, 2011
The latest edition of The Paralegal Voice, "What Attorneys Wish Their Paralegals Knew - and Vice-Versa" co-hosted by Vicki Voisin and me, is now available at Legal Talk Network. In this episode, we welcome Kim Walker, a senior litigation paralegal for Berger & Montague, P...

Legal Assistant Cashes Dead Dad?s Checks for 14 Years

Posted on January 10, 2011
I don?t know what?s worse here, a career legal assistant cashing her deceased dad?s Civil Service retirement checks in the amount of $2,650 a month for 14 years ? or the federal government not verifying that a fellow who would?ve been closing in on 100 years old was still alive...

Are Legal Secretaries Becoming Extinct?

Posted on January 09, 2011
In his January 8, 2011 guest editorial "Viewpoints: Many jobs gone forever despite onset of recovery" for The Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles attorney Darry Sragow posits that "many of the jobs lost in the Great Recession are never coming back," including the position of legal secretary: ...

Practical Paralegalism's Recommended Reading this Week

Posted on January 09, 2011
The highlight of my week was The Corginator ingesting a clementine in its entirety (legalese for the whole damn thing). Yup, including the rind. Good times. Not. (My hubby, who left the clementine on the floor, tried to convince me this was simply a much needed natural colon cleansing...

Paralegaling Is Not in the Dictionary, but It?s Better Than Lawyering

Posted on January 09, 2011
It makes me cringe to use paralegaling in a sentence, but it?s in the title of a much circulated news article, ?Paralegaling is a Better Job Than Lawyering,? based on CareerCast?s 2011 ranking of 200 jobs from best to worst. Paralegal assistant (arrrrrgh, redundant!) came in number 13, and lawyers came in, um, number 82...

Hot Damn, NC Legalizes Public Cussing

Posted on January 09, 2011
Speaking of swearing, how did I live most of my life in North Carolina and not know until last week it was illegal to cuss in public? I knew we aren?t supposed to pee in public (Mom taught us well), or swig our Grey Goose straight from the bottle while sitting on park benches, but I didn?t know that the occasional ?Shit!? expressed within the hearing of two or more people on any public road was illegal for the last 98 years...

Today?s Quote: DA Recognizes Legal Assistants at Swearing-In

Posted on January 09, 2011
Turning his attention to his colleagues, Lee said he could not do what needs doing without his assistant district attorneys and their legal assistants. In 2010, the D.A.?s Office tried 56 jury trials, prosecuted murder defendants and disposed of thousands of superior court cases...

Saturday LOL: I love me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on January 08, 2011
I may not have gotten the number of exclamation points right, but I know it's under 140, because this is a Kanye West tweet as sung by Josh Groban. There's even a little law practice management advice in this video, i.e. gotta have a table before you can have a conference...

Get Organized with The Paralegal Mentor's Free Webinar

Posted on January 07, 2011
Vicki Voisin, The Paralegal Mentor, and my co-host of The Paralegal Voice at Legal Talk Network, is offering a wonderful - and FREE - opportunity to get a jump on that New Year's resolution to be more organized at work and at home. This excellent career development opportunity, "Kick Start Strategies for Organizing Your Workspace," takes place next Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 8:00 p...

TGIF: Let Loose and Launch Your Blackberry from the Desktop

Posted on January 06, 2011
I know a lot of my readers love their Blackberries (and are sick of me burbling away about my iPad when I don't even own a freakin' smart phone...you know what, I LIKE IT that people can't call me on my iPad), so this one's for you: Thanks to one of my supervising attorneys, Helen, for sending me the link...

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