Paralegal Associates

Why, oh why are two sessions that I want to attend scheduled for the same day and time?! There was Do The Right Thing, which had to do with ethics, and Industry Trends — 9 to 5. Since I can’t be in two places at once, I had to chose.

Session One: Industry Trends — 9 to 5 with Judith Finnegan, CLM

First, Judith Finnegan is hilarious and a great presenter. Her presentation was on trends in the legal field.  She discussed how the generations are changing and how the legal profession is changing in response to that.

Highlights:

• In the past 2 decades change has been prevalent in the legal field
• 77% of attorneys have a smartphone
• 50% of attorneys use smartphones for legal research
• over 34% of jobs in legal field created since 2001 are now gone.
• on 2/12/2009, 800 people were laid off from law firms nationwide that day.
• Attorney-Secretary ratio has grown: 3.5 sec per 2 attys (McDermott Will & Emery in DC)
• Legal Secretaries/Paralegals are the next highest expense, after rent.
• Generation X is currently 30% of workforce
• More attys are part of Gen X — Self-sufficient, telecommuting

I really enjoyed this session.  I found some of her statistics surprising. Also, she provided a comparison of the different generations.  Based on her breakdown, I’m technically Generation X (by one month) which surprised me since I thought I was Gen Y, but go figure.

Take away: In order to remain competitive & marketable, change must be embraced, not resisted.

Focus Session 1: The Economy, the Changing Law Firm Environment, and the Role of the Modern Legal Professional

This focus session was a great follow-up to the presentation by Judith Finnegan. In the session we answered 5 questions:

Q1: other than layoffs, how does law firm downsizing affect staff ?

Q2: what steps are law firms taking in order to reduce or cut expenses?

Q3: How does staff cope with and reduce stress in the face of law firm downsizing?

Q4: In light of layoffs, what resources/training/services do you need?

Q5: what do you think the law firm of the future will look like? In 5 years? In 10 years?

I would love to hear your opinions.  Feel free to leave a comment answering any and all of these questions.

Focus Session 2: The Lean, Mean, “Green” Machine

This focus session discussed “going green” and the challenges faced in trying to get law firms to do that and what action some law firms have taken already to do so.

Q: What comes to mind when asked how to make your workplace more environmentally friendly?

Q: What are you doing or being asked to do be more environmentally friendly in your offices?

Q: Does your firm/workplace have an established procedure for its sustainability structure?

Q: What is your biggest question or challenge about going green?

One attendee commented that that clients are starting to look and see how green are the offices of their attorneys. Law firms might want to take that into consideration.  You can follow the NALS Green Team on Twitter for tweet tips about how to go green!

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on going green.  Leave a comment below!

Session 2: Computer Forensics — The Net by Matthew Sant, Esq.

This session brought to us the “dark side” of the net. The session covered “who or what may be on the other end” of the Net.

• DoS attacks: an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users.
• Targets: high profile websites ex: banks, credit cards, search engines, social media.
• First one occurred in 2001…took them a week to figure out the source
• Hacking implies unauthorized intrusion
• Some hackers are hired to test vulnerabilities of sites
• Identity theft is the deliberate assumption of another’s person’s identity, usually to gain access to their finances
• Phishing is an attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information by masquerading as a trusted entity in an apparently official communication

That ended the educational sessions for the day….all that was left was

The NALS Foundation Purple Carpet Gala!!! Again, the food was amazing!! The evening consisted of Board Members and Trustees dressed up at characters and the “audience” got to vote on who was the best actor, etc. We had a Tigger, a Scarlett O’Hera and Rhett Butler, Miss Piggy, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (two of those actually), Mae West, and Carmen Miranda to name a few. It was an entertaining evening. I tip my hat to those who dressed up as characters.  They really committed themselves to what they were doing…just like any good Legal Secretary/Paralegal would do.