Paralegal Associates

Day One of NALS was a hit in my book. First off, thank you to everyone at NALS who welcomed me with open arms (literally). It made me feel very welcomed and a part of the group..and what an enthusiastic bunch!

Session One: Ethics — Sense and Sensibility by Justice Edward Wallin

This was a session about JAMS and ethics during Mediation and Arbitration. Pretty much ethics can be summed up as:

• be honest
• be open
• One problem is if lawyers move to a new firm and finds himself on the opposite side of a case. what then??
• if it seems wrong, don’t do it!!

Session Two: Elder Law — Terms of Endearment by Judge Kim Hubbard

This session was hard to listen to, I will admit. It discussed the physical and financial abuse that the elderly face. It is horrible to think of people taking advantage of  innocent and trusting people.

• Elder abuse can be either physical or financially
• Most common category of people who abuse elders: family
• There a scam artists as well, such as people posing as caregivers, who gain the trust of elderly people and then convince them to sign all of their belongings and finances over to them
• it is rampant in this country, but only 1 in 100 financial abuse cases are reported

Session Three: Criminal Law — CSI: Irvine with Jennifer Contini, Senior Deputy District Attorney

This was my favorite session today. I found it really exciting to hear how a criminal case could go from practically no evidence to DNA turning the case into a slam-dunk.

• DNA evidence has changed cases to the point that people can be linked to crimes without a doubt
• If only working on that case, the DNA results take 36 hours
• people/police officers hesitate to give samples, but they are needed as ‘elimination samples’
• CODIS…national DNA Index System…a DNA database
• They can use ‘cell site evidence’ to track where a cell phone was located, course now they have GPS.