The closing keynote address was given by Lisa Marie Platske of Upside Thinking, Inc. She gave a presentation entittled:

• Motivation: increasing one’s desire to work to the best of one’s ability
• Motivation is internal…we choose where we are going.
• schedule time to get to know yourself
• Don’t treat others as you want to be treated, treat them as they want to be treated
• Attitude is your outlook, how you see challenges, how you view the world & determines your altitude in life.
• Do you know what your attitude says about you?
• If you always do what what you have always done, you will get what you always get

My closing thoughts on NALS09 and my experience

The past few days have been amazing, in the true sense of the word. I had a great time! I will admit that I was nervous going into the conference. I had never attended a conference. I didn’t know what to expect and the perfectionist in me was having a major panic attack. But, as I have been saying all along, everyone at NALS was so friendly and inviting. They took me under their wings, made me feel at home and many people introduced themselves by saying they follow me on Twitter, which made me feel special.

As for tweeting the conference, I had a blast doing it!! I would love to do it again for other conferences (ABA Techshow, are you listening?!). NALS10 is going to be in Branson, MO and I really hope to be there tweeting and blogging away.

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.

This time next week I will be in Irvine, CA gearing up to attend NALS Annual Education & National Forum October 8 — 11th.  I am really excited to attend as this will be my first time attending a legal conference. In addition, I have been asked to be the guest tweeter and blogger for the conference. I will be tweeting during the various sessions and will have at least an end of the day summary post.  I will post more if time allows.

Make sure you sign up for the rss feed so you don’t miss any of the blog posts. On twitter look for the official NALS hashtag #NALS09 and you can follow me @legalninjaKris

See you back here next week and on Twitter!

I’m hearing rumors that law firms may be getting the message about the profit potential of competent paralegals.  Specifically, Jeannie S. Johnston, paralegal expert and CEO of ParalegalGateway.com, has discussed the possible trend toward deferring  junior associate hiring, and instead taking advantage of the productivity potential of paralegals. Since first-year associates are unprofitable, so the story goes, paralegals are a safe bet because they are profitable right away.  They are so profitable that firms could well afford to increase paralegal compensation to better respect their actual value.  Imagine that!

I would imagine (correct me if I am wrong) that any business with a training requirement tied to a new hire is probably going to lose money on that employee in the first-year.  So, one would think that management factors that into an analysis of future positive returns on the investment in a new hire.

I think it would be really interesting to see what the data show regarding the long-term relationship between associate- and paralegal profitability.  If there is a study out there, please let me know.

The reason why I raise this issue is because the legal profession should, in these harder times, look seriously at how its uses paralegal services, and whether paralegal expertise is managed as effectively as it might be.  When firms see paralegals as glorified office assistants at low pay, failing to take full advantage of their training, they are wasting the firm’s resources and hurting profits.  It’s up to management to take responsibility for getting the most payback through intelligent use of paralegals.

Firms will really start to realize the full profit potential of paralegals when they stop insisting that they be employees, physically on call daily in the “bricks and mortar” office.  The huge reduction in overhead and loaded cost associated with aggressive use of contract “virtual” support is proven by a comparative study already available.

Since only actual tasks associated with advancing a case are “on the clock”, the increased hourly rate for a contract paralegal is more than offset by the large productivity increase and reduced overall cost.

A well-managed firm will use virtual paralegals to the fullest possible extent.  This is the answer to the question of the long-term relationship between associates and paralegals.  Virtuals are profitable no matter what a firm decides.