While we think that working offsite is a new concept in the working world, here is a very nice interview by Brynne Williamson, PP, PLS of Marian Squibb, PLS who worked for attorneys from her home using just regular snail mail. You can read the interview on page 3 of the NALS Region 7 November 2009 newsletter.
NALS Reg 7 Newsletter

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.

Day Two was, for me, focused on technology. Session one, which was also the Keynote session, was focused on how to properly redact documents.  The second session discussed how to be safe on the Internet. The day ended with the Welcoming Party, but more about that below.

Keynote Speaker: Gavin W. Manes, Ph.D.

Redaction: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Any Paralegal knows all about Production of Documents. They love the sound of the Bates Stamp! A big part of producing documents is redacting information that is privileged. Every paralegal has gone home with hand covered in sharpie from redacting. Dr. Manes of Avansic gave a great presentation on redacting the correct way.  Here are some highlights:

• Number one litigation problem is preserving and producing digital evidence
• Rules and Regulations are changing the landscape…such as Rule 34
• Paralegals are going to become a little ‘nerdy’ as the industry changes and becomes more electronic.
• 40% of jury members don’t own a computer at home
• You want to think when the fax sends that it is deleted from the memory, but it’s not. it is still in there!
• Metadata: information about a document that you can’t see in the current view

Dr. Manes did a demonstration in a document that had been redacted using Adobe. He showed that even if you use Adobe to “black out” portions of the documents and send them as pdfs, there is a way for the person on the receiving end to highlight the text and see what you blacked out! Wow! I think I’ll stick to using a sharpie and then photocopying and then scanning.

Session 2: Technology with Professor Jack Lerner

“Everything the Legal Professional Always Wanted to Know About the Internet*”

This session covered what “Legal Professionals Should Know” regarding email and how to maintain privacy and security on the internet.  Highlights:

• FRCP 26(a) electronic items are discoverable
• Net Neutrality: The most useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites and platforms equally
• Email is not secure (surprising since so many law firms send send documents back and for via email)
• If you have a company owned phone, employers can look at your text msgs & IMs
• User-generated content & web 2.0 is changing our lifestyle and our norms…where does the law fit in with this?

Welcoming Party

Ahhhhh…yes, the Welcoming Party.  I had a blast! The DJ was great, the food was wonderful, and so many people were up dancing and having a great time.  We even got a conga line going. All I can say is that the NALS ladies know how to let their hair down and dance it up. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun!

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.

Well, here I am in Irvine, CA ready to attend NALS 2009 Conference. I should be asleep as it is an early (especially for me) day and a fairly long one as well. However, I am so excited that I find myself unable to sleep. I figured, what else is there to do late at night but write a blog post about how excited and thankful I am for NALS to give me this opportunity to cover their conference for them. The session topics range from Ethics to DNA forensics (sounds kinda cool) to technology to “insights into the future of legal support professionals.” In addition to the great sessions, I look forward to meetin in real life all of the NALS people that I have met on Twitter.

If you are at the conference, make sure to say hi.  If you were unable to attend, follow #NALS09 on Twitter and check back here to read about my experience.

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 have been discussing social media a lot lately with the business manager for Paralegal Associates. I have had to do a lot of explaining as he come from an era of print ads, cold calls, and letters by hand.  I can always answer his questions, except for one.

What is the ROI?

I didn’t have a ready answer and based on the research I have done…no one else really has an answer either. Social media is about interaction.  How do you apply a number to a conversation?? You can’t easily do so. Eventually there will be a way to evaluate it. For now, I will just look at my own experience as a justification of my time spent on social media.

I started on Twitter early this year around end of January/beginning of February (you can find the business on Twitter here & me personally here). Around that time I also started my Wordpress blog. This now the beginning of September, so we will say that I have been on for 7 months.  In that period of time I have made countless contacts, a few of which I can proudly call friends and I communicate with outside of the social media world. I have made professional contacts who had given me loads of advice regarding my career plans and my getting my business going. This is all well and good, but here is the main point:

In that time period, I have signed up 4 clients all off Twitter. That right there justifies my time. My business has a marketing budget of zero.  It is all on social media. The budget will increase as I go to self-hosting blogs and more sophisticated aspects of social media. But tell me, what start-up business can get clients with a marketing budget of zero? Only one that is using social media.

I will be addressing this topic more as I do more research into how to understand the ROI and as I have more experiences using social media. Keep checking back for updates. What are your thoughts on the ROI of social media?

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.

So, I thought I would change things up a bit, and since this blog is part of my business website, try to encourage the exchanging of ideas. I will come up with a job hypothetical and then people can comment with suggestions how to proceed. Please provide feedback as to whether you think this is a good idea or not (maybe this series will end with Mission 1 or it will be a hit….you tell me) So, without further ado….I bring you….your hypothetical!

Paralegals: your mission, should you choose to accept it (which you will because it is your job) is to keep the discovery responses striaight. Here is the scene: you represent two plaintiff’s.  There are 4 different defendants represented by 4 different law frms.  They all sent FROGS, SROGS, RFP, RFA, and statement of damages.  There is a set for each plaintiff. They are all due on the same day.  How do you keep them all straight?

Discuss!!