Dear Son: Don’t Forget to Stand Out

You may remember Jamie Collins—one of our top writers.  Today I'm pleased to feature one of her posts on The Estrin Report. I am excited to announce that Jamie is not only writing in the legal genre these days, but also recently launched a personal blog called: Just Being Jamie. So what is this new blog? It’s pretty much Jamie writing on a wide variety of topics, with no set...

Mentoring Can Be the Biggest Mistake of Your Career

No one goes through childhood saying, “When I grow up I want to be a mentor.” That’s like saying, “When I grow up, I want to be an actuary.” When given a chance, believe it or not, not everyone wants the awesome responsibility for someone else's career. I first learned of Jamie Collins when she picked up the phone and told me I was going to be her mentor. She has a different...

Should Attending Law School Be Kept a Secret From My Employer?

“Nothing is worse than making a mistake that could be a career buster.” A paralegal posted a common question to one of the LinkedIn groups: “Am I absolutely out of my mind trying to find paralegal work, with no experience yet, only a certificate, and entering law school in the fall? Not exactly the ideal situation for a lot of hiring companies, apparently.”I had to put in my $.25,...

The Happiness Avoidance Problem: You sure do know what you don’t want.

We all want career happiness. So why, for some people, is it so hard to get? It is remarkably sad that so many people end up devoting their careers to jobs that don’t make them happy. They don’t start out that way, of course. It just ends up that as they get further along in their chosen job, they discover they’re not very happy. It could be attributed to a number of things: The people...

How to be a successful virtual paralegal – just like Brenda Studebaker

When you think about being a paralegal, the general picture that's conjured up is a bunch of attorneys, a paralegal an arm's length from those attorneys, a file clerk frantically looking for the document the attorney swears he never had, phones ringing, computers crashing (well, they do....), chaos, activity, energy, excitement and calm. Calm? Well, I thought I'd throw that in...

5 Ways to Talk to the Bully at the WorkPlace

Our guest blogger today is Mark Gorkin, The Stress Doc. How to Talk to the Bully:  Five Strategic Tools, Techniques, and Tips  Now that we have a definition of bullying and some key psychosocial conditions that encourage this often demeaning, ego- or power-driven, and manipulative process, let's continue with the final segment...How to engage and set limits on the bully and...

My Toughest Assignment – Ever

No one goes through childhood saying, “What I want to be when I grow up is a mentor.” That’s like saying, “When I grow up, I want to be an actuary.” It just doesn’t happen that way. When given a chance, believe it or not, not everyone wants the awesome responsibility of carrying someone’s future career in their hands. That is, of course, if you take being a mentor seriously. I first...

Thinking of leaving the field? Try this instead.

Recently, I was a speaker at the Los Angeles Paralegal Association's 19th Annual Spring Conference. The theme was the Paralegal Career - What's happening today; alternative careers and the ever-talked about licensing, registration and regulation. What can I say? It was informative, lively and eye-opening. I was invited to be on the alternative careers panel. Oh, boy. Having taken one of...