I'm on my soapbox today with a pet peeve. I noticed that some paralegals are putting "ABA Certified Paralegal" on their resumes, social media or announcing it to friends and employers. Here's a suggestion: Stop now while you still can! Save yourself some embarrassment or even keep yourself from getting rejected from a job!The ABA does not offer certification. Certification is a...
We all start out headed in one direction, and darn it, if we don’t end up in another. There are estimates that people have three to five completely different careers in one lifetime. That’s a lot of time invested when including the decision-making process, transition time, learning curve and years to gain a little experience.Let’s introduce the concept of career-changing rather than...
Last Impressions Last impressions are as important as first and doubly important in the paralegal field where “everyone knows your name.” People talk, and when they’re talking about you, it’s important that the conversation remains positive. Ensure that today’s co-workers become tomorrow’s dependable references and contacts. Here are a few suggestions: Time to Get...
A paralegal wrote in with this question:Is it worth it for a paralegal to sit for the eDiscovery Certification Exam?Of course, I jumped right on this question!
As Chairperson of the Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) and a co-founder of the International Paralegal Management Association, author of 10 books on legal careers and Editor-in-Chief of KNOW, The Magazine for Paralegals (ok,...
Legal Service Providers (LSPs), also known as vendors, have awakened to the fact that legal professionals have tremendous buying power. While the extent of that authority varies from firm to firm and east coast to west coast, no one can deny that legal professionals influence the firm or in-house legal department in the selection of suppliers of services and goods. This is...
Here's what's lacking in this market: Reliable salary surveys that the average law firm employee can get their hands on. Sure, there are lots of surveys out there but they are either a) an informal survey that isn't entirely accurate; b) available only for top executives; c) done by an association without the psychometrics, analytics and other precision tools that make a survey...
Hot controversy these days, on whether, if asked, you would provide a prospective employer your Facebook password. Candidates these days are being asked during the interview for their Facebook password before they have a chance to go home and cleanse the bad stuff. Years ago, employers would ask women what kind of birth control they used. (I remember being asked during an...
I read what I thought would be a same old, same old topic today in Paralegal Society but it didn't turn out that way. The guest post, by Stacey Wagner, was about business casual but the piece actually gave me a poke in the old gray matter evoking this lesson:
Some years ago, I did some consulting work for the Marine base at Ft. Lejuene for JAG officers, attorneys and paralegals who...
It's a game, really, this business of careers. If you think about it, every move should be strategic, every decision made carefully, and each accidental event acknowledged as it affects your outcome. To top it off, the results are win, lose or draw.
Why we make the bad choices we do can sometimes be thrown into the mystery category but other times, it's...
Today we hear from our guest blogger, Karen George, FRP, from Miami, Florida. I am a paralegal. I am a “mature” paralegal. I rose through the ranks to become a paralegal. I didn’t take a class, get a...