Enough Doom and Gloom- Show me the jobs!

  By Loni MorganelliAmerican Paralegal in London After months of dismal news and gloomy job forecasts, I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some good news!  So to help lift our spirits and in light of our "pay it forward" job theme (see www.knowparalegal.com), I've dug up some positive pointers.  The biggest piece of information I have for you, fellow...

Paid Not to Work – Fighting the Recession Takes Interesting Turn

By Loni MorganelliAmerican Paralegal in London Last week, according to Bloomberg News, Latham & Watkins LLP, the fourth-largest U.S. law firm, made an announcement that they would be offering incoming lawyers $75,000 to take the year off. Latham, which fired 190 lawyers and 250 staff last week, said it is pushing back the start date for all incoming lawyers by two months, and offering the...

New Investigative Techniques for Paralegals Include Social Networks

Paralegals investigating witnesses, plaintiffs or defendants for trial often review medical records, financial documents, school records and employment history.  Now, add to those avenues, social networking. According to an article in this morning's Legal Intelligencer, it is now standard operating procedure for paralegals to include checking a person's page on MySpace, FaceBook,...

He’s Still Stupid, According to Obama

We all get those annoying e-mails.  You know, the ones that purport to know our name, recognize that we're "friends" with the sender when in fact, we haven't a clue who they are.  Well, Ken Magill is proud to report that he is the first private citizen to have been officially called stupid in an e-mail from America's first African-American president. ...

Help a Colleague Out – Pass Your Job Leads Forward

Last week, we wrote about how we can help our colleagues who have recently been downsized, merged, purged, laid-off or, god forbid, "rightsized" into oblivion. As you may have heard, yesterday was another Black Monday.  The National Law Journal reported that the law firm layoffs haven't let up. Four major firms announced job cuts on Monday, totaling more than 300...

Slum Dog Millionaires: Paralegal Program Director Wins $16k

In the aftermath of today''s depressing news  (over 2,000 attorneys and paralegals have lost their jobs in the past few weeks and today Latham & Watkins announced it is laying off over 250 paralegals and staff and 190 attorneys), we sure could use some good news. Enter Mary Flaherty, Paralegal Program Studies Director for Suffolk University in Boston gave us all...

The Hidden Job Market – It’s In the Vendors

I had a terrific opportunity to run into two upbeat, interesting women who have the perfect jobs for paralegals seeking alternative careers.  Now, hold your horses here because the first thing I'm going to tell you is that they are located in, well, Fargo, North Dakota.  Yep.  Unless you've seen the movie Fargo, you probably don't realize that it's a happening...