Smart Battles

In these tough times, the subject of when to go to battle with your employer has come up several times.  People are simply afraid that if they speak up, they will lose their job, lose a client or suffer a loss or reputation.   A couple of years ago, I had a beef with an organization whose management took advantage of a situation.  They simply refused to pay for one of...

Paralegal Tech Institute at LegalTech Offers Free Job Class, Keynote and More

If you have been merged, purged, fired, laid-off, delayed, sabbaticaled, held off, rescinded, pink slipped, downsized, rightsized or just plain broadsided and lost your job, you may want to hear about a generous offer from the folks at Law Technology News, Legal Tech and the Paralegal Technology Institute at LegalTech West. Monica Bay, Editor-in-Chief at LTN sent us this e-mail this...

“My Mommy is a Paralegal” – New Book for the Kids

The question of what is a paralegal has been around since the career started.  Explaining it to an adult is one thing, but try explaining it to a child who has never seen a court room, judge or even an office building.  What does mommy do all day long, anyway?  The concept can be hard to grasp for a small child. Loni Morganelli and I came up with a concept for a book for...

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...