It's getting crazy out there. Legal Week, (the British top rag) reports that Fried Frank announced yesterday that it's cutting 73 staffers including paralegals in its New York office and DC offices. That's 10% of its 730 staffer headcount in New York and Washington, D.C. including paralegals, librarians and part-time assistants. A spokesperson told Legal Week that the lay-offs have not come...
Outsourcing paralegal work to India is a big, big business in the U.S. Primarily the choice of BigFirms in Legal Land, the idea is to have lower end work performed by competent paralegals for a lot less money and still receive the same quality as you would if a U.S. paralegal completed the task. Now, the U.K. is on the bandwagon. With over 500,000 paralegals (twice the number in the...
Because the field is so relatively new compared to the practice of law in America - 35 yrs. vs. 225+ years - we rarely look around to see what's going on with paralegal in other countries. Yep. They're out there. Take this fellow Albert Lau, a corruption fighter in Fiji. Here is a guy making a difference in society. Born and bred in Hong Kong, Albert is a retired chief...
For those of you who are not aware of the annual Electronic Discovery Survey, George Socha and Tom Gelbmann have produced this highly valuable ranking of vendors for six years. Now, they have announced that it has become so valuable that clients sometimes choose a vendor based strictly on the survey without regard to doing their due diligence i.e., carefully analyzing the services or products,...
<img src="http://www.blawg.com/claimscript.aspx?userid=estrinlegaled@aol.com&LinksID=2219"> KNOW, The Magazine for Paralegals has published its first issue and names the 9 Most Influential Contributors to the Paralegal Field. This prestigious acknowledgement was based upon contribution over the years to the paralegal community. The receipients are: Tom O'Connor,...
I'm not a smoker and I'm not in favor of people who smoke around me. My lungs don't need it, what with living in L.A. and all. However, this story from law.com raises a couple of legal questions. A paralegal who defied a new policy at work that banned smoking breaks for hourly employees was fired legally, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday. Karen Kridel had worked for a Rochester...
Lord have mercy on us all!! The inevitable has happened. A law firm has actually hired a paralegal in order to attract new international business. Yes. I know. Miracles do happen in Legal Land. A press release today sent by Goff and Wilson, a comprehensive immigration law firm with offices in New Hampshire and France, announced the recent hiring of Christine...
Sherry Zimmerman, a paralegal with the Sheriff's Office in Yuma, Arizona is reaching out to the legal community. Married 36 years to Wayne Zimmerman, a retired sergeant from the Arizona Department of Public Service, they await anxiously at the Mayo Clinic for a heart transplant for her husband. According to the YumaSun.com, there's a Wayne Zimmerman Benefit Raffle under way, sponsored by...
Ropes & Gray has just hired its first e-discovery counsel, according to an article today in The National Law Journal. The firm has hired former Ungaretti & Harris partner Shannon Capone Kirk to lead its electronic discovery litigation practice group. Kirk was previously chairwoman of the electronic discovery litigation practice group and a litigation partner at the Chicago-based...
Despite the daily news feedings of the economy's doom and gloom, there's actually good news for paralegals out there in LegalLand. ALM Research and the International Paralegal Management Association together announced the results of the 2008 Compensation Survey. Surveying 285 law firms and 78 law departments, representing a total of 14,216 paralegal positions, the study, conducted by...