By Chere B. Estrin Legal Apartheid: The Poisonous Impact of the 'Non-Lawyer' Label on Professional Equality There is a petition going around to strike the term "non-lawyer" from use by the ABA. I can't help but stick my two cents in: "The use of the term "non-lawyer" creates an artificial hierarchy within the legal profession. It implicitly suggests that only licensed attorneys hold value or...
By Chere B. Estrin I had lunch last week with a friend who is the Director of Administration at a top, major law firm. The firm had been seeking a litigation paralegal for months. When I first received their search, the hiring requirements included 5-10 years of litigation paralegal experience, actual trial experience, ability to handle legal research, drafting and a whole host of other...
. Know now – before they start By Chere B. Estrin "…..a worker that engages in behavior that is harmful to an organization, including either its property or people."
Definition from a 2015 research study by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor at the Harvard Business School. You’ve certainly done it at least once – hired the Toxic Employee. You were sure they were “Ms. or Mr. Best Candidate...
by Blake Lively with Comments From Chere Estrin Blake Lively nailed this concept about the value of your team in her article, "Your Law Firm’s Employees Cost Too Much to Lose. If you are in law firm management, you simply MUST read this article
Chere Estrin What does it cost to replace an attorney in your law firm? In the end, more time than you realize. Let’s look at...
By Lawrence Pascoe Compared to other businesses, lawyers have not evolved in how they serve their clients Let's be honest; the way lawyers serve their clients has not changed much, not just from the late 1970s when I started practicing law but probably since the 1200s when England passed laws regulating the conduct of the legal profession. Lawyers have harnessed technology to do tasks...
Jathan Janove As a former labor and employment law attorney, I’ve taken issue with the popular employee disciplinary tool commonly referred to as “progressive discipline.” In my view, it’s a pernicious contradiction in terms. Here’s what I published on this topic with SHRM. I advocate replacing conventional employee disciplinary policy with the following three communication...
Here is an article that appeared recently in the Progressive Law Practice magazine. Written by Tami Kamin Meyer "Virtual assistants are hot whether you are a solo practitioner or work in a major law firm," says Chere Estrin, president and founder of The Organization of Legal Professionals. Moreover, she adds, the more tech-savvy the attorney, the easier it is to work with a virtual...
Oh, for heaven's sake! First we read for years how the major firms are going to go under, disband or simply disappear and now we're reading out go the midsize firms. What's going to be left? Teeny, tiny little firms or solos? What does this mean for the paralegal?Probably a lot. Already, a new trend is sweeping the country: the combining of the paralegal with the legal secretarial...
Today must have been the day for buses. On at least three occasions, I read the phrase, "In case I get hit by a bus." My mother used to tell me that. Only she added that I had to be sure to be wearing clean underwear just in case.
I commented to my husband that I was reading a lot of cliches lately. He asked me, "Why do people think they would get hit...
I bet! In fact, I've often thought that being a law librarian would be a most interesting job. Just think about everything you would learn!"Librarians are curious people. We like to skim magazines and books, we like to surf the Web and we have some interest in a lot of topics. A former co-worker used to say that librarians are 'trivial' in that we are always picking up trivia -- a definite...
