Florida Makes a Move to License Paralegals: Coming to your state soon?

  FLORIDA BILLS PUSH FOR LICENSING, DEFINITION OF PARALEGALS   Companion bills in the Florida Legislature are currently under consideration to make Florida the first state in the country to require licenses for paralegals. The bills require the Florida Supreme Court to develop a licensing and continuing education scheme and make it a felony for unlicensed people to identify themselves...

“Beware the Hidden Costs of Bad Formatting”

Pretty poor reaction to need for increased training given that documents produced by law firms are so important!"When talking to law firms about training, I often hear the following statements: 'It's so easy, you don't need training'; 'If you can't learn it in an hour, it's not worth knowing'; and my favorite, 'We're getting documents out the door.' "Law firms often use arguments like...

Paralegal’s Commentary on Court’s Patent Ruling

Yeah, this news is about an important ruling by the Supremes, but it's also very nice to see an experienced paralegal being quoted:"When the Supreme Court of the United States ruled for KSR in the case of KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. , it also served notice to the software industry that major changes may be afoot in both the granting and protecting of existing software patents. "For...

“A case of semantics”

I've got two complaints about this news article. One, the problem is with spelling, not semantics. Two, the reporter automatically assigned blame to a legal assistant for the typos: "Court documents can say the most amusing things. What's wrong with this sentence?"'We can only view AT&T's and Cingular's continued attempt to jeopardize NASCAR's relationship with NETEL as tortuous...

“Why Do Lawyers Need Editors?”

Gosh, there are so many reasons. You can find editing help & more from a new blog (written by an experienced 'wordsmith for law firms'); this post, for example:"The firm of Vinson & Elkins has a scholarship program for high school students who are interested in 'pursuing a career in law.' "Great! But take a look at these excerpts from the firm’s overview of the program.The...

Paralegal Article on Wikipedia…

...definitely needs improvement! Of all the smart & experienced paralegals who read this blog, surely someone (or several someones), has the skills & knowledge to improve this article, right? Find the current article here, history of additions & changes here, editing how-to here, editable page here, editing guidelines here, & info about all this Wikipedia stuff here. Be sure to...

“Better Legal Writing Is Plain and Simple”

Find several resources for writing better legal documents on this much-linked blog: "Legal language is used to record and explain the most important events in people's lives -- should it not be comprehensible? "Modernizing the archaic style you learned by rote is easy and with a little practice becomes habit. "Legal writing should be well organized (simple) and use everyday words...