Looking Back for Fun and Profit
Journalist Samuel Rubenfeld posted his personal 2011 year in review on Tumblr. Someone with the username “rofgile” posted his review of his 2011 investment picks on The Motley Fool forum. Bonnie Beckham posted in her blog for Boston.com some fun and interesting questions that her family answers as their year-end review each December. Yahoo! has a way to review your personal year of Facebook posts alongside events of the year.
There are many different focuses and many different ways to take stock of the old year as we launch the new year. The groundbreaking civil rights attorney, law school professor and first African-American federal judge, William Hastie reminded us why we need to do a review now and then. He said, Read more
Post Date: January 3, 2012
Introducing Guest Blogger Cathy Ribble – “Virtual Paralegal Partnerships: What Solo Attorneys Need to Know”
By Cathy L. Ribble, ACP
Cathy L. Ribble is a senior level litigation paralegal who decided in 2009 to offer virtual services to U.S.-licensed attorneys when she founded Digital Paralegal Services. She is certified by the National Association of Legal Assistants as an Advanced Certified Paralegal in the area of Trial Practice. She matches attorneys looking for virtual paralegal support with NALA-certified paralegals by practice area and geographic location.
Cathy contributed to NALA’s 2010 Career Chronicle with her article Could You Be One? Virtual Paralegals. She has been featured in Texas Far Journal’s Testing the Waters: Is It Time to Try a Virtual Legal Assistant? Paralegal Today’s Freelance Freedom, Carolina Paralegal News Virtual Paralegals Becoming More Common as Profession Grows, Practical Paralegalism’s Top 50 Twitter Feeds for Paralegals, ParalegalGateway’s Toolbar for Paralegals under Paralegal Tweeps and Paralegal Blogs, and The Paralegal Mentor’s Virtual Paralegal Interview Series.
Solo attorneys throughout the United States are hearing the terms virtual paralegal and virtual legal assistant for the first time. Today’s economy and the desire to keep a home-office practice are leading many solo attorneys to seek more information about virtual support.
What is a virtual paralegal? Read more
Post Date: November 29, 2011
Before You Make New Year’s Resolutions…
There’s an old story about a guy who walked down the street and fell into a giant hole. He yelled for help for a long time, but no one came. Finally he managed to scratch out some notches in the wall, and with some difficulty, he clambered out.
The next day he walked down the same street and fell into the same hole. He didn’t yell very long before he remembered the notches he had scratched before. He dug them out a little more, and then climbed out much more quickly.
When he walked down that street the third day, he caught himself as he teetered on the brink of falling into the hole again. He walked gingerly around the hole and went on his way.
On the fourth day… Read more
Post Date: December 15, 2010
Sleepless in Seattle: A Lawyer’s Occupational Hazard?
“If a man had as many ideas during the day as he does when he has insomnia, he’d make a fortune.” ~Griff Niblack
In my law practice I often began morning instructions to my staff with “In the middle of the night, I remembered that we need to . . . .” One day, my paralegal responded, “Don’t you ever sleep through the night?”
Taken aback, I stammered, “Uh…no. Do you?” I was surprised to learn that she usually did. Perhaps I thought waking in the middle of the night was an occupational hazard of working in a law firm. I had awakened for so many years that I forgot that some people don’t.
Waking is not really a problem, unless I can’t get back to sleep for hours. I appreciate my faithful spirit guide — or whatever it is — for the midnight alert that something is about to fall through the cracks or for gifting me with brilliant solutions to thorny problems. John Steinbeck said “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” I just wish The Committee would wait until morning to give me the good news. Who knows? Maybe the dark of night is the only time I am quiet enough to hear whispered answers or warnings. In any event, if I don’t get back to sleep until an hour before the alarm rings, I start the day in a fog and I’ll probably react irritably to someone by 3:00 p.m.
If this sounds too familiar, here are a few tips from an experienced wee-hour-waker that may help you get back to Snoozeville more quickly.
Post Date: August 30, 2010