Carolina Paralegal News Paralegal news for North and South Carolina

Barbara Galerno Spearman earned her paralegal certificate in 1995 and has been employed as a senior paralegal in civil litigation in the Greenville office of Collins & Lacy since 2008. She has twice been named Paralegal of the Year by the South Carolina Upstate Paralegal Association and currently serves as its president. A native of Florida, Spearman moved to South Carolina in 1977.

Katie Bricco assembled an unusual jury for her trial advocacy course at Marquette University Law School last year. A four-year member of the Milwaukee-based Brewcity Bruisers professional women’s roller derby league, Bricco invited her Maiden Milwaukee teammates to enter the jury box for her mock trial presentation.

The first step in any journey or project is to identify what you want to accomplish. Your mind is an amazing thing that will move you unconsciously toward whatever future you believe to be real. You can’t start to address what is real until you have some idea what you are talking about. This is true for your law firm, your job and your life.

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It should have been an easy strike. The Foley & Lardner attorney with tasseled loafers and a sport coat with elbow patches screamed conservative, said personal injury plaintiff’s lawyer Paul Scoptur, and that was the type of person he didn’t want on his jury in a minor brain injury case. But Scoptur’s wife, an attorney who was taking notes during jury selection for the 2005 case, persuaded him to keep the Foley lawyer on the jury.

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Instructors said they thrive on sharing their professional passions and experience; the intellectual challenge of staying up to date in practice areas; and engaging with students and colleagues. The extra income is nice, too. But prospective teachers also should consider the less appealing aspects, instructors cautioned.

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Nell Romanosky doesn’t have an email account, and she still types on her trusty IBM Selectric. At 83, she remembers being shocked when women exchanged their skirts to wear pantsuits to the office. And she favors Bing Crosby over “modern-day music.” “Hip-hop and that kind of stuff – I don’t care for that at all,” she said. Romanosky’s tastes may linger in the past, but she has a unique treasure that escapes members of the younger set – first-hand knowledge of an important historical era in Charleston’s legal community.

How do you know you've got a raging case of burnout? You start a blog called Paralegal Hell. Or at least that's what one senior paralegal - we'll call her PH - decided to do in order to cope with the stress of her long hours at a mid-sized law firm in Texas.

By SYLVIA ADCOCK, CPN Staff Writer [email protected] I guess I owe it to Ziploc bags and my mom’s cooking. I had it all planned out. I thought I could start studying for the North Carolina State Bar’s paralegal certification exam ...

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By ERICA C. McADOO, Special to CPN I loved working in a law firm the first day I started. I think I made copies for about eight hours … on a Saturday … for free. But I did it with ...

Tagged with: career advice Erica McAdoo law firm paralegal

Last month I attended a continuing legal education course sponsored by the Association of Litigation Support Professionals. The seminar, entitled "Making the Most of Technology in Trial," featured a panel of graphic designers, litigation support specialists, an attorney and a representative of the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Introducing myself, I discovered that nearly two-thirds of the attendees were in some form of litigation support. That got me thinking: Could a paralegal's perspective benefit a CLE?

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In 2008, I began a journey. It started by a simple conversation with one of my wife's beauty shop clients, a North Carolina attorney named Amy Nutall.

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Karen McGee is the president of the National Association of Legal Assistants. She is also the first deputy clerk with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal in Shreveport, La. A frequent speaker on paralegal procedures, McGee also is a member of the Northwest Louisiana Paralegal Association, the Louisiana State Paralegal Association and the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks. She received her certified paralegal credential from NALA in May 1990 and her advanced credential in civil litigation in May 1994.

Tagged with: mandatory or voluntary certification National Association of Legal Assistants Q&A

Laura Champlin is a paralegal in the commercial litigation practice group at Van Winkle, Buck, Wall, Starnes and Davis in Asheville, N.C. Champlin is certified through the North Carolina State Bar and holds an advanced certification in contracts administration/management through the National Association of Legal Assistants. In 1990, she received her bachelor's degree in administration of justice and associate's degree in paralegal studies from Wichita State University in Kansas.

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In high school, Jackie Houser was told she wasn't "college material." She wasn't in the gifted program. Her standardized test scores were low. She didn't have a chance to graduate and go straight on to receive a bachelor's degree. But she did have an abiding interest in the law - and a talent for it.

Maintaining ethical standards may be one of the trickiest parts of a paralegal's job. But practitioners and educators agree that it's also one of the most crucial.