Carolina Paralegal News Paralegal news for North and South Carolina

Stories in this issue include a look at blogging in the paralegal world, how to have a well-run law firm and 31 ways to build your business in 31 days.

Ah, Autumn! The summer heat abates, school children head for the bus stops and Virginia lawyers scramble to finish their required CLE credits.

Tagged with: law firm

A MySpace post cautioning against snitching to the police. A picture on Facebook showing an allegedly injured, emotionally traumatized plaintiff dancing and enjoying herself. A Foursquare check-in putting an individual at the scene of an accident.

Tagged with: Social media

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held recently that a law firm could pay a paralegal a percentage of the gross proceeds from cases on which the paralegal worked. The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation had argued in In re Weigel that the compensation plan violated the prohibition on sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer.

Tagged with: non-lawyers

Nearly all companies issue employee handbooks or personnel manuals to their employees. There is no legal obligation to do so, but employees have come to expect them and companies find them useful tools for communicating expectations, policies and practices.

Thanks to the growing number of free, user-friendly blog hosting platforms, these days anyone really can be a writer, and many paralegals are discovering a satisfying outlet in blogging. Topics range from professional development to dressing on a budget, along with everything in between.

Tagged with: blogs

The American Bar Association adopted new ethical guidelines for lawyers regarding online marketing and staying aware of current technology at its annual meeting in August.

Tagged with: American Bar Association technology

There are a lot of different ways to win at trial and just as many missteps that could put a lawyer on the losing end of a verdict. Every attorney has a different strategy when approaching a trial, but most would agree that the more advice they can get, the better off they will be.

A Q&A with Julie Hatfield, a certified senior paralegal in the Charleston office of Collins & Lacy. During her seven years as a paralegal, Hatfield has developed specialized knowledge of business defense involving workers’ compensation claims.

Tagged with: Collins & Lacy

Kelly A. Farrow is the assistant director to the board of paralegal certification with the North Carolina State Bar. Farrow coordinates and manages paralegal certification and education programs for certified paralegals. She worked as an intellectual property paralegal for 10 years before joining the North Carolina State Bar in 2012.

What is still overlooked by attorneys as their firms progress through this cycle of life — even as the digital revolution continues to affect every area of our lives — is that technology is no longer just an add-on or afterthought to legal expertise.

Read the September 2012 edition of Carolina Paralegal News, including stories on embezzlement, insurance plans, law school marketing, and new guidelines for online juror research.

There is plenty of talk about power and politics in a presidential election year, and it will only grow more heated as Nov. 6 gets closer. Whether you lean left or right – and even if you stand up straight in the center -- you navigate a political landscape every time you go to work.

If you haven’t started a Twitter account, here are some tips to get you going.

Tagged with: Twitter

Welcome back to my mini-series on “frienemies,” those legal professionals that many of us either love or hate, depending on the day. Today I highlight another frienemy: the law clerk.