The Paralegal Profession: an insider's perspective (career panel discussion)

and thank you for coming um my name is Tara everheart um I am a uh guest lecturer or uh with the GW paralal studies program I teach the litigation course for both the certificate program and the master's program um by day I'm the senior firmwide paralal manager at McKenna long and Aldridge um so I have a program of approximately 100 paralegals um spread out over 16 offices 13 uh domestic and three international um so that's sort of my background the format that we're going to follow tonight is going to be extremely informal um the idea is that this is your event uh and your opportunity to talk about uh what you would like to talk about and ask those burning questions so we're going to start off by introducing the members of our panel um and asking them one or two intro questions and then we're hoping um that you will jump in with those questions that you sort of came uh and jotted down or thought about before we got here tonight um so I'm going to actually start at the opposite end uh with Maria Maria bright and ask you to introduce yourself hello um my name is Maria bright and I work for the Armed Services Board of contract appeals which is a part of the federal sector and uh my background is I served in the military for six years and then after that I went along went ahead and decided to continue my career in the federal sector great thank you Maria and next to Maria we have shazi spieler hi my name is shazi spieler I work as a senior biotech IP intellectual property patent paralal at Stern kastler Goldstein and fox uh my background is in chemistry I previously worked at the patent office as a patent examiner for a short period of time went to grad school and went back to the pat Fields shortly thereafter great and next to shazi we have Kate Crabtree hi um I am Kate Crabtree and I currently work at Exon Mobile Corporation in their Downstream intellectual property law uh department and I basically uh take the lead on our contracts for that group um and I've been a paralal for 22 years um after serving in the military for four years I uh went to an uh a community college and got into a paralal studies degree uh went from there to get um my uh bachelor's degree in history and Juris prudence and started working at law firms uh in DC and really enjoyed working as a paralal and thought a little less about the lawyers I mean just their lifestyle and what they were giving up to be lawyers um and I really love being a paralal so I continued doing that I'm currently in the master's program here um as a distance learner from Fairfax um and uh I am also studying for the pace examination right now so great thank you Kate and uh last but not least uh Pascal Godard hi everyone um I'm Pascal and I am an alumni of the paralal studies program here at GW very proud I might say um I am currently a senior litigation pargal at Hollingsworth LLP it's a product liability defense firm and a um toxic tour and I must say trial litigation is very exciting so bew I um started off I guess I call it a court Runner um straight out of high school at a law firm my mom worked at um I was actually in the law program at my high school so being in the legal field was the only thing I desired my goal was to become an attorney but um I have a 16-year-old and that tells the story well um so I've always been a pargal and my goal when I moved to DC from New York was to become a career pargal and GW afforded that and I'm here on the panel today to uh answer any questions that you have great well maybe one of the ways we can get started is a paralal profession one of the things that I really love about it is it's very heterogeneous there's lots of reasons why people become paralegals or learn about the paralal profession so shazzy how did you sort of get interested in uh becoming a paralal or what was the impetus for you to make that your career well um that's a good question cuz my background I have two degrees in chemistry and it's not particularly common among paralegals but while I was in undergrad um one of my professors used to be an expert for patent trial cases and it really turned me on to intellectual property at that point in time and I went to the patent office from undergrad and I worked there for a short period of time but I really wanted to try my hand at uh private sector to see what that was like and I really enjoy the um customer service aspect of the of what a pargal does and I think that using my techn tech technical background in addition to my desire to have you work with people provide a service I think it was a really good combination of the two and that's how I ended up where I am now Maria what about you you talked a little bit about your military background but how did you become a paralal I started out as a legal technician and I was assigned to the Tor claim section at the Walter Reed Medical Army um facility out in DC here that I believe now is in Bethesda and as a legal technician I was blessed to be assigned to a wonderful attorney and a paralal specialist that just loved their work and was willing to share and challenge me and allow to experience what it is to be a paralal and to think in in the legal aspects of how situations occur when it comes to medm or um uh personal injury property um damage and such and the part that really grabbed my attention was the opportunity to think on your feet litigation I would have to say is the most exciting part of legal field for me you are constantly engaged with the client and you're constantly doing research you have to stay on your toes when it comes to changes in statutes and what you're going to present to support your analysis and as a legal technician though I wasn't at the time a paralal specialist I was given that opportunity to sit with the attorney and interview doctors patience and taking notes as far as what took place why it occurred and to think about how does this apply to us are we liable or was the individual responsible for their own action and with that knowing the legal field was the right field for me I knew I had to obtain the necessary education to further myself because experience alone with what they're teaching me limits you to what they showed you and that's when I started researching paralal fields and um educations and services uh that provide you that type of education and that's when I ran into gw's program it not only covered one area it covered three different areas and it also provided the requirements that I would need to be able to write well strong and know how to do the research so I can support my argument and when I provide it to my to the attorney I'm assigned to she can see where I'm coming from and why I firly believe that this case relates to the situation at hand and then from there I just went forward and fell in love with the profession and though I'm not in tort now I'm in contracts I would have to say it doesn't really matter what area and field that you go into the legal field the foundation of a paralal and what you do as a paralal by itself is a rewarding uh profession and you'll love every aspect why I'm in the paral field great thank you Kate what about you um well um I I guess I what I I'm I'm in it um to just support I mean I I love the support and I love working with such a diversified group of people um and uh just when I started out I was in doing real estate settlements and that's a fairly once you learn it it's kind of the same thing every time only different um for each specific casee and for each specific set of people and how high strong they're going to be about their largest purchase of uh their life to date and um so it I I kind of enjoyed the stress aspect of it that I mean you're really like people are really counting on you and really counting on you to to you know stay calm and get through um a a tough time for people but also I love how when you're in that environment and your you know your regular job is putting together settlement statements and and maybe doing a sale here or there um you you just ultimately end up doing so many different things and just depending on you know the level of trust you gain with your attorneys you end up doing almost anything and so you know here I was I'd be setting up corporations or or um uh yeah there was just so many different things they could just throw at me to do and um I enjoyed those challenges because everything you kind of super to that'ss you really learn how to do things um you know you get Guided by your lawyers which I always appreciate because everybody has a different approach to things and so you really gain especially the the more lawyers you have I think the more um the the the more variety or more more ways you can approach different situations um but uh yeah and that's kind of carried me through just where um yeah you you you do so many different things and people trust you to do them and um uh yeah the more you do the more they're going to give you and so the more they trust you and and the more um yeah it it's amazing how that just perpetuates but yeah it's I do this to myself yeah it's um paralal some sometimes we have the label of being glutton for punishment right the um the superhero complex um sometimes so Pascal you talked a little bit in your opening about why you um became a paral so maybe you can answer um we want to make sure that we show balanced View and and with any career progression it's not always a flowers and rainbows and unicorns and what do you think is one of the most challenging things about being a paralal oh um for me it has to be when your attorney asks you to find a specific case or you know it it's like being put on the spot to get something together quickly especially being at trial there's no room for mistakes it's it's nerve-wracking like literally the first time I ever went to trial I emailed her and I'm like oh my gosh I'm like shaking I didn't even leave DC yet and I was shaking get there and it's no sleep I had 20 hour days and it was just really a pressure to make sure that I had all the exhibits right that I tagged it the right way that I spelled the plaintiff or the defendant's name correctly like it could be the little the little things but the pressure of knowing the attorney's depending on you to provide him with what he's looking he or she's looking for it it's it's totally nerve-wracking and at the end of the day you're losing your steam is coming down and I remember being at trial this past February I got a call from the the um the court the courtroom the attorney's like I need you to bring over 20 copies of I'm exaggerating but you know certain number amount of copies and I'm like I gave this like like I'm shaking like what did I do wrong he just wanted black and white copies just in case the judge didn't want colored copies and I'm like freaking out so it's it's just knowing that your the expectation they have of you you you have to be on your toes so I mean it it just depends on whether or not you know what you're doing you understand what they ask of you and how you're going to uh carry it out so yeah absolutely um we we'd like to open it up we certainly have lots of questions that we can ask the panel but wanted to make sure that we included our audience in our discussion so is there anyone who would like to sort of kick off with a question that you're interested in addressing to the panel in general or someone in particular yes you know I'm here getting The Graduate certificate program and I have no experience so I have the education experience so I'm seeing all these ads that are looking for a legal administrative assistant or you know a legal secretary and I'm wondering if that's a way to start or if I should just hold out you know for an entry level or Junior paralal position if you can I know you started as a court Runner and you if you just talk about how starts well I think personally that is a great place to start especially if you don't have the experience but I think for most um employers if they see that you have the experience they might just uh throw you into the lion's den but starting off as a legal secretary I think will'll get your foot into the door you learn the ropes of that firm you learn the attorneys know what they want and it kind of gives you that Comfort level that you can build and see yourself grow in that firm so if you're not comfortable going in as a paralal a legal secretary is a great way to start um I sort of think the two kind sort of go hand inand sometimes depending on the firm that you're you're in if it's a wide firm then you learn a lot and um I mean I started off as well as a legal secretary outside of being a runner and i' I learned so much to the point where I just knew I was going to be a career pargal um if if I wanted to track back I I honestly when I moved to DC I tried applying as legal secretary they like get out of here that's see your history no you're too experiened so it's getting your foot in the door that that should be good did anyone else in the panel want to address the question about um starting maybe in a different titled position and then moving within an organization into a paralal position I can address that in sort of a Different Light because I think um you know I can speak from the perspective that I have experienced at the firm that I work at now at Stern Kesler and I think um it really depends on how the firm will Define that role so I don't think that um going in as a legal secretary or even interviewing asking the firm exactly how that role is defined to help you better understand what it what tasks you'll be responsible for and how they would compare to to a par legal because a lot of times uh the roles have a lot of overlap and um firms like I said will Define that according to their structure so I don't think in any way in my perspective that it can be necessarily a hindrance starting out and some firms even um The Experience level that they're looking for a legal assistant might uh supersede that of of a paralal at times just depends on how that goes um if if I could just put my manager hat on for a minute and address your uh your your question because I I do a lot of hiring um and I get this question a lot um I I do think it really depends on the on the organization um if if you're applying into a really large um Global am100 firm we have normally those types of firms have very specific policies on transitioning within the organization so for instance at my organization if you get hired in a titled position other than paralal um I can't touch you for a year okay okay so I can't I can't utilize you I can't train you I can't talk to you about a paralal position because you were hired into another department so after a year and some people express interest before that unofficially then if we had an opening you would be potentially eligible to apply internally but you do have to be really careful because sometimes um transitioning across roles within organizations is is not encouraged um there are some firms here in DC that that specifically do not do that um the paralal managers will not pull people out of other departments um they prefer to recruit their own folks um versus to have other managers recruit and then to um you know look with internally so it really does depend um and you can get a real sense of a particular firm or organization um by talking to the folks that are internal um or you know by coming to things like this and and asking about the specific law firm um corporations um I I think tend to be a little bit different um and Kate maybe you could talk about you know from a corporate standpoint um going in um we actually have support of administrative assistance in our our law departments and so they don't necessarily have the same uh legal skills as the legal secretaries I've come across in law firms but what I love about um in in our case we end up you know if our admin is out we kind of have to cover a little bit to a certain extent I mean we there's also other admins we can go to but when you have a relationship with your admin you know exactly what you've been giving them and what they've been taking off of you and so what I find um I I think one thing that would be really useful is just knowing that um you know knowing what the legal secretary does so you know how best to use them how how and how you know you can help them help you and um I right now I have the greatest administrative assistant in the world who's now in paralal school but um he you know he's just fantastic and um but but he's really let me know what you know he will do to help me and and lighten my load and um so I feel like you know I I I think going in as a legal secretary would be useful to a certain extent but if there are other jobs of you know paralal Junior paralal positions open I would probably go there first um just because um yeah it's it's there's a lot ahead there's a big road ahead so um yeah lots to do and and most job openings even if they are we have we have 12 different titles within my program so if you just search for pargal we've coded all of our job um postings so if you search for paralal every one of the other titled PHS will come up for you and a lot of firms do that with keyword searches so if you don't feel like you have a really good handle on all of the titles that are used Don't Panic um those of us that put together job descriptions or postings we know that you tend to search for pargal or legal assistant and we'll embed that as a search term um so you'll hit our other postings or other titled positions that we think are similar um so another question yes uh not so much a question but just to touch on what you asked about uh I was a faal Shaz at Stern Kesler and I'm now on the other side in legal Staffing so I talk to a lot of people in the similar role as Tara as far as managers go and that type of thing and I had a meeting today where um a manager told me that as long as someone can show that they're a hard worker like he has seen resumés that a person has only been in the restaurant industry but he had experience in the restaurant industry so you never know who you're actually interviewing with or what type of experience the person has that's looking at your resume so you can sometimes connect with them on a different level than just with your legal experience and for him it was the restaurant industry that showed him that you're a hard worker you can stand the hours and that type of thing so don't be discouraged by not having that specific type of experience sometimes uh that could matter as well so yeah that's a that's a good point so there's a lot of transferable skills and even though you don't have specific paralal education uh experience if you can connect with the skill set and tailor your resume to highlight those skills then maybe you can make that connection even though you don't have specific experience so I think is the point all right other questions all right we'll let you get warmed up we'll go back to some of our um other questions your first job as a paralal if you can sort of hearken back um what do you wish someone had told you before you took that first uh position either part of your job search or when you were evaluating and deciding or talking to somebody about taking your first position um and looking back what did you sort of learn about that process Maria maybe we start with you when you came out of uh military and actually had to uh go into civilian World well like I had stated earlier my experience was very positive um they were more interested in the fact that I was eager to learn and at least in the federal government that's a not necessarily the private that you have that energy and the willingness to want to learn so going in U and seeing what a paralal does and I um allow the opportunity knowing and having the knowledge of what a paralal does especially with legal research is the most important thing I believe um when you setep foot in a paralal position CU anybody can file anyone can make copies but but what a paralal can do is do the legal research and Analysis and serve as the right-hand man to that attorney or that judge and going in as a paralal for the first time knowing that you have the capability of doing the legal research not necessarily having the answer on at hand but knowing where to find it how to find it and maximize your your resources without exhausting your resources to the point you charge you you know costing the agency a lot of money is the most important thing I think you need to go in there um as as your first time knowing how to find the answers to the questions that the attorneys will present to you and to the clients and the uh claims that come in PESA what do you think uh you sort of learned after your first paralal role side checking in the blue book if I had known all the years before actually the role that I'm in now how to side check and um utilize the blue book I think I would be sitting on a gold mine um am I rooll at maril Lynch I've never seen the blue book we never site check um I knew West law I went on to Lexus Nexus but we I never even knew what pace it was our outside council did all that and um when I came to DC I moved with Bank of America Mar Lynch I worked at home which was a heaven sent job then they did a massive layoff and I'm job hunting in DC and I'm like side checking go Google oh my gosh I don't know how to do this GW gave me every every bit of my experience now and at my firm now if there's no one else a side check if I'm not there they'll wait until I come in the next day I I definitely definitely have to say side checking and the Blue Book which sometimes I refer it as the blue Bible um if I had known about this years ago I definitely would have taken that on or learned it before moving to DC cuz it's a tool that I think no matter where you go what Fe whatever field as long as you know how to Blue Book and use a blue book and side check your it's it's it's outstanding shazy what do you think you're you came from a different governmental agency but stayed in your same sort of track and from a different Vantage Point how is that transition and what did you sort of learn I I think um what I wish someone would have told me uh starting out in my experience is for me to trust myself and have confidence because I think um you know when you transition from an agency such as the patent office where my experience you're not supporting a lot of attorneys you know that kind of thing you're sort of working on your own case stocket and um the expectation and the bar sort of set by by you and your supervisor as a opposed to a group um and various different roles within that group you know stress level isn't quite the same so I think um you know someone told me just you know note to self trust yourself and have confidence it would really help with my ability to work Under Pressure manage my stress and you know feel confident in the decisions that I'm making when I'm under pressure to you know provide some sort of work product for an attorney what about you um I would say um looking back I mean I I think I'm happy with um how my career has gone so far but looking back if I were to go and do over my first job and the whole job search process I think I would uh maybe try more firms you know I mean interview more um and really get an idea of what's out there um not sell myself short I mean I I kind of was the you know the first person who made me an offer I just took the job and I was happy to have done it but it was a job I only stayed in for a year which was probably perfect but um you know so it was a lot of training uh for a very small amount of money um but you know yeah I it was really um yeah I I gained so much that year but um ultimately from that low point it's just hard to make the jump and salary you need but the next job I got I I got to where I needed to be but I really think that I I really looked out and and not um just not have the confidence you need to you know just kind of sell yourself and know that you can do a you know a certain amount of things you aren't you know you don't know everything and they know that when you're just coming out of school so that's kind of a some something uh we all have going for us at that point um but you know they're willing to teach you at that at that that time but you know just not too um you know they don't want to have to be there every second they want to give you information and you run with it and so as long as you can do that I think you're in good shape and just yeah don't sell yourself short so I absolutely um at my time at Marl Lynch I just want to add that whenever an opportunity presents itself if you feel comfortable and it's something you want to do take it um I passed up two um opportunities to be in a different apartment at maril Lynch I love my I love my role I love the group that I worked with and I'm like I'm not leaving I'm staying but I passed up an opportunity in compliance I passed up an opportunity in the corporate side of it and when I was job hunting I'm like I'm seeing these compliance positions this you know corporate secretary and I'm like ah if I had only you know so sometimes even though you love your role you're comfortable it's you you have the um the longevity sometimes it's good to if the opportunity arises I say go for it that's one of the other things that I wish some someone had told me at the time if it comes up if they're allowing it take the chance you know it's it's okay to try something new you know this way you have the experience in uh in different growths um I think that's very important I think you know uh people ask me all the time what I look for when I'm interviewing paralal candidates and and and it goes for whether we're hiring a project assistant which is very very entry level or we're looking for a very specialized paralal um and I always say that I'm looking for somebody who has intellectual curiosity um you know who has the right Drive um and who is teachable um because again you you can come with different skills you can come with different abilities but I may want you to do something you know slightly different than the way that your last Law Firm wanted you to do it if you're not willing to learn as a pargal um your career is going to be very short um because everything you do constantly changes um and I think that's one of the things with the programs at GW um that I think you know all the professors we talk about that a lot when putting our curriculums together is um thinking about what we can do to really prepare people to go out and to be successful um and to have those skills that people are looking for and to have a little bit of exposure to different types of things you may come into a program or into a you know position thinking I absolutely love litigation and I hate corporate well you may never have done a corporate project or worked on a corporate deal um and ation at your firm may be very slow and you may have an opportunity to do corporate um you know the reality now is you should take that opportunity because um it it's important uh to uh be flexible um and to be cross Tred uh you know as in as many different areas as you can um Kate you mentioned um that you're setting for Pace um and I don't know if everybody um is as familiar with Pace um maybe you can just give us a two-c overview of what that is and tell us why you think that that would be helpful for your career sure um PA is the what paralal Advanced competency exam I'm glad it was written down um uh it's um ultimately you study to take an exam um which would then after you've passed that um make you a registered pargal and so you get to put RP after name I guess um with little um trademark um but um basically what I've learned while I've been uh studying I'm also in school so everything is like So Fresh So it's like the perfect time to be studying for it um and not wait till I've been out of school because um it the pace exam book you know it's just a nice thick book um with just all these different what are they called profiles no I can't remember the each there's different section sections that just cover such a diverse just every field of law is in there and so and it it it really just highlights the really high points that you'll see in the exam and it gives you kind of guidance for taking the exam and um lets you know the the things they're going to be looking for and everything's kind of federal level versus State because it's a national exam and um it you know it's just um I don't know right now I think it's busy work but um it's you know I I think it's all really going to help me take the exam and that's the main thing there and I think what it shows in the end to be a registered paralal you just kind of have an overall ability to you know maybe pick up and run with something if somebody gives you something you may not have all those skills already but you'll know where to go you'll know people to contact you'll know you'll you just want to never be stuck and so I think that's the the um one of the things being a registered paralal is going to do for you um yeah I I sometimes wonder because I always thought you know being a paralal is cool enough you know and I it's so funny because my whole life 22 years I you know whenever I say I'm a paralal people are like oh that's cool you know why would you think that it is but you know why would you think that and um well now I'm going to have an RP and be even cooler so alphabet soup is always always behind people's names um you know just to add to what Kate said um you know if you go through an educational program like the one at GW or um others that shall not be named here um you come out with a a paralal certificate or um you come out with a specific uh degree there are two national paralal associations here in the US one is the National Association of Legal assistants Nala and one is the national Federation of paralal associations which is nifa um there are a couple other minor ones but those are the main players um and they both have certification um programs that you can go through they both have two tiers entry level and advanced um so you have different requirements for those but it's another way to distinguish yourself um from the 150 other applicants that are applying for a position that you're applying for or if you want you're already a paralal and you're interested in you know additional opportunities it's a way to to show your firm your organization yourself that you're continuing to sort of invest back in your you know uh job as a career and a profession um shazy I know that you have other I'm sorry we have a question yeah I have a question with so many large law firms training um just students with well I'm not saying students but graduates who have four year who have the fouryear degree and training them to be a pargal how does that allow people who are coming out with the certificates who are coming out with the Masters in paralal studies because firms are looking at costs as well and they can hire someone and then train them as a paralal versus paying you what you earn for what you have the experience and knowledge how should you comat that okay does anyone want to address that specifically I have a few thoughts which I'll add at the at the end for the manager point of view but to throw it to the panel um how do you think about competing with people I I guess the question is people that sort of learn OJT right on the job and come up and are given a paralal title or don't have specific paralal education or specific paralal certificate how do you sort of compete with them or compare with them in the marketplace well from my personal experience um I had on the job training um I could have sat and said okay that's as far as I want want to go but when you get a passion for the field for the career you want to go further it's it's almost as though I look at it this way I don't want to go to a doctor's office that did not go all the way like a doctor I don't want to know that he didn't go all the way I don't want to know my attorney bought his you know his um degree on eBay it's like you just you have it in you to go forward now comparing I mean I'm also getting ready to study for Pace I won't say the uh the full term but I often wonder um how would an employer look at my credential is it two experience is it two I think for the most part it presents you in a way that this girl is All or Nothing or this this gentleman is All or nothing compared to someone that comes in maybe straight out of high school like I did um on the job I can peek over someone's shoulder I can have someone show me how to do it but at the end of the day do I really understand it do I grasp it can my attorney put me in charge when he's at court with the judge and the jury leave me in a war room to gather the information some people take on faster but your credential tells your boss it tells you that you're well equipped to do the job if there are firms that's not willing to pay because of the credentials then you seek seek higher that means you have higher to go that's just my my personal take on it Mar you have a unique background that you work in an area where you um were active duty and now you're working sort of in government um how do you do you see that same sort of um issue playing out in a government sector versus private practice with a paralal credentials or how does the government sort of view that um I think the my uh success in the paralal field has a lot to do with my education like I said um the your on the job training limits you to what you've been trained and based on their knowledge and what you've comprehended but if it wasn't for me pursuing the GW degree it wouldn't have exposed me to the the tools that I would need and the knowledge that that I um gain had I not taken that uh that extra step to get into education when employers at least in the federal sector um see that you have a certificate they say okay this person is not only interested and apparently you know they for them to apply they have to have a qualifications but they're also certified or they have a degree so therefore they're already knowledgeable so you're you actually have a stronger weight having that educational background yes of course um experience plays a role but if you have both or at least one of the other um your your case is um is more compellent and it's more persuasive so I wouldn't necessarily look at a an individual who only has a an education or think um they're they know too too much or they're they're going to be too expensive when the federal government I know at least when I see my supervisors and they look at individuals like oo this person has a do be or you got a certificate from George Mason or wherever you go I always hear that sound like they're educated you know it kind of reduces the training time yeah they have that tool the tool and I I think the government is one of the employers that gives specific steps and accreditation for certain certificates and education and so that's why I wanted to make sure we got you know Maria's perspective because it's very different and Sh shazi you have additional education and background and you're working in one of the top three highest paid paralal areas in the city right so how do you think that your background scares anybody off or comes plays to your advantage or what do you think sometimes if it depends on the firm it depends on the IP firm and what they are looking for in their paralal hiring you know um it's I wanted to add something about the question that was asked and I think this sort of was can be tied into the answer that I'm going to provide with a secondary question I think having um education specific to paralal studies can really uh set you apart like from a hiring perspective it as opposed to a student that has a four-year degree but no specific paralal education in in a sense that it shows that you're committed to paralal field as opposed to going staying at the firm for a year and going to law school and I think that it shows that you're invest you're invested in that type of a path and the firm will then invest in you in that way as opposed to sort of seeing you um as a temporary employee that'll stay and that you're here for a stepping stone to go on to law school um so I wanted to just say that and then as as far as my uh personal background I have a like I said two degrees in chemistry um I think with with IP in particular having a technical background is very important as a paralal just as it would be with other type of roles in that uh firm because you need to be in some aspects as a paralal um especially in biotech familiar with scientific knowledge in some way um and I think having a twoe masters and a bachelor's really helps with that and as a paralal I think that um it helps your growth within the firm also um so that's what I would say uh but at times I I'll be honest having a master's degree in chemistry isn't always something people are willing to invest in when they look at my resume for example uh if I were to be applying at a law firm because it would think that I might be overqualified so I think um it really depends on the firm's needs the type of education they're looking for and what type of um assistance they all need you know what type of assistance will the patent attorneys or patent agents need to help with well you know how much are they willing to give that paralal responsibility for so I think that's can I touch on that I have my bachelor's degree in Psychology and um um my goal was to go to law school and become a uh divorce attorney I was fascinated with it um so that's where the psychology degree came in and then I thought about doing uh just basically family law um when I started my job hunt two years ago when I first moved to DC um it bothered me like here I am with only legal background I've only worked at law firms with a psychology degree and I went to an interview and the lady's like this doesn't add up and I felt so incomplete like there's no way so I I had to tell when I'm starting GW I'm getting my master's um in uh pargal studies you know and the legal field is my it's my dream um then I got a phone call and it was from the uh children's hospital they loved the fact that I had a psychology degree and they wanted me in their Department unfortunately I had to turn the job down um but you know know sometimes it just like um shazi said no one wants to look at your your bachelor's degree and think they they thought maybe I was overqualified or whatever but it tied in and then when I interview at Hollingsworth they love the fact that I had a side degree I knew how to do research I knew how to read statistics um being that it's a um product liability firm for a pharmaceutical company so it tied in sometimes you might feel that little edge of uh they're going to look at this and not like me it it depends on who that person you know who's interviewing you it might just click in their head like okay this person I can hire this person it means they're serious they can do the work they're you know it just it all ties in at the end of the day and and I'd like to make a plug for a difference between a firm that hires paralegals um and an organization that has a paralal program okay because um I I consider my firm a a firm that has a paralal program um we understand and I've specifically set up jobs for those different roles that you were just talking about so I have project assistants who are graduates of wonderful fouryear educations who don't have any paralal background um who come in and they can only stay in my firm for two years before they actually have to go learn something um and be a paralal and advance or they go off to whatever Adventure they're going to go off some law school some uh running Kicking and Screaming from the law firm World altogether I have case assistants the minimum entry requirement for being case assistant is you have to have at least a fouryear degree a paralal certificate and no experience that's the minimum requirement for a case assistant for a paralal you have to have all of those plus at least five years so if you look at the progression of how I've set up my program um no matter what type of applicant you are right somebody who has you know just come out of a foure school and not really sure what they want to do I have a role that I can incorporate you into um those people don't compete with paralal who have invested in their education and invested experience and they're apples and oranges so sometimes I need an apple and sometimes I need an orange but I'm not interviewing very senior people for project assistant positions and I'm not interviewing very Junior people who haven't invested in their education specifically as a paralal um for my you know for my paralal roles some programs um aren't programs um they don't make a distinction and they have one title um and they have everything from I graduated from a great school yesterday to I've spent 30 years in the paralal profession and they have the exact same title for all of those folks um you can distinguish um not just by title but by responsibility but I think within a law firm environment it's much much more difficult to do that now um and so I think I think that's why when you're looking at where you're interested in being um I I would encourage you to learn about the program or how they utilize paral legals because I think you're going to find very different um reactions to different types of résumés depending on how the programs are set up so other questions yes so I um I am a new paralal I've not been um I just graduated with a certificate in May and I've been working in the legal field since I graduated from my undergrad but I haven't sort of or at least I don't want to have to decide some area of law yet and I want to get a more well-rounded um sort of experience before I decide that but there is sort of a pressure when you look up jobs that say integration pargal or corporate par so just sort of speak to how did you become a corporate paral or like what was the path to get to whatever expertise you like um because that's just sort of hopefully my next step to find something well um Maria Kate why don't we let you start um well something that was surprising uh for me uh I worked for a very large telecommunications company who did a lot of um mergers in the late 90s um and so with the mergers um there was just a lot lot of opportunity to do things that you wouldn't normally do in your job like I worked in international Regulatory and public policy so that was I mean my regular standard job which was already pretty cool and you know I spent most of my time at the FCC or or uh dealing with our folks in um Brussels or um all over the place so but then when you do a merger all of a sudden you become the international employment uh law uh you know you start learning everything about that because all of a sudden you have to lay off a whole bunch of people internationally and then um you start merging with companies or you get taken over by companies that end up committing fraud and going bankrupt um and so you learn all kinds of things about fraud compliance bankruptcy so if you find a really bad company that's a really good experience their legal department you're going to learn all kinds of stuff but no I and it it amazes me how much you learn when you know you're just you end up doing things that um are kind of unexpected and so I started in real estate um and ended up doing that I think four years I just wanted to go up to DC I I well I was in DC then I went down to Woodbridge where I lived to work for three years um but it's just so small town and so then I came back up here and just went with a midsize firm uh but it was Communications law it was completely different than anything I'd done I'm not even sure why they hired me um but ultimately they could see that with the experience I had before you know I could learn something new so I I did learn due diligence um and that firm was basically all about buying and selling radio or broadcast uh stations so you do all this due diligence and you really learn a lot about uh commercial sales uh but when you're in the law firm suddenly you um you know you actually can uh learn things from the legal secretaries um and you can um learn things from the other legal assistants um as well as all the attorneys but um yeah there's just um you you end up doing corporate um you end up doing um I think there was IP stuff I actually had one attorney who every time I went in his office um he had like another closing that just was like in a pile and I'm going what you know he he'd have like 100 piles in his office so um I just said can I just start putting those organizing them and you really don't want to do that as a paralal I mean you don't want to become the person who organizes but yeah it'll drive your manager crazy well um well you do a you end up doing a lot of overtime because you really don't have time to do that during the day but um in doing that you know all of a sudden they're going oh she knows how to organize and she if you have a big project go to her and you know and I really today would not consider myself a big project person but um yeah they it just depends I think sometimes but you know I I think it's to get back um to your question I think sometimes the size of the organization um is helpful um I don't know if the panelists have had this experience but sometimes the larger the organization the more specialized um you become because they have groups of just SEC people or just litigation or just corporate um I started out at a six attorney firm um so if there was a case that walked in the door I got to work on it and so sometimes when you're not sure what area you really want to be in um you know sometimes you can try to work at a smaller place or for a smaller group within a larger organization that maybe has those different areas that you can you know practice in um after I did the general practice you know I did everything from you know criminal to traffic to Veterans Affairs to divorce and child custody and again it Wills in Estates um and then I um you know happened to follow an attorney that I had worked with at the general practice firm to an IP Boutique firm um which is where I learned IP um litigation which became sort of my specialty then for many many years so I think sometimes if you get hired into a larger organization they have a specific position that they're hiring for and sometimes it's harder to get out of that group because they obviously had work to do that's why they posted a position um does anybody else have a comment of Maria I do um with the Department of the army um where I first worked at um the Jag office was a mix we had Tor military Justice contracts labor law um Family Law and um MB were the soldiers for getting um medical evaluations for and being around with the different areas of law sometimes in Tor you have an overlap oh this might U have to go through contract have a contract attorney look it over or the actions that occurred here may require the CRI um criminal justice because the military or service member was involved or it might have been the labor law and that allowed me at least the exposure to see exactly the specialized areas and how they operated and tell me told me clearly what I don't want anything to do with that field because I will not have a light you know it's like I I have to balance certain things um that are important to me and what I'm willing to give up or like um hearing what another attorney from a different field had to say with regards to the issue um that we were talking about that kind of CED into me like well that's interesting you know I I didn't know that and if you can find yourself um find the opportunity to be around um a firm or an agency that has different fields already within it that would be a good way to start because I can't really tell you that torts the best thing or contracts a lot of people my previous attorney said she does not want anything to do with contract she thinks it's the driest and most Bland thing ever but then I hear a judge and it's like it's hor you're dealing with people's life and you have to gauge the the value of their damages I rather just deal with the concrete okay you owe me $5 million I'm pay you know so it's a different Viewpoint and getting a mix and seeing how they overlap and uh how they deal with certain legal issues allows you to then kind of gravitate then to make a quick decision like okay I'm going to apply for um IP and then you find out I hate this job you're stuck yeah and and I think again um one thing that I think paralal make the mistake of is just because you worked in one particular field doesn't mean that you can't you know sort of reinvent yourself right um and if you can find litigation is a is a good Common Thread um you know litigation has basic skills so you can do you know IP litigation you can do tort litigation you can do and you can utilize some of your common skills to maybe work into a different area and see if you you know enjoy that area more um same with corporate and and same with real estate Etc so um switching just a little bit let's talk about A Day in the Life um people always hear that paral gos are getting sleeping bags and Cs and you know we don't get to leave um ever um our our offices and you know what is a typical work day or work we like for you um in terms of hours and um you know is that typical within your specialty or your organization ask you want to start yeah I'll start um my classmates know my my past classmates know my story um for me I'm a single mom I'm a trial pargal and that meant no sleep and I went to school full-time so a day for me was take my son to school get to work work over time come to class go back to work if it's getting ready to go to trial I work literally Monday to Sunday for what two months sometimes um then when we get to trial 20 hour work days sometimes 24-hour work days um I mean the overtime money is good but at the end of the day um if you don't have the balance of trying to find uh rest it's very very difficult um but it also you have to have a passion for what you do um I remember I was on the verge of breaking down Christine Fern they were like my rocks I would complain I would cry but I love the job I love the investigative part of it I love knowing that you know my attorney can say oh give it to Pascal she can side check and get it done within 20 minutes are you kidding me a 50 page no way but you know it it I it's a struggle um but again if you have it in you that this is the the paralal career is your your passion you tend to simmer down um but be prepared to work and it depends on the field that you're in um I'm sure you guys probably don't have there were times I got home at 1:00 a.m. you know um I'm in class and my son's like I'm hungry and it's like okay figure something I have to figure something out order dinner you know you you have to find a balance so you know it's it's tough being a trial litigation pargal but if you have that passion for it you'll find a way to balance it out so yeah I wanted to know as far as what Ty was trying to start with it's like what are your functions your job functions for that day I wanted to compare um a paralal and the private sector devices of paralal and the government because I'm a paralal work for the federal government and I want to know the comparison of what your like like what your functions would be like do you do you um draft motions do you do this okay for me I don't draft motions I've done it in the um personal injury field and medical malpractice field I've I've drafted those documents but in the trial field that I'm in now I've never drafted a motion um I site check them day in and out so basically when I get in in the morning I check my emails and depending on I prioritize everything um if it comes from the head honcho that's definitely first um everything is important nothing is a oh I can get to that tomorrow you I list how I'm going to work for the day um I usually do if I get a 20 to 50 page brief I side check make sure I get my exhibits together then I'll do my blue book um I'll pull the exhibits then do my side check cuz when I get into Westlaw I want to be in westla not going in and out and you know doing a shuffle with that document so it's all about prioritizing um while I'm working on that 50 page brief I get another uh attorney sending me another brief to side check oh that's this has to be filed tonight and I'm looking at the time it's 5:30 oh wow you get down to it you stop working on that document that's not going to be filed for another week in advance but it's 50 pages be prepared to come in on the weekend so I mean that goes back to the schedule you were talking about which is sort of um a typical day for litigation paral is not typical um I I think that's sort of you know um when I was doing litigation people used to ask me what a typical day was and I'd say well I always write my to-do list before I leave the night before and at 9:30 I take it B it up put it in the trash and I I try to figure out what my day is actually going to look like right um so you know litigation is is tends to be more unpredictable but Kate what about corporate um I uh I come in and I I have a pretty 40-hour week schedule now that I'm in school um because I just can't not have that but um so when I come in I I do agreements that's my job and so I will draft some agreements um I have what a uh I think 435 open agreements right now that I'm working on so at any given time any of those could have comments come back or or they're uh ready to be circulated for Signature or they've just been signed and I have to abstract the document and and get that in our our database um or I do the abstract and then give it to our other paralal Who U does all the database entry but um uh so I I thankfully have we our contracts have really grown over the last couple years so I have a paralal who helps me with everything he's fresh out of school or a couple years now um um but um yeah having the Masters it's or the certificate is an awesome asset um he stays very busy also so um but we both contribute and we both back each other up when we're not available um we also at my company do have the opportunity to do proon work so we do wills clinics and we do domestic violence attorney of the month um every month not all of us do it every month but I sign up a couple times a year for the Domestic Violence Clinic and then I do the wills Clinic as often as I can um and we do those at least quarterly um and so except for the month that I do the attorney of the day domestic violence um I really stay to the 40 hours but it turns out that when you're working those cases and you're out of the office with the clients and and just doing something outside your job you really do need to make make up that time so that's time I'm always willing to make up cuz I mean the company's so generous and they actually pay me overtime if I have to do that which I think is ridiculous but great um but it's I mean you know because they're committed to doing the pro bono for you know to give our time to help the community so um and just a note on pro bono also that's a great opportunity to learn other things and um I the most rewarding thing I do is the proon work and I mean even though you know I have plenty of grateful clients and attorneys and I really do love my job um the wills clinics these people give you hugs afterward you know the domestic violence it's just it's a rocky road um and you never know how it's going to turn out and it's usually very disappointing but you feel like you're you have a goal to do something good so um you know but so that's that shy you're in a large uh IP Boutique right so what's a normal work week or work day and well uh for me a normal work week is a little less than 40 hours a week um which sounds really nice but sometimes depending on you know our our firm we go through EV and flows of a lot of a lot of work and not a lot of work you know like towards the end of the billable year it kind of tends to stack up um you know when people are on vacation or our clients are on vacation we might not have le less work like Thanksgiving Christmas time it'll slow down and sometimes in the summer we'll have a um IP litigation case where it's almost like all hands on deck so it sort of goes you know up and down but on average I'd say that it's typical week you won't likely um if you're on the prosecution side of things where I am you won't likely be working over time time every week or every day that's not to say that the day that you when you are there it's not stressful because you know we our paralegals work on in teams and they support different groups of attorneys and um we all support each other as paralegals um in addition to that so there's a lot of overlap with who we work with and depending on you know if there are Rush assignments that come through we need to you know uh staff those and stuff like that that so that it can uh really uh snowball sometimes um and part of my role as a senior illegal I have to manage that workflow and make sure everybody everybody's plate is a little even uh so no one's overwhelmed and that can be challenging sometimes depending on um how that how that week's going what kind of projects we have going on um but as an IP paral uh it is definitely a specialized field and the types of things that we do as paralegals are uh prepare all the different types of items or filings that accompany a patent application um that's on the prosecution side and we work with the PTO almost exclusively on that kind of stuff um and that's where the technical background specifically for biotech really helps uh there are other types of technologies that our firm uh has clients in there's electronics group there's mechanical um engineering type things so uh and the stringency on the technical background for that as a paralal isn't quite as so with the biotech um I think possibly because uh the biotech paralal just needs to be familiar with that like science verbage that I mentioned previously um but we also sometimes help out our litigation practice and uh those are times that can be very stressful because once we're pulled in we know that uh the project really needs a lot more uh Staffing just because it just they're overwhelmed they have a lot of cases so I think it's a good opportunity for Anytime there's a project or there's a there's another department that needs help and they they they ask for it it's always good to step up and and help and that's where your time as a paralal will sort of exceed that 40 hour work week but it's also an opportunity for you to get experience under your belt like you know I've worked on a IP litigation case or I help with an ITC case or something like that so um it expands your your knowledge base and helps you get various a variety of work so yeah and shazi speaking um IP for those of you that don't know sorry that's okay an inter ITC case is an International Trade Commission Section 337 action and if you specialize in intellectual property um that's not a litigation that's filed with the US courts that's an administrative agency proceeding to block uh products that are being imported into United States so that takes a whole another skill set you're not dealing with the court you're dealing with an agency there's a different set of administrative law rules um and uh ITC Specialists are highly compensated because those cases tend to go from beginning to end much much quicker about a third of the time as a normal IP litigation uh case does so you do spend nights and weekends and for ITC matters because they just go so quickly and you don't have 24 months to do the litigation so so some little IP speak right all right Maria what about working for the government what's a typical day or work week like well typically 40 hours but that's where your ability to manage your time and multitask plays an important rule but there are times where you will work over time but you will be compensated for it um the difference for me with litigation versus appeals litigation the attorney they're they're Highwire they're just hurry up find this you you'll draft this and I have to have the attorney say to me Maria Bill guess what I want you to find a case and and Mark you said go and that's like you need to know Iraq Iraq act act act act act so you the more cases you find you need to be able to Define and write an Iraq method and that's litigation and this constantly hurry up respond respond and then you're presenting so you're actually writing even though the attorney's theone presenting the product you're writing your analysis as it relates to that matter now going to the appeals process now you're hearing the litigator the the litigants come and complain to you and they'll say well and you pick up the phone and it's a prosay versus the appal um the government it's like well I want to I want to post this person and I want to divorce this person go all the way and then it's your job to say hold on wait here here are the board rules these are what you're required to do if you want the subpoena then you can subpoena and then um in the appeals process because there are people that are proos individuals that are pro you have to be very careful with what you say that you are not providing legal advice that you are providing the rules and guidance and instructing them where to go and if they do not understand the theories and perhaps they should hire an attorney to represent them right so you have to be careful and in the litigation is a constant need to prepare and if perfectionism is your best friend it can also become your enemy because you have to be on point you have to ensure everything you have for your attorney is there and prepared perfect and ready for litigation in the appeals process because you're working with judges we're looking at the motions and the judges depending in how comfortable they feel with you and um your experience I would get the letter and the judge granted so basically I have to draft it and then they review it and then they will sign it or sometimes if you're new what and you have little experience the judge will actually draft the the order and then you will of course then transcribe it and um in the appeals process you deal with the hearings and listen to what the um the judge's specifications are when it comes to certain hearing and what their expectations are so it's different but I think based on how they have their days I think my days are calmer and I'm a little B more more relaxed so I get a little bit of drama you'll hear parties argue and say oh that's part they they I requested and for Discovery and they're giving me a bunch of paper with is not even um uh reacted and whatever the case is and you're just you have to be tful and you have to know how to answer without getting caught up in the middle and know that your role and what the judge's role is and how you you get the parties moving and talking and working together to resolve the issue and so your your roles shift when you're from the litigation to the appellant side and I have to say either way you you'll you'll get a good mix of drama I I'll give you the behind the magic curtain for a manager day uh if any of you are uh paralegals and thinking about you want to be a section lead or a team lead or be responsible for other folks um uh I work about 80 85 hours a week um because I have offices in every time zone in the US um they open um my first paralal on the East Coast gets into work at 6:30 in the morning my last paralal on the west coast uh works until 7:00 this specific time which is 10:00 year um and I have about 600 attorneys who can reach out and show love and affection to me at any moment um on an electronic leash or a Blackberry um and um you know that's that's part of my job is to keep day-to-day stuff running uh I have five coordinators who I work with and they do a lot of the day-to-day stuff um but when something bubbles up on one of our 20,000 matters that we're currently uh handling um then it gets to me um um in addition to doing all the hiring all the Staffing uh all the Performance Management all the training all of the working with other departments and Department chairs and monitoring all of the financials utilization and Reporting functions for the department so what do you sleep so it it you know I I think you know all of us have gone through different phases in our career and I think that's something else we should point out um you know when I started at my sixth attorney firm I was a single parent uh too so it was much more important to me at that time to have a regimented schedule um and I set up my job so that I could do that um you know as as my personal life changed and I had more flexibility I I took different positions where I traveled more or I went to you know four to six to 8 week trials away from home when I was doing IP lit um and I have a 17-year-old now who has a credit card Keys um and uh a vehicle and so when I have to travel now um she's a little bit more forgiving um and my husband is wonderful and stable and um provides the other side of the balance of our life so I I think at different parts in your career you look for different things just like you do with any career um and I think when you're looking for a job or you're considering taking on new responsibilities or um you're looking at sort of how you want to put your career together it's important to keep those things in mind because certain types of organizations do require more hours certain types of law are going to be less predictable than others um and then you always have the Z factor which are the people you work with so you can work in a very predictable area of law with a very unpredictable person or you can work in a very unpredictable uh area of law with a person who's a real planner um and and who gives you a little bit more stability in your day-to-day life so what other questions do we have it's about 7:20 about 10 more minutes in terms of our official program we'll go to the lightning round just feel free to throw out any question that you always wanted to know but we're afraid to ask um no question is off limits Rachel you deal with the stress of being a paralal okay how how do you deal with the stress of being a paralal happy hour I Community right have a community of peers that's a good day oh yeah um for me being that I am a single mom I have have to really have a schedule that affords me work time and Mommy time um my son is 16 credit card Keys no car um he's smuggled my spe Keys a couple of times but um I travel I have to like I went away for a month early in February I went away for 3 weeks this past um September and I was supposed to go in July and it it drives me insane like it's just him and I here my family's in New York my mom had to take time off to come stay with him um being a trial litigation pargal at this phase in my life it's not the best thing but I manage it um when my son goes away to college I'll be happy to be at my job Monday to Sunday um I don't date so yeah um legal it's it's it's my world it's my life but you know it it just you just have to find that balance I write I volunteer in an HIV organization I you know like I was speaking with Kate earlier sometimes I just have to get into something that takes me away from the pargal world you know and if you can't find 20 minutes for yourself which I do um I find I go to the bathroom a lot just to wo off because sometimes your your attorney will get you riled up and you have to remember it's nothing personal it's a job you know find that 15 to 20 minutes maybe 20 minutes in a day and it's really sometimes it's all it takes but at the end of the night find a girlfriend argue stress them out like I have but it it just depend it's that full circle moment back to wine and happy hours and chocolate and running and um you know but I I think what you know Christine said is really important too um I I think you know part of it is is knowing that you're not alone um and and then being able to see the bigger picture um and you know I I think that it is important to have both friends that are in the industry and friends that are not or you know um activities and interests that are you know in and then not um so that you can sort of get away when you need to get away um we actually monitor at McKenna paralal um uh paid time off and they think we do it because they think that we think they're taking too much time but the reality is we send just as many emails saying you haven't taken a single day off in the last 90 days when do you have something planned um as we do hey you know we've noticed that you're you know you're taking lots of time off um and and the reason we do that quite honestly is because you can very easily get uh caught up in these big deals these big projects that go on for months um and you need to um you know decompress and and find the thing that makes you happy um when you do it so yes is there anyone work in a organization where there's paralal pools like like certain paralal would probably do like do Discovery another Pool might dotion yeah signed a case you work with that attorney you side check you do you're you work it up um it's not like you you get one phase of it and then it goes on to another team it's your case it's your case and and you go to trial and come home and that's that's how it works sh you want to talk about within IP maybe support units yeah that's well the way the way our firm structured is we have our paralal pools as far as Practice Group and that Practice Group is defined on what type of Technology they work with and um that's not to say though sometimes we cross over depending on where you know someone with biger with is available and you just need more hands on Project or someone can't stay late but they need to file something late so we'll have support that way um but the nature of the work essentially is the same it's just um what you're actually working with when it comes to the type of um patent you're filing or patent you're litigating or subject matter rather um but uh yeah we and the way that those pools or departments practice groups are manag kind kind of essentially the same so that's why we were able to have that sort of crossover and major support network cross group that way yeah and the reason I point out IP is because in some IP groups Stern doesn't do this but um other boutiques that are really large do you can have a trademark support unit and so the trademark application goes into the support unit and then the team lead assigns it once it's sort of within the unit um foreign filing sometimes works that way at some of the IP places um just files um where the actual Law Firm is not uh drafting the application but it's been a foreign patent application that's coming into the US so it it goes through a different process um so IP sometimes has groups but once you get to a senior level generally you're not in the group you're directing the group um or you're in a in a specialty so see you yeah I wanted to add on um in my particular instance um I have one particular client that I have all class action with and in that instance pretty much we do have a discovery team that's just charge of literally like the document production and uploading it to relativity to make sure that we can all start doing what we got to do so I think it depends on the group that you're in and if that group happens to have class action suits where there could just be a team of par legals that deal just with Discovery and they do nothing else so again depends on the organization that you're with yeah and if I worked on um uh a matter where we actually represent the exiled government of Kuwait um back in the day in the '90s um so we had task groups where you know one group worked on sort of you know in infrastructure and commerce stuff and another group sort of worked on um XA expage or or immigration stuff and we sort of broke it up by subject areas but we were all sort of working for the same client if you will which happens sometimes on class actions or multi-district litigations mdls so other questions okay um one question that um that I get asked a lot and I'll I'll throw it to the panel is um you know the the dreaded billable hour versus not um being responsible for billing and how much do you love legal billing or not um and um if you're in an organization that you know doesn't do legal billing did you specifically sort of seek out that organization so that you don't have to do that scy your bill I think I still owe your DTE assignment as a matter of but I personally hate it um it's you have to um it's your client wants you to but for me it's like I'm so busy during the day you're supposed to enter your time at the end of the day but sometimes my day will not end until 11:59 p.m. I just want to go home um actually on Friday I spent a good deep probably 3 4 hours of my workday entering my time because it had to be in and when the owner of your firm is sending out an an email that's threatening your life get your time in you have no choice but then you still have the site checking to doing it's for me DTA DTE um it's stressful I hate it I'm sorry Tara I hate it but I have to do it so okay what about corporate do you have to do you don't do legal billing in the strictest tradition but you probably track your time right we track time it is it and I believe it goes back to the client it's I mean it I when I was in law firms I tracked my time and then when I went to corporate at Verizon I did not have to at all there was nothing and then when I came to XM mobile it went back to you're tracking your time I mean you're you're you're reporting what time you're putting in to a client but not what you're doing and so it really is just matter of I I think it's more for a head count and more to be sure that um you know if they see a need for further resource they'll they'll see that so shaza you're in private Law Firm land so you're building there's pretty much no way out of that but I think that um you know it's just it's just part of the job it's something that you have to get used to and um because it's so ingrained in the the type of firm that I'm at it's sort it's no one really will complain about it except for when it gets to be you know you're behind and entering your time because youve just been so busy that's when it's annoying but it's really essential and I can understand you know why we would need to do that um but also what I think is interesting is that sometimes you can go back and look and see all the things you accomplished by looking at your your billable hours be like wow I really have worked a lot on these things and I'm proud of myself you know like I really know this client really well you know we have established a great working relationship and you know it's something you can you know if you're kind of geeky in the way that I am and like to go back and remind yourself of the accomplishments that you've made that's one way to do it you know because it's all there you just pacified that whole no and Maria and government I'm I'm going to go out on the liom and say that you don't have to worry about that well to a point litigation we track how much time we spent on each case how much time he spent on the phone with an individual but that's to um determine whether the unit needs more resources it's for staff and purposes yes and because of the habit of having to um mark down everything I spent three minutes with this person I did uh 30 minutes on this on even email how much time you spend on email um it just um transferred over into the but the benefit of that is anytime a case goes through or order was granted or denied because I had the that habit of tracking I always could reference back it happened three weeks ago and this was the identification number that Trails you back to that order that was um granted and so no it's not buildable but it's a good habit to have and if you have it now good way to save your butt too all right the last uh question um that that I want to throw out is one that was sort of broached by a a person who participates in the online uh program uh they participate in the program they're actually starting to interview now but they don't live where they're interested in in working so they have the issue of trying to um learn about a uh legal community and find a job remotely and then the whole interviewing um and I don't know if any of of you have had that situation where you've moved maybe to DC and and needed to interview or you were interviewing outside of the area um but I I can just address that that question in general um there are a lot of uh one of the reasons why managers are hesitant um to look at candidates from outside of a particular area is sometimes we don't always understand the motivation for that person moving to the area um if the only motivation is a job um sometimes people find that that they haven't done any research on the city um they relocate and a year later they discover that they're homesick or you know situations have changed um Etc and so people that move in sometimes tend to have higher turnover than people who are local that you hire and who already know the area or the legal Community Etc um also if you're uh interviewing someplace that you don't live it creates logistical issues and some firms uh or organizations just say quite honestly that we don't have a shortage of knowledgeable or experienced candidates in our immediate area we're more familiar with the schools or the programs um or the other organizations where local candidates may have worked so it may be a little bit more of an education process certainly um you know going to a program um you know uh using the online program for GW people in the Washington Metro Area are very familiar with GW and that gives them sort of a sense or tie in of understanding the program um and you can certainly work with Logistics um I do video conferencing interviews every day um I Skype now with potential um interviewees um and maybe I do that because I have so many offices and I spend a lot of time on planes and I want to save myself some time um but I find that we you know get really great candidates from outside of the area and if we've done a lot of recruiting in a particular City I'll specifically work with recruiters or people from outside the area to see if I'm you know can take advantage of some candidates that are moving into the area so it may be a little bit more difficult but don't get discouraged Melissa it also may depend on the city yeah I'm from Massachusetts I grew up in Massachusetts I went to undergrad in Massachusetts I went to NYU Law School and took the Massachusetts bar and applied to Massachusetts firms and they want they all said well why did you leave n why did you leave Boston and I mean I had every tie you could imagine to Boston except for three years of my life and I still had to justify why I learn a job in Boston so Boston is one of those cities where man if you've ever left it you're going to have to figure out way to convince them you want to be back there some cities aren't like that but if you do some due diligence ahead of time and figure out kind of the Dynamics of the city like I mean anybody in Boston will tell you that might be a Yankees Red St Boston New York there's a whole you know is actually very similar story I have a colleague who grew up in Jersey uh went to college in Jersey literally spent her entire life there took the Jersey bar and then applied for jobs there and people ask why she left because now she's working in DC so it's almost like they're offended that you leave and they ask why and what you know what changed your mind why do you want to come back now and New Jersey is actually that's what really tough one because then everybody wants they think that you don't think you can get a job in New York so you're applying in New Jersey that some cities you have to have a good story for I got that a lot um when I left New York I work Maryland Bank of America allowed me to work from home so my address was still for World Financial Center but I had Rockville which was my pickup location for my mail but I worked from home and when I started job hunting I got a lot of you worked in New York but you live in Germantown well I technically worked in my living room pretty much um but I got a lot of why did you leave New York why did you you know what's here that you want and for me my honest answer was a better life for my you know my son he was getting ready to start high school I made the move that was it sometimes you have to be honest but not too honest but you know I did get question a lot as to why I left New York technically I did and I did not but once I got my foot into DC I um I can imagine that if I'm trying to find a job somewhere else not from wood um it's not going to be Virginia it's not going to be you know it will have to be in the remote in the remote area just to avoid the the questioning I all right well we're going to wrap up our formal portion um I want to U just take a moment and thank the panelists uh for devoting their I also want to encourage you we're going to end the formal part of the program but if the panelists are our game um I'm certainly willing to uh stay after and answer any individual questions that you have um you know I want to thank the Student Association and the Alumni Association and the career center for sponsoring tonight's program and putting together um and for all the digs so thank you so and thank you very much for [Music] [Applause] coming

Channel: GWParalegalStudies

Views: 42,440

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Id: J-2cyLnXKhU

Length: 93min 14sec (5594 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2013