ParalegalGateway's Weblog

ParalegalGateway's Paralegal Superstar November 2009: Debra Hindin-King

2009-11-12T15:41:39-05:00

Debra “Debbie” Hindin-King is a graduate of Colorado Women’s College with a bachelor’s degree in music education in 1974. She obtained her paralegal certificate from the University of Colorado of Denver in 1988. She has been a paralegal for the past 20 years and currently is employed as a litigation paralegal at the law firm of Holland & Hart LLP in Denver. Her areas of specialty include oil and gas royalty litigation, natural resources, general complex litigation and securities law. Prior to earning her paralegal certificate she was employed as a courtroom deputy for the U.S. Bankruptcy for the District of Colorado.

Debbie is a member of the Rocky Mountain Paralegal Association and National Federation of Paralegal Associations. She has served as RMPA’s president in 1999 and primary representative to the NFPA during 1999 – 2003. She served as the NFPA Technology Coordinator from 1999 – 2001 and as Region II Director and member of the NFPA Board from 2004 – 2007. She has been an associate member of the Colorado Bar Association including serving on the Paralegal Committee since 2002. She has participated for the past 3 years in planning of the CBA’s Paralegal Day, Pro Bono Paralegal of the Year Award and Student Reception. She currently is a member of the Colorado Association of Legal Support Managers.

Debbie is also a frequent speaker at national seminars and events. She has submitted numerous articles related to technology and the law to national legal trade magazines for publication.

Debbie is also involved in her community with several non-profit organizations. She has served in various leadership roles on the Board and as a volunteer supervisor for the Central Visitation Program 1987 - 2008. She also has served on the fundraising committee for SafeHouse Denver for 1996-2000 and received the Volunteer of the Year award.

She received the Rocky Mountain Paralegal of the Year Pro Bono Award in 2004 for her volunteer service with CVP and she received from the City and County of Denver’s Minoru Yausi Award for community service in 2006. She currently volunteers weekly for the Broadway Assistance Center and serves on the fundraising committee for Warren Village.

Besides her career as a paralegal and volunteer service, she enjoys spending time with her husband Raymond and their Australian cattle dog, Hannah. She enjoys traveling the world, photography, gardening and her membership in the Butterfly Pavilion and Denver Botanic Gardens in Denver.

Legal Vendors Meet Your "Unknown" Clients: Paralegals

2009-11-02T15:48:56-05:00

It's been an interesting past eight years. During that time, ParalegalGateway has grown to well over 20K plus members into a strong and close-knit community. We are actually probably closer than most given the unique challenges we face as Paralegals. I've actually often joked that we are the "red-headed-step-children" of the legal industry...we're not attorneys and we're not legal secretaries. We're stuck somewhere in between the two and it can be tricky - to say the least - learning to balance yourself between them.

Like most enduring organizations, we enjoy sharing information among ourselves and we absolutely discuss legal services. If someone has experienced good or bad service, rest assured the word gets around. What has been interesting for me to personally observe as the owner of a Paralegal portal that keeps the lights turned on via the support of legal service providers, is the odd dance that seems to take place when approaching these vendors about advertising. It seems the very people who contact Paralegals to sell their services suddenly become anti-social when it comes to Paralegals seeking support from them. Let me give a couple of quick scenarios we have encountered over the years.

But, I'm Part of the Group

ParalegalGateway has been online since 2001, well-before the days of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Back then we were communicating via the tried and true message boards. As a result, we now have the largest Yahoo! Group on Yahoo! for Paralegals. We also have a sister-site, MyParalegalSpace that has been online for over 2 years and enjoys over 3K members. Our more recent group on LinkedIn already has over 2K members and typically sees about 100 new members per week. Although we allow vendors into these groups, we ask them not to spam the members with their services. This includes harvesting email addresses as well as posting messages. The obvious reason we ask this is secondary to our policy that only our advertisers (or Partner Sponsors) are allowed to contact our members about their services. This is a "value-added" service to them (to use their own terminology). If we allowed every service provider to post their information, not only would it not be fair to those who pay to advertise but it would not be fair to those who pay to advertise! I know this seems simple however when we ask those who have posted to the group or sent emails to our members to respect those who do pay for this benefit, you wouldn't believe some of the entitlement attitudes that pop up.

Paralegals Aren't Our Target Market

Really? Very interesting. Let me back up here. We once had to contact a vendor after they had harvested emails from our Yahoo! Group and then sent well over 200 emails to our members about their service. When we contacted them, we invited them to become an advertising Partner thinking certainly since they were sending out so many emails to our members that they wanted to market to them. Their response? "Paralegals really aren't our target audience." (Insert stunned silence here).

We're Providing a Free Informational Seminar

We've had several national legal service companies attempt to post information about their free seminars to our group in an attempt to increase attendance. When we deleted the post, it was immediately posted again by the vendor. When we had to remove the vendor from the group for failing to follow protocol, he responded by saying they weren't attempting to advertise, the seminar was free and they were only trying to help Paralegals. Isn't that very altruistic of them? They weren't marketing their service at all! They were just trying to help Paralegals with their free and very branded seminar. When we asked them if they would review our pricing for advertising, we were told they would be sure it got to the proper person. (Insert cricket noises here). Never heard back and subsequent calls were never returned.

Paralegals Are Holding the Purse Strings

ParalegalGateway recently commissioned a survey (prepared for us by Alexander Babbage) of our site visitors which enjoyed excellent participation and results. When asked "How much impact do you have on purchases made within your firm or company?" we were pleasantly surprised to learn that 62% of Paralegal influence decision making, 89% participate in decision making and 29% are the sole decision makers. May want to rethink that target market. (Insert wink here).

The reality is that the attorneys we work for would rather be billing their time than having to research legal software or legal services. They delegate this work to us and trust our opinions when it comes to making the final decisions. We understand the importance of the aforementioned statistics and our role in the very lucrative legal service industry. We are also very aware of the companies that are willing to support our community by means of sponsoring our local and national associations and sites like ParalegalGateway that provide us with a free platform to virtually network, increase our marketability, continue our education and assist each other via mentoring, sharing forms or simply being able to vent about a bad day at work. Not only are we aware of it, we talk about it and with the economy slowly picking up, we're going to remember those who have stepped up.

So where am I going with all of this? Absolutely we would love to see more vendors stop trying to get something for nothing and help support a virtual network via advertising. However, it goes deeper than that. It's almost as if these companies are devaluing our worth via their allegations that our credibility as professionals just isn't the same as an attorney. All they have to do is ask an attorney and he/she would tell them how valuable we actually are. Perhaps that's a bit paranoid on my part or maybe I just can't quite put my finger on it yet. Whatever "it" is I guess I've been unwilling to learn the proper steps to join in the dance.

I realize this isn't an unbiased post and other opinions are certainly welcome. Maybe they can help to shed light on this topic.

Paralegal Honored for Convicting Ex-Leader

2009-10-28T11:15:43-04:00

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder honored six federal prosecutors and a paralegal for their work convicting Pavel Lazarenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister who moved to Marin County.

The seven received the Attorney General's Award for distinguished service during a ceremony Wednesday in Washington, D.C. The award, in its 57th year, was given to 286 honorees this year.

The recipients for the Lazarenko case, which was prosecuted in San Francisco, were prosecutors Peter Axelrod, Patricia Kenney, Stephanie Hinds, Hartley West, Jonathan Howden and Martha Boersch, and paralegal Christine Ying Tian.

Lazarenko, who moved to a $6.75 million Novato mansion after leaving the Ukraine, was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined $10 million in 2006 for money laundering, wire fraud and extortion. Authorities said it was the first prosecution of a foreign political leader for laundering the proceeds of foreign crimes through American financial institutions.

Source: Contra Costa Times

3-61 Cavalry Paralegal Receives Combat Action Badge

2009-10-28T11:09:53-04:00

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Romeo Belunta, a paralegal assistant and Tampa Bay, Fla., native with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, Task Force Mountain Warrior, became the first paralegal from the task force to receive a Combat Action Badge.

A Soldier earns a CAB by actively engaging or being engaged by enemy forces.

Belunta, a former infantryman, earned the coveted badge while performing paralegal duties at Combat Outpost Keating, in Afghanistan's Nuristan province, near his home base of Forward Operating Base Bostick.

Belunta traveled to COP Keating in early July to offer legal assistance to the Soldiers there.

Belunta's intention was to stay for only two days, but after a series of attacks by insurgents against the COP, aircraft could not safely retrieve him for more than a week.

During the complex attacks, Belunta fought alongside his fellow combat arms Soldiers repealing insurgent advances against the isolated mountain outpost.

Speaking of the Soldiers he fought alongside, Belunta said, "As part of a team, it's never about bravery or courage. It's about the Soldiers with me. My fear went out the window when I looked at the faces of the Soldiers there with me."

U.S. Army Maj. Jeffrey Thurnher, the brigade's judge advocate, showed great pride in Belunta, "He helped them with much more than just legal work that week."

Belunta found pride in himself as well.

"The CAB is a rare and honorable award," he said. "I am very proud to be a member of the [Judge Advocate General] Corps with a CAB."

Belunta also recalled the lesson he learned during that fateful week.

"The incident was a true testament that the enemy can strike anytime and anywhere, and Soldiers must never drop their guard," Belunta said. "I am thankful to the Lord for keeping me safe and giving me strength for me to do my duties."

More than 14,000 U.S. Army Soldiers deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom have been awarded the Combat Action Badge since combat operations began in late 2001.

Source: dvids

Paralegal Protects Employer from Alleged Hitman

2009-10-28T11:04:55-04:00

A paralegal became so concerned about a phone call from a man, seeking to make an appointment with her boss, that she told the lawyer not to come to work one afternoon and told her coworkers to lock the office doors.

Leslie Margolies said she remembered getting a phone call in June 2002 from a potential client who wanted an immediate appointment. She initially told the caller that her boss, Peter Paras, would not be back in the firm's Red Bank office until that Friday afternoon.

The caller said he was referred to Paras by someone who gave him the attorney's business card, and that he needed a lawyer because of a custody issue, she said. But the conversation was unusual and she grew concerned about the lack of accurate responses she was getting when she questioned the caller, she said on the witness stand this morning in the courtroom of state Superior Court Judge Ira E. Kreizman, sitting in Freehold.

Margolies, now retired, testified at the trial of Nicholas A. Lucarella, 57, a former Millstone Township resident, who is accused of hiring a Passaic man to try to kill his attorney soon after losing a motion in a custody dispute with his ex-wife over their three young children.

That North Jersey man, Vancleve 'Q' Ashley, along with Ramaine 'Rah Rah' York, also of Passaic, whom authorities say Ashley recruited for help, have pleaded guilty in the case.

Prosecutors say Ashley was the man who called the paralegal in June 2002, using a fake name and pretending he needed an appointment. They say he and York went to see the attorney under the guise of a legal matter, then waited outside his office at The Galleria until the lawyer walked out. Ashley was behind the wheel of a sport utility vehicle that struck the attorney, causing serious injuries, including a broken back, pelvis and several ribs, authorities said.

Defense attorney Brian J. Neary has said his client, Lucarella, who now lives in Valley Cottage, Rockland County, N.Y., had nothing to do with the assault on the Red Bank attorney who specializes in matrimonial law.

Under questioning from First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw Jr., the paralegal said during that June 2002 telephone conversation, the caller said he worked in entertainment, and owned his own promotions company, called Sex Money Murder, but then failed to provide a telephone number where he could be reached, telling her the area code would not "go through."

Margolies had initially told the caller that her boss would be available that Friday afternoon - a day that she already had a scheduled to take off, but she grew so alarmed by the conversation that she told Paras not come into the office that Friday afternoon and told the staff to lock the doors.

"I was very concerned," she said.

Margolies said she worked with Paras at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, a prominent Woodbridge law firm that had a satellite office in Eatontown. She continued to work for him when he and some other attorneys opened their own firm in Red Bank.

Under cross-examination, she said it was fair to say that her boss enjoyed a good reputation in Monmouth County because he was a good lawyer.

Paras took the stand late this morning, and under questioning, provided some background about his education and work: he earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, his law degree from Villanova Law School and has been an attorney for 33 years.

He said another attorney handled Lucarella's divorce, but a couple of months after that divorce paperwork was signed, the former Millstone Township man contacted the Red Bank law firm because he wanted to change the terms of his child custody agreement. Lucarella and his ex-wife had joint custody of their three children -- twins who were about 5 years old and an older sibling, who was about 9, said Paras.

Lucarella told the lawyer he wanted full custody of the children because his ex-wife was imposing obstacles in his relationship with them, Paras said on the stand.

Meanwhile, Lucarella's ex-wife filed a motion, also seeking to modify the custody agreement. She also wanted full custody and she wanted all of her ex-husband's visits with the children to be supervised.

Source: APP.com (beta)

New Partner Sponsor Welcome - Esquire

2009-10-13T15:02:26-04:00

ParalegalGateway is proud to welcome our new Partner Sponsor, Esquire (an Alexander Gallo Company). Offering Deposition Services, Staffing Solutions, Litigation and Corporate Solutions, the new Esquire, a name with a long history in litigation support -- now with the solid and stable backing of Alexander Gallo Holdings. Discover our new company, built by combining the best people, products and technology from Esquire and the former Alexander Gallo Holdings family of companies including Brown & Gallo, Paulson Reporting, Associated Reporters, Jack Daniel Reporting and LRI.

Please visit their site and thank them for their support of the Paralegal profession.

2010 Paralegal Superstar Nominations Now Being Accepted!!

2009-10-09T10:23:21-04:00

It's that time of year again! ParalegalGateway is now accepting nominations for Paralegal Superstars for 2010!!! If you know a Paralegal who has made a significant contribution to the Profession, their community or both, please complete our online nomination form. Feel free to nominate yourself as well. We will evaluate all applications and elect the top 12. These individuals will be featured on ParalegalGateway and on our annual calendar. We look forward to the submissions and will announce the winners in November.

The nomination form may be found here: http://www.paralegalgateway.com/submitastar.html

Free Seminar for Atlanta Paralegals

2009-09-17T15:25:40-04:00

Merrill Corporation in partnership with ParalegalGateway presents, "Anatomy of E-Discovery", a free seminar for litigation professionals covering:

- Current trends in Discovery;
- The steps of E-Discovery and what they mean to you;
- Electronic review strategies;
- How to assess an E-Discovery project; and
- Helpful terminology and resources

Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Lunch will be provided)
Location: Merrill Corporation, 1117 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30309

Free Parking is available at the surface lot on the side of the building in Merrill Corporation reserved spots only.

Please RSVP to jjohnston@ParalegalGateway.com

Chasing the Ambulance: Lawyer Commercials We Love

2009-09-17T14:08:15-04:00

We're featuring a new series - Chasing the Ambulance: Lawyer Commercials We Love. There are just too many good segments out there NOT to feature them. One thing we noticed while researching is that there are a good number of attorneys who have embraced the nickname "The Hammer"! Here are a few for your viewing enjoyment!

Linda Whipple: Paralegal is at the Top of Her Game

2009-08-23T15:29:27-04:00

Linda Whipple, who began her career as a paralegal 35 years ago, by now knows as much about practicing law as many lawyers.

"I think she'd be a wonderful lawyer," said her boss, Robert Spohrer, who has told her she should consider going to law school.

"There's a part of me that says, 'Yes, I should do that,' " said Whipple, who lives in Jacksonville. "But there's also a part of me that says, 'You're already at the top ... Why start over?' "

That Whipple is at the top of her profession was made official in late July.

She was named 2009 Paralegal of the Year by the American Association for Justice during the organization's annual meeting, held in San Francisco. The trade association represents plaintiff's attorneys.

Whipple is only the second Florida recipient since the award was started in 1985.

Whipple said she told Spohrer a year ago that she wanted to attend the association's convention in San Francisco, where she has relatives, but didn't think she could afford it.

She was hoping he'd offer to pay. Instead, he told her he'd nominate her for the award, which includes an all-expenses-paid trip to the convention.

In early June he called her into his office and asked her if she still planned to go to the convention.

When she reminded him she couldn't afford it and hadn't won the award, his response was, "What makes you think you didn't win the award?"

That was his way of telling her she had won.

Whipple, who grew up in Jacksonville, started her career in the law in Ocala in 1974.

In 1984 Whipple, by then divorced, moved to Washington, D.C., at the recommendation of a soccer coach who was working with her daughter, Kristen. Kristen would eventually go to the University of Maryland on a soccer scholarship.

While working at several firms in Washington, Whipple enrolled in a program for paralegals run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture studying database management.

After her daughter graduated from college and moved to Colorado, Whipple moved back to Jacksonville and enrolled at the University of North Florida to become recertified in Florida as a paralegal.

She was hired by what is now Sporher & Dodd in February 1999.

A big part of her job is helping prepare electronic exhibits for the courtroom and then handling the technology during a trial.

"Being in a courtroom is always fun," she said. "I love to watch really good lawyers."

After returning to Jacksonville, Whipple became active in Democratic Party politics and served as county chairwoman from 2004 to 2006.

But these days when she's not working she's putting most of her energy into studying for a bachelor's in political science and public administration at UNF.

What she'd like to eventually do after she retires as a paralegal in five to 10 years is work for an international foundation.

Source: Jacksonville.com