Operating as Estate Planning Paralegal Services, the couple collected as much as $5,000 from some people without performing any services, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit asks the court to order restitution, impose civil penalties and enjoin the Wests from continuing to operate the program.  The Wests now live in Truth or Consequences, N.M.  Does anyone else get the irony of where they reside now or is it just me?

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• Pair sued in Medicaid scheme (dispatch.com)

Yes, you heard right, $11 million is the amount that an NFL cheerleader thought she had won in a defamation judgment against a gossip website.  The result may be nullified because her lawyers sued the wrong company, politico.com reported Thursday.

Sarah Jones, a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader and Kentucky teacher, meant to sue TheDirty.com after comments on the site in December suggested she had an affair with a player and also contracted two venereal diseases. The site is run by Scottsdale-based Dirty World LLC.  But due to a clerical error, the lawsuit was filed against TheDirt.com.

On Wednesday U.S. District Court judge William O. Bertelsman ordered Los Angeles-based Dirty World Entertainment Recordings to pay $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages for failing to respond to the lawsuit filed in February.

This would be a paralegal’s nightmare, entering the wrong name and it not being caught until after the judgment is entered by default.  Ughhh, I will be sure to triple check every document that I prepare now.

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• TheDirty.com Owes Cincinnati Bengals Cheerleader Sarah Jones $11 million For Libel (PICS) (coedmagazine.com)
• Website hit with $11M penalty for cheerleader post (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I had to write about the articles that keep popping up in my Google alerts regarding home study paralegals.  Today I received notice of an article written claiming Paralegal Home Study Advantages.  Two paragraphs in particular caught my eye, they read:

“In the present day, there has been a raise in the demand of the paralegal profession. The rise in demand of such courses has led to the introduction of the paralegal home study course.”  Really, where?  Today I read that another large firm in San Francisco laid off dozens of attorneys and paralegals.  This does not say there is a raise in the demand of the paralegal profession to me.

“The reasons behind not being able to physically attend the classes can range from the simple fact that they are far from their school of choice or they work during the day and would like to study in a homely environment in the evening. That is the only difference between home study and school study of paralegal course. One may think that the home study course is very disadvantageous but the fact is that it has advantages of its own.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to study in a “homely” environment, lol.  I love my home and I would resent it being called homely.  Now, my neighborhood maybe, but not my home!  This same paragraph infers that the only difference between home study and school study is that you don’t have to travel to school and that home study has many advantages.  It goes on to name the advantages, which, in my opinion are ridiculous.  While I admit when I went to the ABA approved college program that I graduated from, that it was tough working a 40-50 hour a week full-time job and going to school in the evenings and on weekends.  I had no life for 18 long months, but I loved every minute of going to school and interacting with others who felt as passionate as I did about what I had chosen to make my lifelong career.  I also had a family to care for and a home and a yard, which I managed to keep running quite well by myself, thank you very much.  (Could be why I am single now, I found out I can do it by myself and love it!)  Sorry, got off track, back to where I was going with this.

What this article and many others like it fail to say, is that taking a home study course does not prepare you for being a paralegal and I don’t know any attorneys (well, competent attorneys) who hire home study paralegals.  Actually, I did meet an attorney earlier this year who did hire a home study course paralegal (to save a few bucks) and while he was the nicest man, this “paralegal” had no clue what he was doing.  He wasn’t required to intern in a law office for the home study course, (I had to do 90 hours of internship and have an evaluation to get credit for that internship), he had no idea how to put documents together to go to court,  he didn’t know how to do an intake, didn’t know how to question a potential client, didn’t know how to, well, you get my drift.  This attorney eventually had to let this “paralegal” go due to a costly mistake made by this same nice man.

With the economy the way it is and many paralegals and attorneys being laid off, it irks me to read these articles about how great it can be taking the paralegal home study course.  These people are making money from people who have no clue how tough it is getting a job in the legal field right now.

Many paralegals with years of experience are struggling to find a decent paying job (friends and family of mine) and are being slapped in the face every day with employment adds offering only $12-$15 an hour for experienced paralegals here in California.  If you know California and our high cost of living, you know that this kind of money won’t even pay your rent, let alone put food on the table if you have a family.  So, if you know anyone who is thinking about taking one of these paralegal home study courses, please tell them to research online, talk to paralegals and attorneys about how tough it is right now to find work and help prevent them from throwing their money away on programs that don’t even guarantee that they will be hired.

If any of you reading this are working paralegals who took a home study course, I would love to hear from you, good or bad.  I always welcome comments, after all, I am a paralegal and I love a good discussion!

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• How to Get a Foot in the Door Before Graduation (usnews.com)

The Twitter feed will receive tweets on announcements of opinions from the Supreme Court, news releases and updates on new content and resources on the California Court’s Website

At its July 22 – 24, 2010 meeting, the Board of Governors considered a Commission request that the Board adopt all of the Commission’s proposed new and amended rules. Board consideration of this request followed the conclusion of a comprehensive public comment distribution of all of the Commission’s proposed rules that ended on June 15, 2010.   The Commission requested Board adoption of sixty-eight proposed rules.  Of these sixty-eight proposed rules, sixty were adopted and one proposed rule, Rule 8.3 (re reporting misconduct), was not adopted.  For the remaining seven rules, the Board authorized an additional 30-day public comment period to seek input on changes made to those rules after the comment period that ended on June 15, 2010.  The comments are due on August 23, 2010.  You can see the seven rules for review and how to comment here.

Daniel Radcliffe is set to play a solicitor, aka attorney, in the new film “Woman in Black“, per British Horror Label, Hammer Films.

There is question by some if Daniel is old enough to play a solicitor at the ripe age of 21, and that he might be more suited as a paralegal or law clerk.  Yes, this is not breaking paralegal news, but whatever the case may be, may I just tell you that I am a huge Harry Potter fan and I am not afraid to say it?

The J.K. Rolling series has done more in getting my grandchildren to read then I ever could, so I am grateful for this as I am an insatiable reader and can’t understand those that are not as passionate about reading as I am.

I have not read the book “Woman in Black” yet, but will before I ever see the movie.  From what I read in the article today, it sounds like it might be an interesting movie.

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• Daniel Radcliffe to star in The Woman in Black (guardian.co.uk)

You can learn more about the Criminal Justice Degree School here.  

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• How to become a virtual paralegal (slideshare.net)
• Attorney’s virtual paralegal guide (slideshare.net)

Shawn Sutherland, Paralegal and Author

In 1988, two Carrollton teens went missing and the case quickly stalled.  Shawn Sutherland a Patents Law Paralegal, who grew up in Carrollton, decided last year to write a book about the missing teens, Stacie Madison and Susan Renee Smalley.  The book, This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley reopened the cold case.  According to Carrollton police Sgt. Joel Payne, “What this book did was push the full reset button, we threw out all the assumptions, and we started from scratch.”

With the case revived, investigators are re-examining theories dismissed long ago. There’s a heightened urgency to get anyone with information about the case to come forward.

The department and Payne, the lead detective, are throwing new resources into the case. The Denton County district attorney’s office also assigned an investigator after learning of a connection in its county.

There is a Facebook page, which gives more information on Stacie and Susan.  I am thrilled to learn that one of our own paralegal brothers is responsible for reopening this sad case.  I hope that the families of these two girls receive some closure.  Persons with any information regarding the Madison/Smalley case should contact the Carrollton Police Department at 972-466-3300.

Why is it important for California paralegals to keep a compliance log of their continuing legal education?

B & P § 6450 requires a paralegal every two years to certify completion of four hours of mandatory continuing legal education in legal ethics, and four hours of mandatory continuing legal education ineither general law or in an area of specialized law.

The courts are cracking down on attorneys who do not require their paralegals to meet the requirements of B&P § 6450.  There are a number of court cases where paralegal fees were denied or disallowed by the court because the paralegal failed to meet the requirements of § 6450.

The amendment to CRC Rule 7.703 clarifies that paralegals performing services for counsel for fiduciaries in decedents’ estates, conservatorships, and guardianships must satisfy the qualification and continuing education requirements of B&P 6450 for counsel to be eligible for compensation for paralegal services from the estate of decedents for the estate’s extraordinary legal services.

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