Faculty Information
Participants in this course will include both highly experienced paralegals and legal assistants and those new to the practice and/or to legal services. You'll all be working together and we anticipate peer support and collaboration within the large and small groups to be a great contributor to everyone's learning. Depending on the nature of your work and current skills, you'll be a learner and a mentor at different points in the event. But we will have a large group of great experieced faculty as well. Among them:
Dick Bauer - long time housing and homelessness attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services will present on case analysis and planning - something he has done for many CLAE events over the years. There is no one better to help you understand these concepts.
Jennifer Hayden - an attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services with extensive paralegal training experience in both certificate paralegal programs and within the legal services community will present on Legal Ethics and on the course of a legal case and its elements.
Debi Witkin and Joanne Lewis - both from Connecticut Legal Services will lead sessions on "Difficult Conversations" - a model for communicating about difficult subjects in constructive and productive ways. Legal aid workers who have had this training have found it invaluable in their dealings with co-workers and supervisors.
Lynn Barenberg - from the Boston College Legal Assistance Bureau and an LICSW will present on approaches to working with clients that challenge us - specifically those with mental illness, confrontational and angry clients, poor historians and those with apparent attention problems, and clients we suspect are not telling us the whole truth. Lynn is an expert on these matters and has given similar presentations to many legal services groups and others throughout the region.
Small group leaders and additional presenters who will be with us throughout the event include:
Terri LaCava of Legal Assistance Corp. of Central Mass (also a member of the design team for this event)
Maria Cuerda of Western Mass Legal Services
Cindee Carter of New Hampshire Legal Assistance (also a member of the design team for this event)
Dan Feltes of New Hampshire Legal Assistance
Laurel Freeman of Connnecticut Legal Services
Ross Dolloff, CLAE's National Training Director (bio here)
Zenobia Lai, CLAE Training Attorney (bio here)
Sample Training Agenda
Here's how the three days of Essential Skills for Paralegals and Legal Assistants typically break down (each day we also make sure to include an hour-long lunch, and timely breaks for beverages and snacks):
Day 1:
10 am - 11.30: Welcome, Orientation, and Introductions
11.30 - 2.45: Interviewing Clients
2.45 - 3.45: Working with Challenges in the Lawyer-Client Relationship
4.00 - 5.30pm: Case Analysis and Planning
Day 2:
9 am - 10.00: Fact Development, Informal Discovery and Investigation
10.15 - 11.15: Legal Ethics for Paralegals
11.15 - 3.00: Difficult Conversations
3.00 - 5.00pm: (a) The Story of the Case - Opening and Closing; (b) Litigation*
Day 3:
8.30am - 9.15: Fact Investigation
9.15 - 11.00: (a) Witness Prep - Direct and Cross; (b) Working With and For the Community*
11.15 - 2.00: Time Management
2.00 - 2.45: Client Counseling
2.45 - 3.30: Delivering Bad News
3.30 - 4pm: Closing Plenary
* (a) and (b) refers to a choice participants make depending on their preferred area of study.
For further info, please click here.