Electronic Submittal to Virginia’s Appellate Courts Stephanie Meharg, ACP, VARP On July 1, 2015 the Virginia Supreme Court and the Virginia Court of Appeals began requiring that briefs and appendices filed after the granting of a petition, or after the docketing of an original jurisdiction petition be transmitted to the Clerk and all counsel of record electronically via VACES (Virginia Appellate Courts Electronic System) in addition to filing the hard copies with the Clerk’s office.    Below is a summary of the VACES Guidelines (which can be found in their entirety here http ..read more

Welcome to #RPA2017!   In RVA, we've had near-shorts weather and "snowmaggedon" within the first week of the year.  Sometimes change like that is crazy (68 degrees to 3 degrees in a few days?), and sometimes it's planned and a good thing.  When it comes to your career, I hope any changes in 2017 are planned! A great way to plan for change is to have a professional vision.  If you read the January 2017 edition of On the Record, you've already heard my suggestion for a vision board.  Decide what you want to accomplish this year, and put it on a vision board to keep it ..read more

As RPA Education Chair, NALA Professional Development Committee (PDC) Chair, and a NALA Advanced Certified Paralegal® (ACP®), I think about education and credentials a lot.  A good philosophy for professional development is to do something that will help you personally and professionally, and that will help distinguish you from your peers.  Maybe this is leadership development, continuing education, a degree, or a certification.  Something I see in every aspect of my professional life is confusion about certificates versus certification (Part 1, posted earlier), and regulation v ..read more

As RPA Education Chair, NALA Professional Development Committee (PDC) Chair, and a NALA Advanced Certified Paralegal® (ACP®), I think about education and credentials a lot.  A good philosophy for professional development is to do something that will help you personally and professionally, and that will help distinguish you from your peers.  Maybe this is leadership development, continuing education, a degree, or a certification.  Something I see in every aspect of my professional life is confusion about certificates versus certification (Part 1), and regulation versus registrati ..read more

By Teresa A. Clark, ACP The changes to our profession over the past 20+ years have been astounding! Not only because of technological advances, but in general things are definitely different. I am sure that most, if not all you have been impacted by changes to the number of staff at your firms, mostly by lowering the attorney to administrative assistant ratio. Many paralegals that I have talked to, have been impacted by this, which has often resulted in increased administrative duties.  There is a trend of a new type of paralegal professional that has made the news recently.Different s ..read more

By Donna Strauss, ACP Paralegal growth.  Is there really such a thing?  A paralegal can certainly learn more and take on more substantive work, but where does a paralegal go from there?  Unlike other business roles where employees work their way up the path to leadership, many paralegals don’t have anywhere to go unless they take the big step of attending law school. So what is there to do?  For one thing, ignore my previous paragraph.  We all know that paralegals ROCK!  Where would all the great lawyers be without us?  As far as growth, there are so many w ..read more

By Kitty Bice, ACP Last month I had the opportunity to attend the National Association of Legal Assistants and Paralegals’ (“NALA”) 40th Annual Convention and Exhibition in Tulsa, Oklahoma.   It was a tremendous event with wonderful educational institutes, sponsors from companies which paralegals depend on to do their jobs well, great speakers and presentations and fellow paralegals from across the country.  At the Convention, members and candidates from the Executive Board introduced themselves and shared six important soft skills that were essential to being a successful para ..read more

By Irma Bektic One of the reasons I joined RPA was because I thought it would provide me with opportunities to give back to the Richmond community. Why was this so important to me? Because I recognize that I owe a lot of my success to the support system and mentors that Richmond has afforded me. RPA’s mission is to foster professionalism, continuing legal education, public service, and networking for paralegals in Central Virginia. I knew that RPA’s strong presence in both the Richmond legal field and throughout the Commonwealth could be used to do a lot of good.    It was through ..read more

By Darlene Yeary, ACP Many of you ask,  “What is the Certified Paralegal Exam, and why should I take it?”  The Certified Paralegal Exam, also known as the CP Exam, is a test administered by National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) that is offered three times a year (January, May, and September).  This exam covers Communications, Ethics, Legal Research, Judgment & Analytic Ability, and Substantive Law.  You could consider the intensity of studying for this exam to be the paralegal equivalent of studying for the bar exam. As of March 16, 2015, there are 18,282 ce ..read more

By Jillian Sherman, ACP 30, 45: This was a short session for the General Assembly, which happens every odd-numbered year.  Short sessions are 30 days long and nominally are only to deal, but frequently the first order of business in a short session is to extend the session.  The 2015 session was 45 days long, adjourning Sine Die on the 46th day.  1918: Not including resolutions, legislators introduced 1,918 bills this year, 799 of which were sent to Governor McAuliffe for consideration.  The Governor signed The Appropriation Act— the “budget bill”— with no amendments.&nb ..read more