Entrance to the Profession Narrative
I remember seventh grade Open House at my suburban Catholic grade school in the southern curve of St. Louis’ Mississippi River. I remember the glaring, bowl-shaped auditorium lights hovering over milling parents and sheepish classmates, everyone looking for their own, or their own child’s work so they could make their exclamations and get on with the night. I remember it so well because on my orange poster-board balloon, under a fifth grade school photo—with the red pullover sweater, plaid Peter Pan collar, and bouffant bow—someone had written “Aspiring Author.” I didn’t know anyone knew. I didn’t even know myself.
Maybe it was in the stories I wrote for our weekly vocabulary sentences. Or the dramas I enacted for book reports that ran fifteen minutes over our allotted five. Perhaps I revealed it in my Social Studies notebook with pages upon pages of illustrated, full-paragraphed definitions of Civil War details, in the three-page poem I recited from memory in front of the class, in zealous literature projects, in my natural ability to crank out grammar trees, or in the novella I turned in for a one-page writing assignment. It never occurred to me to articulate such an aspiration—perhaps because it was too close. But others could see it—this love affair with language.
For whatever reasons, I continued to dismiss that orange balloon discovery until several years after I left—I thought—the academic world behind for good. I understand now why my undergraduate years were such a struggle. This bouffant-bowed aspirant hooked flailing arms around a biology major, when math and science had been only sources of tedium and misery. After a year of unbearable classes, I switched my major to English—more out of a sense of failure than a sense of right. My motivation for grasping onto science was the thought of a clear, and perhaps interesting, job-title after four years. My motivation for running back into the arms of my former lover was that it felt familiar and natural.
I cringed every time I heard someone say, “Oh, an English major…what will you do? Teach?” Was that my only option? I couldn’t do it. Yes, I loved to read and write, to crawl into glittering tunnels of analysis, to discover ideas as they revealed themselves under my pen, but it all seemed so…removed from life.
A Paralegal is defined by the American Bar Association as a person, qualified by education, training or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible. Paralegals work under direct supervision of an attorney and follow the same ethical rules of the ABA as a lawyer does. ABA Rule 5.3, states that a lawyer must give such assistants appropriate instruction and supervision concerning the ethical aspects of their employment, particularly regarding the obligation not to disclose information relating to representation of the client, and should be responsible for their work product. Per the State B...
On December 10, 1950, in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, William Faulkner, presented his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. If one reads in between the lines of this acceptance speech, they can detect a certain message – more of a cry or plead – aimed directly to adolescent authors and writers, and that message is to be the voice of your own generation; write about things with true importance. This also means that authors should include heart, soul, spirit, and raw, truthful emotion into their writing. “Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” (Faulkner) should all be frequently embraced – it is the duty of authors to do so. If these young and adolescent authors ignore this message and duty, the already endangered state of literature will continue to diminish until its unfortunate extinction.
Paralegals are continuing to assume new responsibilities in legal offices and perform many of the same duties as attorneys. Through formal education, training and experience, paralegals have knowledge and expertise regarding the legal system and law procedures, which qualify them to work under the supervision of an attorney. Along with preparing legal documents, contracts and other legal materials, a paralegal can also interview witnesses, and conducting legal research. The most important task a paralegal may have is helping an attorney prepare for hearings, trials, and meetings. Although a paralegal is trained to perform the same tasks as attorneys, they are explicitly prohibited from carrying out duties considered to be within the scope of the practice of law, such as setting legal fees, giving legal advice, submitting signed documents to court, and presenting cases in court. Paralegals are an essential part of today’s legal practice; furthermore, a competent paralegal can improve a law office’s profitability and the delivery of legal services. With these new responsibilities comes a higher level of demand and respect. In turn...
To get the truth a paralegal needs to ask certain types of questions. As talked about in (Conducting Effective interviews, AICPA, 2013) there are five important types of questions to ask in an interview. Informational questions (unbiased in nature, non-confrontational), open questions (what, when, where, why, how), closed questions (yes or no answers), Leading Questions (contains part of the answer in the question to confirm facts already known), and admission seeking questions (questions geared toward getting admissions). All of these types of questions can get the right information out of the interviewee i...
Paralegals are professionals who assist or support lawyers with their work (Westwood College). Supporting qualified lawyers includes a variety of tasks. When an attorney’s case goes to court, paralegals prepare motions and pleadings, in addition to organizing and cataloguing relevant trial documents (Westwood College). Paralegals also locate and interview witnesses; conduct investigations; conduct legal research; and summarize depositions, interrogatories and testimony (The National Association of Legal Assistants). In addition, the Business and Professions Code Section 6450(a) states that “Tasks performed by a paralegal include, but are not limited to, case planning, development, and management; legal research; interviewing clients; fact gathering and retrieving information; drafting and analyzing legal documents; collecting, compiling, and utilizing technical information to make an independent decision and recommendation to the supervising attorney; and representing clients before a state or federal administrative agency if that representation is permitted by statute, court rule, or administrative rule or regulation” (Business and Professions Code Section 6450(a)).
Paralegals have become an essential part of today's legal system, and as the profession becomes one of the leading and fastest growing occupations in the U.S. economy; these individuals perform delegated tasks under the supervision of attorneys. Education has played an important part on this matter; it has facilitated this development by allowing lawyers to use these skills professionals as agents to delegate specific tasks such as legal research, gathering of information and the drafting of specific legal documents under the supervision and final approval of their principals. This has been very significant because now; we can enjoy a speedy process in a cumbersome legal system. From en economic standpoint, it has also been beneficial by decreasing the substantial amount of the legal cost a firm could incur if only lawyers were allowed to perform this kind work.
Topics of race and inequality are critical topics we continue to debate everyday in America. My research synthesis paper is about school segregation, and I wanted to identify how and why schools continue to be racially and socioeconomically segregated today. I will use these questions, as well as knowledge gained from scholarly articles, as a platform for my analysis of school segregation and its implications for students and communities. So I wanted to discover if integration still matters, do our schools need to be desegregated, and if not, then how can our schools become diverse and effective. Racial segregation, segregation and systemic oppression doesn’t just start in one place. There is a structure in place that makes all of the discrimination
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright such as Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more so than the other characters in the play he accomplishes this in a highly performative way, involving song and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and is thus particularly reflective of the mechanisms at the command of the playwright. Feste is a representation of the medieval fool figure, who is empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright speaks the truth by using actors and fictional characters, who are in a parallel low status in comparison to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Thus, the role Feste plays in the lives of the characters in the play resembles the role the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the performance. This essay will explore this comparison first by analyzing similarities between the way in which Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interact with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the aims and content of these interactions.
When segregation in schools was abolished in the 1950’s, the African American community surely did not anticipate any outcome that wasn’t positive. This is not to say that American schools should remain segregated, however, the sudden shift in the societal structure caused an imbalance in, what was intended to be, an equal opportunity classroom.
The paralegal field is thought to be a high paced glorious career of working alongside an attorney and getting recognition for their work. In reality a paralegal job is nothing like Erin Brockovich (A movie where a paralegal was able to investigate and played an immense part in winning a large case) envisioned from the movie. Becoming a paralegal is appealing because it allows a quick entrance into a professional career field and offers a wide range of daily and career experiences. However, the work-life balance can be poor, the career path often stagnates without continuing education, and the pay is insufficient for the work load. Also, while there are a wide range of paralegal jobs there is also competition and an applicant must possess the ability to step right into the role with little or no training. While expecting much of the work to be comparable to administrative work and document reading.
Segregation in public schools is a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to be unconstitutional in 1954. However, since this time, schools have become segregated not by law, but with actions and policies. According to Orfield, et al (2010), the public educational system is actually moving further and further away from the integrated school systems that the Brown v. B.O.E case intended to create. There are two main areas in which segregation is discussed as being seen with in our educational systems across America. These two areas exists both within school districts, where certain schools have demographics that don’t necessarily represent the population of an entire district, and within individual schools, where students are often times
My major is Paralegal Studies and I expect to graduate with an Associates of Arts degree in December of this year. Many years ago, as an investigator for both a private company and a county agency, I was introduced to the legal field. Recently, I was awarded the opportunity to attend college, so I decided I wanted to reenter the legal profession as a paralegal. The paralegal profession appeals to me, because I enjoy the processes of developing a case, as well as its legal aspects. A paralegal is involved in a case from the beginning to the end; from the initial client interview to assisting the attorney during the client’s trial or the settlement process. My goal is to become a paralegal for a solo practitioner or a small firm in my local area who represent clients in different areas of the law.
...e and opposing sides. There can also be multiple experts hired by either side, some of whom won’t have to write a report or testify, but can be brought in for consultation purposes. Experts hired for criminal law purposes must follow the policies set by the courts and law. If hired by the prosecution, the expert must disclose all notes taken on the case, lab reports, results, and chain of custody documentation to the defense. The expert hired by the defense isn’t required to disclose any information about the case and it is up to the defense if they want to allow the prosecution any information. The expert there is to give testimony in order to, basically, sway the jury one way or another. Though there may be differences among the various sides an expert can be hired as, the goal in the end is same: for the facts to be accurate and presented in a professional manner.
William, Shakespeare Twelfth Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1079-1139.
In conclusion, Through Feste's clever use of language, he takes on a role separate from his character. Although he partakes in the play, he also becomes the narrator in his respective parts. While voicing what he clearly perceives, Feste is able to make others more aware of what is going on around them, and also within them. By juggling both the roles of character and narrator, Feste is able to artfully bring forth the truth not only to the characters, but also to the audience. Furthermore, by expressing his opinions in such subtle ways, as through songs, ridicule and use of wordplay, Feste fulfills his purpose without a chance of punishment or feelings of resentment hence the title “Twelfth Night.” Therefore, Shakespeare's decision to make a character such as a court jester the narrator was the perfect fit as Feste's choice of words themselves.