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Catawba Valley Paralegal Association ● PO Box 3068 ● Hickory, NC 28603

OCTOBER 2016

PARASIGHT

Board of Directors

Laurie Hayden

President

Leah Poovey

Vice-President and

Assistant Treasurer

Amanda Bentley

Secretary

Heather Misenheimer

Assistant Secretary

Beverly Cook

Treasurer

Ellen Abernathy

Corene Justice

Chera Pardue

WELCOME to our new membership year! We had a very productive annual meeting on October 11. A huge thank you to all members who attended the meeting. You had great ideas about fundraisers and seminars. I left the meeting feeling energized and excited about this year’s prospects. The Board appointed officers for the 2016 - 2017 year as follows:

Laurie Hayden President Leah Poovey Vice President and Assistant Treasurer Amanda Bentley Secretary Heather Misenheimer Assistant Secretary Beverly Cook Treasurer

Congratulations to our new officers and thank you so much for your participation! For those who missed the meeting, here are the discussion points: The Caldwell County Bar Association and Catawba County Bar Association will play a charity basketball game on Thursday, November 3 (original date was October 27, but was recently changed), the

Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Courthouse History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

Page 7

Committee Roster

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In This Issue

President’s Message Looking Forward!

proceeds of which will benefit Legal Aid, and the CVPA has been asked to host the event. We will need volunteers to work the event. Please let Amanda Bentley (ABentley@ CatawbaCountyNC.gov) or me know if you are willing to help with the event. We need 8 - 10 volunteers.

Our November 8 CPE will be presented by Attorney Pat Finn. He will speak on the representation of clients who are victims of domestic violence.

Beverly Cook prepared the Treasurer’s annual financial report. We did very well this year, even with rising costs, and came out in the black. We may be able to contribute funds to the paralegal scholarship next year. We conducted our yearly mass mailing and sent letters to 200 certified paralegals in a 50 mile radius inviting them to join the CVPA. If you know of a paralegal, legal assistant or others in the legal field who will benefit by joining the CVPA, please bring her/him with you to the next CPE. You don’t have to be a certified paralegal to benefit from being a member. To date, we have 4 new members. When you see a new member, please introduce yourselves and make them feel welcome.

We are always interested in what our members think about the CPEs we offer. Please send Jerri Lee ideas of the types of CPEs you would like the CVPA to sponsor. If you know of anyone who would be an interesting speaker, let Jerri know so she can contact that person. If you have a specific topic you would like to learn about, Jerri can find someone with that specific knowledge to present a CPE. Keep in mind that as members you have a stake in the continuity and success of the CVPA. We cannot remain successful without everyone’s involvement.

Happy Fall!

mailto:[email protected]



PARASIGHT OCTOBER 2016

Q: Where is your hometown? A: Hickory, NC Q: What prompted you to

choose a paralegal career? A: I was interested in law and

felt the possibilities of a paralegal were wide open to expand my career. Since paralegals are employed by law firms, government agencies, corporate departments, real estate and title agencies, financial institutions, and educational institutions, I felt sure I could maintain stable employment.

Q: Do you have a college

degree or paralegal certification?

A: I have an Associates in

Applied Science for Paralegal Technology degree and I am a certified NC State Board Paralegal.

Q: What do you like most

about your job? A: I love helping clients

get through their cases to move toward the next steps of their lives.

Q: What do you like least

about your job?

A: Being berated by a belligerent client.

Q: How has your

membership in the CVPA benefited you?

A: Most definitely! It's nice to

have a group to lean on for help in your career.

Q: What has been the

highlight of your career? A: Making friends

with attorneys, legal staff and clients

Q: If someone contemplating

a paralegal career asked

you for career advice, what would you say?

A: To make sure you have

thick skin to deal with your boss and you can multi-task

Q: What tips do you have on

how a paralegal can keep her career interesting?

A: Domestic law is not usually

boring, but if you are in a different legal field, I would say to find your impact on your job and take new risks to learn new things.

Q: Is there a quote or song

that inspires you? A: Philippians 4:13 I can do

everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Q: What is your favorite

vacation spot? A: Negril, Jamaica

Q: What worries you the

most? A: I'm scared about the kind of

world my 3 year old will grow up in.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT - HEATHER MISENHEIMER

Member

Spotlight

President’s Message

Page 1

Member Spotlight

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Book Review

Page 3

Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

Page 7

Committee Roster

Page 8

Heather Misenheimer NCCP

OCTOBER 2016

PARASIGHT


Book

Review

By: Laurie Hayden NCCP After recently agreeing to chair the costume committee for a youth theater group I have worked with in the past, both my husband’s and daughter’s reactions were similar, “Why not, you have nothing else to do.” Of course, they were being sarcastic. The weekend before I had just finished coaching indoor soccer and we are now into my youngest daughter’s travel soccer season and my son’s high school soccer season, not to mention working full time, and all my CVPA activities and being the Secretary and Treasurer of our homeowners’ association, which pretty much means I do everything. I find the busier I am, the more I get accomplished, but I still feel like I don’t have enough time to get everything done. In looking through my list of books that I thought would be interesting to read, I came across a book called 168 Hours Y ou Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam (see book cover on page 4). For her book, Laura Vanderkam interviewed successful people who are very busy with their jobs, families and outside activities and asked them how they manage their time. One of the interviewees is a woman who owns her own construction company while raising 6 children, two of whom are 8 year old twins, coaches soccer, and was planning her oldest daughter’s wedding at the time she was interviewed. The key to her time management is to spend her time wisely. She concentrates on nurturing her business, her family and herself. She says that if you focus on what you do best and what brings you the most satisfaction there is plenty of room for everything else. There are a number of sections in the book where highly successful individuals discuss how they manage their time and how they include time for leisure activity, family outings and items on their bucket list, but the main gist of the book is how to manage the 168 hours in your week wisely. Vanderkam explains that when people are

verbally asked about their day, they usually say they don’t have enough time to get everything done and don’t get enough sleep, but when asked to complete a survey about how they spend their time, the narrative changes. According to Vanderkam, the survey results don’t show that people are overworked or suffer from lack of sleep. It shows that they have absolutely no idea how to spend their 168 hours during the week. She claims that since people don’t typically think about how they spend their time, they end up spending massive amounts of time on things like television, web surfing, housework or errands which might give them a feeling of accomplishment, but really do nothing to enhance their lives. The survey also revealed that parents spend very little quality time with their children. Mothers only spend on average 11 – 50 minutes a day with their children depending on the ages of their children (they spend more time with pre-school age children), but fathers on average only spend 15 – 18 minutes a day with their children. Vanderkam suggests that we approach time differently. Start each week with a blank slate. What would happen if you filled in each time slot on your blank slate with the activities that you actually do each week? For most people, they would find that they have lot of blank slots and plenty of time for other things. Laura Vanderkam has charts on her website, but you can easily make your own chart in Excel. She suggests writing down your activities in either 15 minute increments or 30 minute increments. Making a chart will help determine how to arrange your schedule or show you how much time you are wasting on a particular activity. Blocking your time is another suggestion in the book. If you want to exercise an hour a day or take a weekly art class, block that activity on your chart. Include in your blocked time the amount of time it will take you to get to the venue and back if you have to drive. If you run errands on Saturday, block 2 or 3 hours for that activity. This not only lets you see how you are using your time, but will also allow you to plan for those activities, then you can schedule more than one

168 HOURS You Have More Time Than You Think

Continued on Page 4


Page 1

Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

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Committee Roster

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TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY COURTHOUSE

Courthouse

History

The area to be known as Transylvania County was settled in the early 1800s by Scots-Irish immigrants who were attracted by the rich soil, abundant game and natural resources. Many of these original settlers were farmers. Much of what is now forest used to be farmland. The name “Transylvania” was chosen by State Representative Joseph P. Jordan in 1861 who was raised in nearby Blantyre in the former Transylvania Colony. "Transylvania" comes from Latin meaning "over the trees" or "across the woods". The area was carved out of Henderson and Jackson counties. The name, "Brevard," the county seat, was chosen as a tribute to Ephriam Brevard who was highly regarded for drafting the Mecklenburg Resolves (Declaration) of 1775 as well as being a surgeon in the North Carolina Continental Line during the American Revolution. Alex F. England, Leander S. Gash and Braxton C. Lankford jointly donated 50 acres for a new town

site. The town of Brevard consisted of two or three stores, a courthouse, county jail, two churches and a dozen homes.

Brevard was granted a U.S. Post Office on August 28, 1868. A number of hotels were built in later years as the area had become a popular place to summer. The first official meeting of the Transylvania County court was held on May 20, 1861 (the same day that North Carolina seceded from the union) in a one room country store that was built 10 years earlier called "The Valley Store" at a place called Oak Grove. The old courthouse is now a bed and breakfast called “The Red House Inn.” The current Transylvania

County Courthouse is located on Main Street in downtown Brevard and was built in 1873 by Thomas E. Davis in a "T"-plan Italianate style with a hipped roof. A rear addition was built in the early-20th century. The front facade features a projecting three-story tower topped by a concave mansard roof.

Transylvania Courthouse

BOOK REVIEW - (continued)

thing in a day so you don’t feel as if you aren’t getting anything accomplished. Vanderkam also stresses adding in leisure activities on the weekends. Block time for anything specific like reading a book or visiting a museum or just block a chunk of time for all things leisure. There are a number of other topics in

the book, including, concentrating on

core competencies, finding the right

job, controlling your calendar at work

and even finding someone to do your

laundry. Basically, though, most topics

in the book revolve around planning

your 168 hours and Vanderkam

guarantees that you accomplish a lot

more during the week and have time

for events and activities that pop up if

you effectively plan your week.

Continued from Page 3


Page 1

Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

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Committee Roster

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OCTOBER 2016

PARASIGHT


CYBER SECURITY

Interest

Continued on Page 6

By: Richard Heinrich Senior Marketing Manager One Legal Law firms have a clear duty of care with respect to the sensitive infor-mation they hold about their cli-ents and the matters they are work-ing on. Last week, as part of our contribu-tion to Cyber Security Awareness Month, we wrote about the seri-ousness of the cybercrime threat facing law firms. In particular, we noted that one of the downsides of going paperless is that many more documents are potentially accessi-ble to hackers. It’s not an idle threat. Earlier this year, for example, almost 50 of the biggest corporate law firms in the United States were targeted by a Russian hacking collective aiming to steal information that they might use for insider trading. Why did they hackers target law firms? Surely, one would think, they’d go after the bigger fish — like the banks. Some speculate they saw underprepared law firms are a soft target. The Russian inci-dent has spurred many of the larg-est firms into action. Does that mean that smaller businesses are now under threat? Fortunately, the risk of many cyber threats can be mitigated by taking some simple preventative measures. Here are five to get you started. #1. Use two-factor authentication to protect your most sensitive doc-uments. Two-factor authentication means using something you know (e.g. a password) and something you have (typically your phone) to log into your account. When you enable two-factor authentication, you’ll have to enter your password

and a randomly generated code that is sent to you by text or email. You ought to be using two-factor authentication with your most criti-cal online accounts. Yes, it can be a pain since it’s a little slower and more cumbersome than just enter-ing a single password (which is perhaps why, according to a survey by the International Legal Tech-nology Association, fewer than two in 10 firms require it). Howev-er, it’s a relatively easy way to improve security drastically. Unfortunately, software and app makers don’t always make it obvi-ous when two-factor authentication is available. The website twofac-torauth.org contains a useful, and mostly up to date, list. #2. Never share or “re-purpose” logins and passwords Can you be certain exactly how many people know your password to your firm’s systems? Password sharing is a very serious issue. Employees share their login cre-dentials with each other all the time, often because they need to give colleagues access to a key system or because they’re away and it’s too much hassle (or too expensive) to create a new login. In fact, in a recent survey of hun-dreds of IT professionals in the U.S. and the U.K., 19% responded that they knew password sharing was taking place. Some even re-ported that it was so widespread that passwords were being left lying around, written on post-it notes or stuck to monitors. A related concern is the re-purposing of logins. This occurs when an employee leaves and, rather than removing their login and creating a new set of creden-tials, the remaining staff simply

continue to use their former col-league’s login. Not only can you not be certain of who now has ac-cess, but you may be missing out on crucial information and updates if the email address or on file is incorrect. Never share passwords and create new, individual logins for each member of staff requiring access. With many systems, such as One Legal, it’s completely free to add more people to your account (take a look at our support center for details). #3. Choose better passwords Your password is often the first — and also quite frequently the last — line of defense when it comes to data security. That’s because hackers have become adept at cracking passwords. What, though, constitutes a secure password? Your password should contain at least eight characters, and ideally a few more than that. It ought to be a mixture of letters, numbers, and special characters. You can achieve this relatively simply by replacing some letters (e.g. I with 1, A with @) and adding punctua-tion marks (e.g. !, @, #, $, ?) to the beginning and end of your pass-word. Avoid using single dictionary words. One of the most common hacking methods is simply to cycle through dictionary words until they find a match. Combine multiple words in a phrase and add special characters to reduce this risk. Ideally, you’ll use different pass-words for each major system you log in to. ArsTechnica.com recent-ly reported that, while the average web user has accounts with 25 websites, they only use, on aver-


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Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

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Committee Roster

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Interest/

Other

CYBER SECURITY (CONTINUED)

Continued from Page 5

age, 6.5 passwords to access them. That’s under-standable; long and complicated passwords are tricky to remember. If you do have a large num-ber, try using a dedicated password manager like LastPass or KeePass to store them. #4. Keep your operating systems up to date There’s a persistent myth out there that computers running Windows are inherently more vulnerable to cyber attacks and viruses. Yes, this was perhaps true with earlier versions of Windows (95 and 98, especially), but today it’s not the case. That is, so long as you’re keeping your system updated and installing security patches. Yes, installing these updates can be irritatingly time-consuming. However, many updates involve fixing known bugs that create security vulnerabili-ties. So, if you’re skipping updates, then you risk becoming a sitting duck. So, install those pesky operating system updates as soon as they’re made available. You should also try to stay on the most recent version of your operating system (right now that’s Windows 10 or, if you’re on a Mac, Sierra.

#5. Encrypt your hard drives Steps #1 to #4 may seem relatively simple compared to hard drive encryption. However, given that it’s easier than ever to keep the contents of your computer secure, there are few excuses for not encrypting your most sensitive files. If you’re carrying around a laptop that contains sen-sitive client information, then it’s pretty much essential. Encryption uses a formula to transform readable data into unreadable data. Decryption is the opposite process — converting the unreadable encrypted data back into reada-ble information. So long as the decryption key is secure, so is the data. The technical details of encryption can be complicated, but fortunately, actually making use of it is relatively straightforward. Both Windows computers and Macs come with a hard drive encryption option ready to enable (BitLocker and FileVault respectively). Both are pretty simple to get started with. There’s a handy guide over on Lawyerist.com to get you started. Read more about keeping your law firm cyber secure: www.onelegal.com Reprinted with permission [email protected]

POSITION VACANCY

The July edition of ParaSight included information about the revision of the Assumed Business Name

Act (the “Act”). The effective date noted in the article was incorrect. The actual effective date of the

Assumed Business Name Act is July 1, 2017, but only if the legislature approves funding to the Secre-

tary of State to implement its database. With the effective date being 2017, the expiration of all exist-

ing Certificates of Assumed Name will now be July 1, 2022.

The Western Piedmont Community College Paralegal Program is looking for adjunct instructors beginning in fall semester 2017. Applicants should be able to teach a variety of different legal special-ties, such as legal research, tort law, real estate or wills and trusts. There is a possibility of this position becoming full time. Applicants for adjunct positions should have a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree and NC certification is preferred. Should a full time position open up, those applicants should have a Master’s degree in a field related to paralegal studies, such as Criminal Justice.

ASSUMED BUSINESS NAME ACT—CORECTION


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Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

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Committee Roster

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OCTOBER 2016

PARASIGHT


THANK YOU/UPCOMING CPE

Thank

You/

Upcoming

CPE

UPCOMING SEMINAR

November 8, 2016

Patrick D. Finn Jr., Esq. Law Offices of Lisa A. Dubs

Representation of Clients who are Victims of Domestic Violence

SOCIAL

December 2016

Winter Social (details TBD)

Thank you

Donna Hicks Spencer

for presenting our CPE on

E-Recordings and Changes in Notary Manual

Thank you

Joshua R. Adams

for presenting our CPE on the

Business Court in

North Carolina

UPCOMING EVENT

(Community Outreach Project)

1st Annual Basketball Challenge to Benefit Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.

Caldwell County Bar

Vs. Catawba County Bar

Mulberry Recreation Center

720 Mulberry Street SW Lenoir, NC 28645

7:00 PM

Please come and support this cause!


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Member Spotlight

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Book Review

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Court House History

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Interest

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Interest/Other

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Thank You/CPE

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Committee Roster

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Committee

Roster

CVPA ROSTER OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

CPE Jerri Lee (Chair) Hawkins & Mace, PLLC [email protected] Leah Poovey Heather Misenheimer Community Outreach Amanda Bentley (Chair) Catawba County Attorney’s Office [email protected] Crystal Campbell Fundraising Amanda Bentley (Chair) Catawba County Attorney’s Office [email protected] Pamela Dorsey Membership Laurie Hayden (Chair) Patrick, Harper & Dixon L.L.P. [email protected] Pamela Dorsey

Newsletter Beverly Cook (Chair) Patrick, Harper & Dixon L.L.P. [email protected] Kelley Walker Laurie Hayden Leah Poovey Publicity Leah Poovey (Chair) Alex Lee, Inc. [email protected] Social Heather Misenheimer (Chair) John F. Cutchin, P.A. [email protected] Julie Follman Crystal Campbell Website Laurie Hayden (Chair) Patrick, Harper & Dixon L.L.P. [email protected] Lori Edwards (Facebook) [email protected]


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