Interview with Rosie Odum

Rosie Odum works in four areas: trademarks, international corporations, bankruptcy, and customer complaints. In the complaint section, we handle customer complaints that come through the vice presidents' offices, or from our CEO office. In trademarks, I do anything from filing applications, to infringements, copyrights, and searches. In international corporations, I handle business pertaining to the company's subsidiaries. I also support the international counsel Company: Federal Express Corporation.

City: Memphis, Tennessee


Department: Legal Department

Title: Associate Paralegal

Salary Range: $20,160-$31,440 Benefits:

Insurance: medical, dental, vision, short- and long-term disability Financial: optional profit sharing and retirement savings plan Vacation: 2 weeks when hired, 3 weeks after 5 years of employment, 4 weeks after 10 years of employment Sick time: up to 5 consecutive days paid sick leave; sick time then switches into short-term disability pay

Misc.: 2 personal days and 2 floater days per year, 6 major holidays per year; employee discount when using Federal Express, company store

Work Experience:

Five years as a secretary and legal secretary with Federal Express Corporation. Two years of part-time legal experience with De Soto County Planning Commission. One year as a clerk and data entry clerk and two years of secretarial experience.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Provide timely assistance to the legal department staff in completing corporate legal mandates in the areas handled by customer support. To assist other departments and management in obtaining legal advice on day-today customer support matters:
 

1. Assist customer support attorneys in planning, organizing, coordinating, and tracking programs and/or projects associated with the legal department and customer support.
2. Prepare and coordinate correspondence between the legal department and others as directed.
3. Provide timely assistance to outside counsel as requested.
4. Assist and coordinate with the over goods department and as paralegal of the day on department schedule.
5. Provide other departments within the company with necessary information pertaining to copyright and trademark issues, and bankruptcy, international, corporate, and business matters.
6. Assist in preparation and updating of customer support training materials for the legal department.
7. Work with all departments in the company to ensure timely review of advertising and policy and procedures.
8. Collect information to be included in the legal department's monthly activity report.
9. Under the direction of an attorney, prepare filings and applications for trademarks, service marks, etc.
10. Perform non-complex legal research and prepare analyses and summaries of non-complex reports.
11. Perform other duties as assigned.

Rosie Odum ( RO): I work at Federal Express Corporation, in Memphis, as an associate paralegal.

Questioner (Q): What does "associate paralegal" mean? Are there levels of paralegal positions?

RO: Yes. There's associate paralegal, which is entry-level and requires no experience, then paralegal, which requires two years of experience, and then senior paralegal, which requires four years of experience, two of which must be obtained at Federal Express Corporation.

I work in four areas: trademarks, international corporations, bankruptcy, and customer complaints. In the complaint section, we handle customer complaints that come through the vice presidents' offices, or from our CEO Mr. Smith's office. In trademarks, I do anything from filing applications, to infringements, copyrights, and searches. In international corporations, I handle business pertaining to the company's subsidiaries. I also support the international counsel. We have six or seven regional counsel who can send any type of request to us here in Memphis, as the base office.

Q: Can you give me an example?

RO: Just now I'm forming a corporation by preparing the articles of incorporation, bylaws, and such, to set up a subsidiary of Federal Express in Belgium. I keep track of all the international subsidiaries. For example, I maintain the corporate minute books on each subsidiary.

Q: What about the other area you work in, bankruptcy?

RO: Last year, I started working in bankruptcy, but I don't do too much in it now because another paralegal has been hired. Basically, I request invoices on bankruptcies filed by customers of Federal Express.

Q: Do you mean corporate customers? Big customers?

RO: Fifty-fifty. It wouldn't have to be a big customer. It could be anybody who's filed bankruptcy and owes Federal Express money-perhaps a smaller company.

For example, as a customer of Federal Express, you can apply to use one of our Power Ship units, which is a little computer that produces a shipping label. Oftentimes, when a company files bankruptcy, they don't leave a forwarding address, their building is now locked up, and the landlord won't allow us entry so we can recover the unit. In our department, we might track down who the landlord is and try to get into the building to get the unit back, so that it isn't included in the bankruptcy.

Q: So that would be a typical thing you might do in bankruptcy. What about customer complaints?

RO: In customer complaints, we write letters to customers who feel that we didn't meet our service commitment in connection with their shipments. If they think we mishandled their package, they may want to file suit against us, and we have to answer those complaints. Primarily, we handle complaints which have reached our CEO's office. Mr. Smith, our CEO, then passes those complaints on to the executive office, which sends them down to the legal department if there are legal issues involved.

Q: I'd like to go back to your trademark work. That's intellectual property, which is a big, upcoming field these days. Can you give me some examples of what you do in that area?

RO: Sure. We maintain registrations, affidavits, and due dates for filing of, for example, the Federal Express logo. We have a Federal Express and a intellectual property.

Intellectual property (IP), as defined by Ballentine's Law Dictionary: Legal Assistant Edition, is "property that is the physical or tangible result of original thought." It is also property protected by law, which is where paralegals enter the picture. IP paralegals are employed by corporations, government agencies, and law firms working with copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and patents, which are all part of intellectual property law.

Intellectual property is a booming area.

There is no doubt, within the legal profession, that the leading legal specialty currently desired by legal employers is intellectual property.

According to the International Trademark Association (INTA), a not-for-profit professional organization committed to the promotion of trademarks throughout the world, job opportunities and advancement abound for paralegals involved in trademark work, both in companies and in law firms. Not only are opportunities good, but there are also corresponding salaries

Fed Ex logo in each country where we do business, and they must be protected in each country. Right now, a lot of those marks are up for renewal, so we do forms called "Statement of Use" to show that the mark is active in the particular country.

We have outside counsel, for trademarks in Chicago, for trademarks, who works with us in regard to countries where we do business. She lets us know when a registration is up for renewal, and she basically handles the other countries, whereas we do all of the filing for the United States.

Q: I was wondering about that. Don't the other countries have their own laws regarding trademarks? Are you saying that your counsel in Chicago handles those requirements, but your office handles the United State's requirements?

RO: Yes, exactly. She lets us know if there's something particular we need to do for her, such as a power of attorney. Then she can go ahead and handle everything with that country so that we're on top of things.

One of the other things we do here is called "Paralegal and Lawyer of the Day." Two days out of the month we take all of the customer complaint calls that come into the Legal Department. We answer the phones on those days and assist customers with their problems.

We also have one day out of every, say, three months, when a paralegal has to go to our lost and found department. Any package, especially a package with legal documents, that has torn open or been ripped apart in our hub we try to track who shipped it and who the recipient is. Sometimes that is so hard because you have no idea who was sending the item or who was to receive it.

Q: Changing the subject, how long have you been with Federal Express?

RO: I've been with Federal Express for six and a half years, but I've been a paralegal for only a year and a half.

Q: Great! How did you move in to the paralegal position? Did you have formal schooling, or training on the job?

RO: Oh, I wish it was only training on the job! But no, I had schooling. I took a nine-month paralegal course, and I have a certificate from that school. Working in the legal department as a legal secretary, I was familiar with the job. We bid on jobs here.

Q : What do you mean?

RO: A listing comes out every Friday of all of the openings in Federal Express. If there's a job you want, you can bid for it.

Q: So you bid for your paralegal job.

RO: Right. They post the jobs internally before they're advertised externally.

Q: Tell me a little about the three levels of paralegal positions. You're an associate paralegal-how do you move up the ladder to the next position, or to the senior paralegal position?

RO: You have to work for two years as an associate paralegal before you can move up to the paralegal level. But there are performance reviews, too, which tie into whether you move up a level or not. I'm due for a promotion next fall, but, of course, it's up to my boss. Your boss has to feel that you're qualified to move up to the next level. An associate paralegal is a level-19, a paralegal is level-21, and a senior paralegal is level-23.

Q: Those levels probably have corresponding increases in pay and responsibility.

RO: Right. You get a lot more responsibility as you move up. You get more advanced work and bigger projects to work on. There are always bigger projects to work on.

One thing I haven't really done much of is copyright work. I do trademark searches and infringements. Someone infringes on Federal Express' name in their advertising if they don't clear it with Federal Express. Any use of the Federal Express name must come through us before it is used. We do ad copy-the marketing department brings all their ads over for us to look at before they are sent to print. We make sure that all of our trademarks are being used correctly in the advertisement. For example, we have economy two-day service, and the mark has to be used the exact way it's used in Interstate Commerce. In the case of economy two-day service, the word "two" must be spelled out and not be the number "2".

Q: What do you like best about your job?

RO: As far as intellectual property goes?

Q: As far as your entire job goes.

RO: The international corporations section is exciting and challenging to keep up with, because of all the different countries. I like the trademarks section best. Trademark is very interesting to me. There's always something different each day that I can do to improve my educational scope.

Q: How many paralegals work there?

RO: We have about seventeen or eighteen paralegals, with an attorney staff of forty to fifty.

Q: Did you ever work in a traditional law firm?

RO: Not as a paralegal. I worked in a law firm as a legal secretary.

Q: How does working for Federal Express compare to working in a law firm?

RO: It evens out, I think.

Q: What do you feel some of the pluses are to being in a company?

RO: In a company, you have more flexibility. It's a great company, there are good benefits, and there's flexibility in my position as far as growth goes.

Q: Tell me a little about your benefits.

RO: We have insurance, of course, and paid vacation and holidays. But the best benefit is the opportunity to advance into any area that we would like to. There's also a tuition refund program. I had a chance to use that. We have all the basics such as profit sharing, stock investment, retirement savings, and credit union, the most important, of course, is the St. Jude's Golf Classic Tournament.

Q: Is St. Jude's a hospital?

RO: Yes, a children's hospital and the proceeds from the tournament are given to the children. We can volunteer to work at the golf tournament and meet all the big celebrities like Michael Jordan and Phil Donahue.

Also, we have a company store where we can buy Federal Express items.

Q: Do you get to send things for free through Federal Express?

RO: Not for free, but we do get an employee discount.

Q: Are there any primary skills that you use in your job?

RO: I do use my communication skills--written and oral--a lot, I have to; and my research skills. We didn't cover international or trademarks or intellectual property at all in school, and I had to learn all of that on the job. Les, my boss, is great--he's really up on all of it. We don't have a formal training program on the job; you're paired with an attorney and learn as you go.

Q: Do you have any words of wisdom for other paralegals out there?

RO: I think you should go for what you want and always be happy at what you're doing. If you're not happy, you won't do the job well. If you're happy and willing to step out and learn more, opportunities will come.

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