Career advice to paralegals by CEO Chere Estrin

To keep up with the industry's latest trends and advancements, a lot of paralegals are usually on the lookout for how they can move up in their careers. Chere Estrin, founder and CEO of Estrin LegalEd, a company that works with paralegals as well as other legal professionals and offers litigation training support, can definitely vouch for this.

The paralegal job isn't a vertical climb up; it's a horizontal climb up," Estrin explains. "The more knowledge you have, the farther you can go in a law firm. Law firms are now paying for performance, not years in the field. The more information you have, the better your position. Many of the paralegals get into a routine and it becomes repetitious, so it can lead to burnout. The more information paralegals have, the more they are stimulated."
 

This stimulation can come from seminars and conferences, which offer workshops and knowledge to paralegals around the country. Getting into a mundane routine can lead people to lose touch with the job market and what's really going on in the legal profession. Paralegal conferences can provide advice and tips on how to progress in one's career.

Estrin began her Los Angeles-based company in 2003 and has worked with thousands of paralegals. Five years later, the company hosts 10 to 15 conferences per year all around the country — from New York to California — so paralegals can network and educate themselves further.

"Anyone can come to the conferences; it benefits the paralegal and the firm. They can use the information immediately," Estrin explains. "It increases their skill level, their knowledge of the subject matter, and it gives them the skills to take in their firm right away, [including] articles and instruction guides."

Paralegals also get CD-ROM versions of the workshops they attend, and they can choose from 30 to 35 different sessions. You can design your own program by picking the five workshops you want to attend every hour, which means you get around 10 hours of information.

Estrin started The Paralegal SuperConferences due to a need for more programs for paralegals.

"There wasn't enough information for paralegals out there. The Paralegal Association may put on a conference once a year, but that's not their job. We need to get information specifically to the paralegal. There were not a lot of hands-on seminars, so we saw a need for it. It was particularly hard for corporate paralegals on getting the 'how-to' guide [on how] they can go further in their jobs."

Estrin has been in the legal business for over 20 years, and she says all of her 400 instructors from around the country have years of experience. The instructors are judges, paralegals, lawyers, and consultants. The conferences take a day and a half and include informative "cutting-edge" sessions, according to Estrin, on topics such as e-discovery, litigation support, compliance issues, corporate transactions, and intellectual property, just to name a few.

According to Estrin, 85% to 90% of paralegals are females, so there are even sessions on how women can succeed in a "male-dominated world." The sessions help the paralegal in specific areas of interest.

"The key to success in the paralegal field is knowledge," Estrin emphasizes. "[The conferences] provide a great base for networking. We always say that your network is your net worth."

Below is a list of the "SuperConferences" Estrin and her team have scheduled for this year. For more information please visit www.estrinlegaled.com.

Estrin LegalEd SuperConferences
 

March 3-4	Los Angeles 5th Annual Paralegal SuperConference
March 6-7	Houston Litigation Support Leaders Conference
April 3-4	Los Angeles Paralegal Trial Institute
April 14-15	Charlotte Paralegal SuperConference
May 1-2	New York Paralegal SuperConference
July 17-18	Washington, DC 2nd Annual Paralegal Managers Institute
July 17-18	Washington, DC 5th Annual Paralegal SuperConference
October 6-7	Minneapolis 2nd Annual Paralegal SuperConference
To Be Announced	Philadelphia In-House Paralegal SuperConference
To Be Announced	San Francisco 5th Annual Paralegal SuperConference

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