*** In June of this year, attorneys, judges, paralegals, legal administrators, law students and representatives from legal support services met in Corpus Christi, Texas for the Annual Meeting of the State Bar of Texas. Every year, the Legal Assistants Division also holds its Annual Meeting at this time. In addition to being at the beach (which by the way, I barely saw due to my busy schedule), attendees were able to attend free legal education seminars and numerous social events. The Division owes a round of applause to Karla Schwemmer, the Divisions Annual Meeting Chair, and her committee as well as the Nueces County Legal Assistants Association for putting together such a great meeting. Karla worked on the meeting for at least two years and all of her hard work and effort really paid off. I can honestly say that the seminars that I attended were excellent-and best of allthey were free! Thanks, Karla and Co.!
Also, at the Annual Meeting, the Division held its first Public Forum on the Future of the Paralegal Profession with approximately 50 people in attendance. Debra Crosby, chair of the Long Range Planning Task Force, and her committee will be scheduling additional forums throughout the state in the upcoming months. We strongly urge you to attend as many of these meetings as possible and make your voice heard. Hard decisions with regard to our profession will be made in the next few years or less (follow the Journal and you local associations newsletters over the next few months for updates). and if you want your wishes known, you will have to speak up.
*** By the time you receive this issue of the Journal, our new web page (lad.org) will be up and running. In addition to the prior issues of the Journal, we have a complete list of all the officers, directors, and committee chairs and their committees, a CLE calendar, updated information on NALA and NIFPA and our e-mail Directory. Our e-mail listings are arranged not only alphabetically, but also by city and area of practice. If you want your name listed, please forward your e-mail address, city and area of law to me at lad@lad.org. Once you send in your information, please allow at least two weeks for us to add it to our list. If you need vendor services, check out the businesses who have shown support for the Division by placing their advertising on our site (Legal Support). It can really make your life easier. Finally, we have added to the Legal Links portion of the site. If you have not had the opportunity to look at this section, please do so. We feel you will be pleasantly surprised at how much time you can save at the library by just clicking on.
*** Since I took over as Editor of the Journal in September, 1997, I have had several people ask about the Journal covers. The covers are reproductions of art by a local Austin artist by the name of Desire Tunstill. Desi has been kind enough to allow me to use her renderings for our magazine at no cost. If anyone is interested in seeing more of her paintings or would like more information about this colorful woman, please feel free to contact me.