Paralegal Seminars

Paralegal seminars are one way that paralegals and legal secretaries keep current with the changes in law or the field of law in which they work.

Also, many seminars offer attendees continuing education credits that may be required to maintain certified or registered designations.

Seminar Considerations:

• Continuing Education Credits (CEU): Does the seminar offer continuing education credit? If so, how do you earn the credit? Some seminars require that you take a test at the end or complete some other task to verify completion.
• Local or National: Is the seminar geared toward a national or local audience? A more local audience can keep you current with changes occurring in your state or county that affect your area of law. For instance, probate laws vary from county to county, so if you were to attend a seminar on probate law changes you want to ensure that the seminar will reflect information that you can use.

Paralegal seminars can be conducted in a variety of ways, here is a list of the most common platforms used for delivering seminars:

Off-site, Live Seminars

Off-site seminars are usually held in conference rooms and are open to all legal professionals, these seminars usually last one day, but could be held in longer durations. These seminars usually travel around the nation and make stops at major cities in the different states. There is often limited space to attend these seminars and travel and accommodation arrangements may need to be made if the seminar is not being held locally.

A one day seminar usually chooses a very narrow topic to cover and may have multiple speakers and experts to discuss an even narrower topic within the topic of the seminar. The seminar will usually provide attendees with material to keep that pertains to the seminar subject. Some examples of one day seminars may be learning about the foreclosure and repossession process or simply learning about building codes.

Online Seminars

Online paralegal seminars can be conducted in a few ways. Some paralegal organizations will email you an online seminar video or have you log on to their site to view the online seminar video. These paralegal seminars may be a pre-recorded conference or a pre-recorded training seminar. This is somewhat like an on-demand seminar which allows you to view, take notes, and review the seminar when you want. For busy paralegals, this may be an easy way to keep current with changes to a specific area of law without having to rearrange work schedules or make travel arrangements to attend off-site paralegal seminars.

If you are using online seminars to receive ongoing education credits, then read the seminar information carefully because guidelines vary from state to state and certain steps must be completed in order to earn credits, if applicable.

Onsite Training

If you work for a large law firm or corporation, then you may be familiar with training companies who are contracted to teach seminars on location at your office.

Rather than sending all employed paralegals, assistant paralegals, paralegal supervisors, legal secretaries, and attorneys to off-site seminars, which can become a costly expense, many larger firms and companies will pay to have the seminar conducted onsite. Aside from saving money, the companies are able to choose which seminars to host; they will be able to customize the seminars to meet their needs which makes having the seminar on-site even more beneficial.

Webinar

Webinar is short for web based seminar; it is a live seminar conducted online. When attending a webinar, you must log on at a certain time and attend the webinar virtually.

Some webinars require that you call in to listen to the speaker over the phone while watching him or her on the computer. Webinars have become more technologically advanced and there are multiple ways to conduct a webinar. Some may be broadcast in such a way that the speaker simply speaks to the audience. In other types of webinars the audience will be able to interact with the speaker from his or her own computer by typing in questions or comments to be received by a moderator, either during the webinar or at a designated question and answer time.

Please note that some paralegal seminars may be advertised as webinars but are pre-recorded seminars that are sent to you over the web. If you prefer a live webinar format, then make sure that the seminar is scheduled to be conducted in that manner.