Dealing with Difficult People
Dealing with difficult people is a skill. Managing them effectively involves a number of key principles:
1. Controlling yourself
Dealing with difficult people is a skill. Managing them effectively involves a number of key principles:
1. Controlling yourself
The world has changed a lot in the past 10 years. The rapid development of new technology and the changing landscape of the online world has changed the way we work and, for many, where we do our work from. Here are my top 10 ways how IT technology has changed over the decade.
We all need stress and anxiety to keep us motivated, energised and alert. Too much, however, can derail us at the times when we most need to have our wits about us and to stay sufficiently calm to deal with the matter at hand.
How is stress caused?
Stress is a natural response to a stimulus either in the environment or in our imagination. In the environment, it signals something which needs addressing, whether it is too much pressure, difficult people, criticism or something else. There may also be things at home or in our social life which are causing stress. We have strong powers of imagination as well. These, when misused to forecast negative outcomes or to produce negative explanations, will cause stress – our minds and bodies respond to stress in the same way whether the stimulus is real or imagined.
The struggle for equality is something that women have faced throughout the centuries. In the early 20th century, for example, the suffragettes undertook the task of protesting in order that the British Government would give women the right to vote. Some feminists even burned their bras in protest during the 1960s in a bid to end repression and to gain the same rights that men have had through the centuries. Equality is a battle that is still ongoing for women, in particular in the case of equal pay and employment opportunities.
The word ‘Secretary’ is derived from the Latin word secrenere meaning "to distinguish" or "to set apart" and the passive participle (secretum) meaning "having been set apart," with the eventual connotation of something private or confidential. Therefore, a Secretarius was a person overseeing business confidentially, usually for a powerful individual (a King, Pope, etc).
The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs is delighted to have launched the ILSPA Legal Secretary Jobs Board, which specialises in Legal Secretary jobs throughout the UK.
ILSPA has been helping people with their legal secretarial careers since 1990 and we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary next year. The Institute was originally founded to promote excellence and professional recognition of Legal Secretaries and PAs. Our Membership base has grown over the years and we now provide qualifications, support, advice and career guidance to trainee and experienced Legal Secretaries. ILSPA has Students and Members throughout the UK and overseas.
Deadlines are a common everyday occurrence in our busy lives. We’re either trying to meet them or chasing others to achieve theirs. And trying to work to too tight a deadline can affect the quality of your work or cause you to make errors. The following top ten tips will help you meet your deadlines and also help you manage others to meet theirs. Some tips apply to both!
1. As soon as you are given a deadline for a task, put it in your diary and then work backwards from that date to ensure that you achieve it on time. If necessary, put stage reminders in your diary too. For example, if you have to put together a report for your manager by Friday, put a reminder in your diary for the previous Monday to check that all the components are available for you to work with.
Everybody does projects: whether it’s simply going on holiday, developing a complicated new product or anywhere in between. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re particularly successful. Using some project management skills, tools and techniques can significantly increase your chances of not only achieving what you set out to achieve, but also making sure that it’s more likely to be beneficial in the long run. So here are the top ten tips for improving your management of projects:
1. Get help. Managing projects often requires knowledge or skills we don’t have. Find some people who do to help you.
Law students have been urged to consider a career as a paralegal in the wake of a campaign to warn them to think twice when considering qualifying as a solicitor.
The paralegal profession is still growing despite the recession, providing job opportunities for graduates, Amanda Hamilton, the chief executive of The National Association of Licensed Paralegals, said “Students can qualify as a paralegal. There is still room for them in the jobs market. They do not need a training contract and it costs them less money.”
Her advice follows the launch of the Law Society’s campaign to warn of the risks in terms of time and cost that the decision to become a solicitor carries with it.
Last month saw the launch of the ILSPA Legal Secretary Jobs Board, a niche jobs board that aims to provide the most comprehensive listing of Legal Secretary jobs in the UK. The board is feature packed and is open to both Members of the Institute as well as the general public. In its first weeks the board is already attracting many visitors and its usefulness will only grow as it becomes more widely known amongst job seekers and employers alike.
Here is a quick guide to some of the useful features available on the board:
Personal Profile and CV
As we are currently experiencing one of the worst recessions for many years, most companies are finding it hard to deal with the everyday decisions and financial hardship that seem to be part and package of these times. Much of the financial hardship appears to be as a result of other companies encountering difficulties over settling their bills, and this can even lead to the companies becoming insolvent. In turn, companies who had released goods to these companies on credit terms find that they are out of pocket when the company becomes insolvent.
Annette Goss, Lorraine Richardson and Michael Taylor. Published by The Law Society. ISBN-13: 978-1-85328-938-5.
This is an excellent book written by a District Land Registrar, a practicing Solicitor and an Assistant District Land Registrar, respectively.
It was specifically written to provide Legal Secretaries and support staff in Solicitor’s offices with practical information and guidance in the completion of conveyancing forms and other conveyancing documents, which it does clearly and concisely. One of the authors, apart from being a practicing Solicitor, has a wealth of legal training experience, and this shows in the way in which the book takes each part of each form and document in turn and shows exactly how it should be completed.
I wish to start by commending The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs for setting up this high professional standard. The course is expertly structured and the materials intelligently written to encourage practical knowledge acquisition. Unlike normal text books, one cannot excel in this course without a painstaking and thorough study of the comprehensive pack, stemming from the way it is deliberately and/or consciously structured, a strategy I strongly believe was aimed at giving the Legal Secretary and PA quality training worth its weight in gold. The course is obviously tasking but very interesting. I said tasking because the achievement test sessions are technically prepared and one just has to unavoidably read each unit over and over again to get there. Patience! Patience!
A final update before the new Supreme Court replaces the House of Lords
On 30 July the current highest Court in the land, the House of Lords, made its last decision in the Debbie Purdy case. The Court heard Mrs Purdy’s plea for clarity in the law on assisted suicide. Because of the Law Lords’ decision, new guidelines will be published on 23 September regarding the prosecution of people who help others to commit suicide. Following this case the Law Lords have now passed into history. From October the new Supreme Court will make decisions on difficult areas of law. The change has been justified as a necessary modernisation, but there is some concern that this new Court may use its more extensive powers to oppose the will of Parliament.
Whether you have secured a new job or have been working at the same company for some time, understanding how you can make a good impression will be of great benefit to you. Your new position could be the start of a fantastic new career, or if you have been feeling unenthusiastic in your current role, you still have the chance to change your perspective and impress your employers. Your role affects the success of the company, so take the time to think about your contribution.
Information Resources
Every regular windows user will be familiar with the combination of keys: CTRL+ALT+DEL. This magic combination is used to lock the screen, log in or more often than not force an unresponsive application to close. Other commonly used key combos are CTRL+C and CTRL+V for copying and pasting or F5 to refresh a page in your Internet browser. These common shortcuts are incredibly useful and improve productivity by making tasks that would usually require some pointing and clicking possible with only a few keystrokes.
These are not the only key combos around that can improve your productivity and make your working day a few minutes shorter; in fact there are a lot more. Here are some of the more useful ones:
Conducting research on the Internet can prove to be either a gold mine, rich with nuggets of knowledge and information, or a mine field littered with stretched truths and dead ends. Which of these two you experience depends on how you go about your research, where and how you look for information, and how you organise it when you find it.
Here are five top tips to make your research easier, more accurate and more effective.
1. Know your sources.
Earlier this year we covered the law surrounding assisted suicide, and at that time we did state that more definite clarity was required for people who wanted their loved ones to accompany them on trips abroad. The Suicide Act 1961 already clearly states that if anyone aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else’s suicide, they could face a term of imprisonment of up to 14 years. Therefore we are all aware of how the law works with regards to this country; however, it was how this Act of Parliament would extend to cover people travelling to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland that everyone was keen to ascertain.
In 1998, a decision was made that was seen as very controversial at the time – to abolish the right to legal aid in personal injury law cases. This eventually came into effect in 2000. The main reason this cut-off was deemed necessary was because an average of 700,000 claimants a year in this area of law alone meant that the cost to the public purse was soaring out of control.
Bureaucracy seemed to have a role to play in this abolition too, with many successful claimants finding that once they had covered the statutory payments that were required to settle all costs, there was very little in the way of compensation left for them. It would seem that the claimant was getting a far better deal if they lost, as in these circumstances legal aid would cover all applicable costs. Moreover, this scheme was seen as being completely inflexible.
Proofreading is the final, key, stage of writing. You will have spent time planing, writing and re-writing your document so make sure you also invest he time in profreading. A silly spelling eror or missing apostrophe could change the meaning of your message and it will definately give the wrong impression of you an you firm. Use the ten tip’s blow to help you proof-read letters’, reports, documents and even emails to make sure you dont have the mistakes that youv’e noticed in this paragraph!!
1. Be methodical when proofreading. When you finish a document, run a spell check, print it off and leave it for as long as possible before proofreading it. This way, you have a greater chance of reading the document with “fresh eyes”.
The role of the Legal Secretary used to be seen as a humble position, and women were first employed in offices during the First World War when the men went off to fight. It was then that people started to realise that women were capable of working efficiently and resourcefully within the secretarial role, and when the war finished, many women carried on in this line of work. However, in those days it was rare for women to work until retirement, as they usually gave up their jobs to get married or have children.
A voice on the telephone recently asked me, "Are you his Secretary, or do you prefer to be called his Administrative Assistant?" I told him, "I am his Secretary and very proud of it." You could hear the relief in his voice as he replied, "Thank goodness I can deal with a real person, the one who really runs things and I don't have to deal with a prima donna who takes offence at the least little thing!" Now, I'm serious. This really happened. And I think he voiced a common feeling, because people know that a Secretary, especially a Legal Secretary, is close to the boss, can be trusted with information, and will handle all matters correctly. (But we know who really runs things and it's not the Secretary.)
If you don’t hot-desk or have a clear-desk policy that works, the chances are your desk can sometimes (maybe frequently!) look like a bomb has hit it. So, before you lose another piece of paper or spend far too long looking for something that’s probably not there, here are the top ten tips to help you clear the paper clutter:
1. Sort your paper into four piles: Action, Read/Pass On, Filing and Junk. The last one is easy to deal with: ask yourself whether it would matter if you lost it. If not, why are you keeping it? If there isn’t a very good business reason to do so, or if you can get another copy easily, then bin it.
New laws are needed all the time to reflect the changes in social conventions and what society considers acceptable. The activities or choices of people that may have been intolerable to others 50 years ago may now be widely acceptable, and laws need to evolve to accommodate the changes in society.
Old laws can become outdated and need to be reformed. The Government may bring in new laws in line with its policies, and sometimes new laws need to be made in order to act in accordance with international or European law.
What’s the key to living an authentic life that honours your most important priorities? Living with integrity.
Integrity is a good foundation on which to build our lives. Living with integrity means honouring the morals and standards that we set for ourselves. For example, if you have a standard that says ‘I always tell the truth’, then you should be honest with your boss when he or she asks you to take on extra work when you do not think you’ll have the time to do it. Or if you have to tell clients when there will be a delay in the work that your firm is doing for them, then instead of making up an excuse, you should tell the truth.
A review of recent problems in relation to wills, succession and inheritance
In recent years a number of concerning trends have developed in the area of wills and probate. In this article we will consider the latest figures on estate planning in England and Wales. We will also look at the impact untrained and unregulated will writers are having on this area of legal practice.
Will and Estate Planning
The people of England and Wales are surprisingly complacent about the importance of making a will. A recent survey revealed that only 41 percent of the adult population have an up-to-date will. In addition, about one-third of people who responded to the survey said they had no intention of ever making a will. Fiona Woolf, former president of the Law Society, neatly summed up the importance of making a will:
While we all like to think that we meet our clients' needs and that our quality of service is tip-top, there are still occasions when our clients disagree! In the current climate, clients have become very choosy, and feel more confident to say when they are not happy with something. So before it gets to the stage where we start to look foolish, lose our clients or they take matters further, here are some helpful tips for dealing with complaints:
1. Let the client have their say. When someone is angry or upset it is helpful for them to have the opportunity to "let off steam". It also indicates to the client that you are willing to take the time to listen.
I have worked as a legal secretary for many years now, and have never been out of work since leaving school in 1983, apart from going on maternity break for a couple of years when the children were very small. So when I was made redundant whilst working for DLA Piper in their Birmingham office in March of this year, it came as a huge shock to find myself suddenly jobless.
Mind mapping is a very powerful technique for promoting creative thinking and improving memory. Developed by Tony Buzan, it has become a very widely used tool, primarily because it is such a visual way of planning or remembering things. So if you need to plan or remember something, here are the top ten tips for creating and using a mind map:
1. Use A3 paper – give yourself plenty of room to develop your ideas; you can always reduce its size later if necessary. If you don’t have A3 paper to hand, the back of an envelope is equally good as a starting point. Just transfer your initial map to A3 paper later.
In today’s working environment of never-ending advances in technology and the slow-burning fire of crucial green issues, more and more people and companies are looking to the alternatives, from working from home and remote working from the office to using independent workers or contractors to outsource work.
Outsourcing is not a particularly new phenomenon, but it is one that has taken hold in the modern business world and one that is growing rapidly, egged on by continual technological developments. One positive side effect is the emergence of the virtual assistant (VA) industry.
What is a VA?
Working from home as a Virtual Legal Assistant is a great way to freelance and find freedom in the way you work. As recently as ten years ago this sort of remote working, although not unheard of, was not really as practical as it is today. The technology just wasn’t affordable, and the legal world has been noted to be quite cautious when it comes to new technologies.
In these changing times, however, it is becoming more common for all kinds of administration tasks to be outsourced to remote workers. Budget constraints, changing attitudes and cheaper technology are leading more organisations to seek out third-party secretarial services.
Many thanks for the fantastic surprise on my birthday. The huge chocolate cake was a wonderful treat on the night. I also enjoyed reading my hand made “signed, sealed and delivered” birthday card.
It was a pleasure to teach such an enthusiastic and motivated group. The extra bonus is that you were all blessed with such a good sense of humour and curiosity, which will stand you in very good stead with your future careers.
Best wishes
Seamus Ryan, Tutor
Dealing with a public body can become a very awkward and frustrating process. Indeed, it often feels as though such an entity is a law unto itself. People can become confused as to whether or not they are able to pursue any official action against such an organisation when they believe that it has acted unlawfully in some way.
Is there some form of action that you can take if you find yourself in this situation? The simple answer to this question is ‘possibly’.
First, though, it is necessary to consider what is meant by the term ‘public body’. This category would include the following:
There have, in recent years, been mounting calls for the creation of a new free-standing Supreme Court. This court would separate the highest appeal court from the second house of Parliament (the House of Lords). On 12 June 2003 the Government announced its intention to do so, and eventually the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 was enacted. This Act paved the way for the creation of a new Supreme Court for the United Kingdom. Below we examine the existing system and consider what will change (if anything) when the new Supreme Court opens for business this year in October.
The Existing System – The House of Lords
Do you feel frustrated or discouraged whilst waiting for something you want, such as a promotion, a new job or a new qualification?
Many people may find that their patience is being tested at the moment due to the recession. You may not be receiving the promotion you had hoped for, or perhaps finding a new job is turning out to be harder than you expected. Studying may be more difficult if you are stressed about your finances. The recession requires patience from everyone, however, remember that we are all in this together.
With so many different classifications of assaults, it can often be very confusing to determine the actual extent of an offence that may have occurred. To do so, it is necessary to consider a number of crucial aspects. These include the level and nature of any injuries sustained (i.e. the actus reus) and the offender’s intention to inflict these injuries in the first instance (i.e. the mens rea).
Proactivity means not waiting to be asked, but having an ability to think ahead and anticipate needs, difficulties and different ways of achieving a necessary outcome. Proactivity also means being able to identify and solve problems by making decisions. To do all this requires knowledge, which needs constant updating plus a conscious effort to seek it out. So here are the top ten tips to help you develop proactivity in your role:
1. Seize the opportunity for training. No matter that you think you’ve been doing your job for years - you can always pick up one new bit of knowledge and so turn it to your advantage. Training is also an opportunity to network. Sometimes it isn’t only about what you know, but who you know.
Achieving Your Full Potential
With the right training and attitude, you really can achieve anything. Consider the example of Britain’s longest serving judge - Lady Butler-Sloss. She took a secretarial course and then worked her way up to the top of the judiciary becoming the first woman justice of the Court of Appeal. This is not the usual path to legal eminence but shows what can be achieved if you are determined enough.
Lady Butler-Sloss was Britain’s longest serving judge at her retirement in 2005. When she was called to the bar in 1955, she was one of only 60 women among 2,000 barristers. Not only was she able to tackle the very male dominated legal profession of the 1960s, but she did this while raising her three children.
Think what might happen if you were more proactive at work. If you show more willingness to advance your skills and take on increased responsibility, you will be able to make the most of your role. This will have a mutually beneficial effect, both for you and for the firm you work for.
Say, for example, you were able to take over some of the less involved work from a fee-earner and save them an average of an hour’s billable time per day, enabling them to cost that half hour out elsewhere; you could increase the firm’s gross profit. If a fee earner costs their time out to clients at, say, £200 per hour, this would mean that your firm would gain an additional gross profit of 5 x £200 per week, or £1000. This would amount to £52,000 per annum, minus time for holidays.
A ‘to-do’ list is a powerful way to organise yourself and to reduce stress. Have you ever written one and never achieved what’s on it? Or maybe you’ve written a to-do list but kept putting off the tasks to another day because something ‘more urgent’ cropped up? If either of these sounds familiar, perhaps you need to consider whether you’re writing a to-do list or a ‘wish-to-do’ list. Being realistic with what you put on a ‘to-do’ list is key to being able to achieve it. The sense of achievement at the end of the day is motivating, so you’ll want to do it again the next day! Here are the top ten tips to help you do that:
Minutes are a factual, impartial and balanced record of the decisions and summary of a meeting. As such they should be an accurate, brief and clear snapshot of what was discussed, what was agreed, and what action is to be taken, by whom and by when. Unfortunately, many meeting minutes end up inaccurate, long and confusing, so people rarely want to read them, much less pick up any actions they are responsible for! So here are the top 10 tips for minute takers:
The subject of law fascinates me extensively. I am intrigued by developments in the legal system and the way that it adapts to an ever-changing society.
As a child, I had a broad interest in many subjects and always pondered my career for the future. The thought of engaging in law never crossed my mind until I was given the opportunity to work in a legal environment. My current employment has given me valuable insight into work in the legal domain and immediately I knew that a career in the legal environment was one which I would indulge myself in and which would enable me to expand on my interest in law.
Having a job in the legal profession is looking good, as Pannone LLP was No. 3 on The Sunday Times’ list of the top 100 companies to work for in 2009. More than 200,000 employees took part in the newspaper’s survey, which asked questions about general well-being, opportunities for professional development and fair pay.
Pannone is a legal practice based in Manchester, with 768 staff members at an average age of 35. The company displays a good work ethic, seeing positive results even during an economic downturn. Pannone has deservedly received a lifetime achievement award to mark five years as one of the top 10 companies to work for in the UK.
In this difficult economic climate, it is even more important to give yourself an edge over your competitors. So why not do yourself a favour? Paralegal skills can be useful in marketing yourself as a Paralegal Secretary and can give you a better chance to gain employment.
Wanted: Great Legal Secretary
‘A well-known law firm is looking to recruit a highly motivated and skilled legal secretary. Work 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for a competitive salary and the opportunity to develop your own professional skills in a challenging and fast-paced environment.’
Does this advert look familiar? If you have been job hunting for any length of time, you will have seen dozens of adverts similar to the one above. You might get a few more details, like these:
In the best adverts you might be lucky enough to be told such things as:
Attitude is a mind-set. It is the way you look at things mentally. When things are going well a positive attitude is easy to maintain. But we're all human and something will always happen to test our positive mind-set. So when that happens, here are the top 10 tips to help you bounce back and regain a positive outlook:
1. Nurture your funny focus. While it's not appropriate to laugh away all serious problems, laughing can help you transfer your focus from the problem to possible solutions.
Becoming a tutor with the Institute of Legal Secretaries
I started teaching shortly after I finished law school. I found the experience terrifying but exciting. Fortunately, the butterflies went away quickly but the excitement of exchanging ideas with others never did. I was aware of a hands-on training course for legal secretaries when I was teaching the National Association of Paralegals course in the late 1990s. I found that with both courses the practical approach to legal study was very refreshing. In 2005 there was an opportunity to provide training for the Institute that I was very happy to take up.
My background and legal experience
A vital step when approaching trial
If ever the saying “time is money” were true, then it must be when you talk about lawyers. With the guideline hourly rate for a partner regularly exceeding £200 an hour, any steps which help to reduce the time spent on a case are worthwhile taking.
Heather Jones, a Student Member, shares her success after completing the Legal Secretaries Diploma course.
We are all aware that the credit crunch is biting big time, and the perception is that there are no jobs out there, so just sit tight and wait for the ‘gloom and doom’ to pass. However, my recent experience proves that even in the current climate, having a positive attitude can help you achieve what you desire. I would like to share it with other students and advise you all to strive and ‘believe in yourself’.
Notwithstanding that criminal law specialist legal secretaries’ and PAs’ work diaries are hardly brimming with such enquiries from clients, this area of law still conjures up some of the strongest thoughts and opinions from all of us, no matter which side of the fence we choose to stand on over the issue. Indeed, it may be fair to state that this subject probably represents one of the most controversial issues that currently shrouds our legal system.
Given the current financial climate, it may not have been the best time for the law to change regarding statutory payments for redundancy. With the economy already suffering an increasing number of job losses week on week, there are fears that this new increase to statutory redundancy payments may result in an even sharper rise in the number of people being made unemployed.
Redundancy pay is calculated on the basis of age and length of service. The number of weeks pay is multiplied by the current statutory rate. The law currently states that an employer is obliged to pay employees up to £330 per week if they are made redundant after two years of continuous service. There are further criteria that are taken into consideration which an employer has a statutory duty to be mindful of.
These are:
Employees under the age of 22
Old law used to extend employee protection from the “office bully”
Bullying and harassment should not have to be tolerated by anyone. The law has developed significantly over the last 40 years to protect individuals at work from discrimination based on sex, race, disability, religion and, most recently, age. Further recent developments now mean that the days of the “office bully” are now numbered.
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was enacted to stop stalking and other forms of criminal harassment. For nearly 10 years, the law was on the statute books but was ignored by employment and matrimonial lawyers. Following a series of high-profile cases, new life has been breathed into the act. The act can now be used to punish an office bully or even a “mother-in-law from hell!”