Paralegal Affiliate Membership
New Paralegal Member Benefit for the 2023-2024 Bar Year
As a paralegal associate member of the Arkansas Bar Association, you now have access to CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction), a nonprofit consortium of law schools, law libraries, and related organizations. CALI contains over 1,200 interactive legal tutorials written by law professors and geared toward law students. While CALI’s focus is instruction for law school students, many of the tutorials are excellent for paralegals.
To get started with CALI:
1) go to http://www.cali.org and click on 'Create new account.'
2) when asked for authorization code, contact Cathy Underwood (cathy57737@gmail.com) for the code
3) when you complete the registration form, you will be logged on to the CALI website.
4) in subsequent visits to the website, logon by entering the username and password you created during registration.
5) the authorization code is used only the one time when you register on the site.
Once you log on to the CALI website, click on the “LESSONS” tab to see what’s there. You may access any of these tutorials, as often as you like.
Paralegal Affiliate Membership FAQs
Q. What is the Paralegal Affiliate Membership?
A. The Arkansas Bar Association (ArkBar) offers a Paralegal Affiliate Membership for legal support staff, including paralegals, legal assistants, office managers, etc. ArkBar has always been the premier provider of continuing legal education and networking opportunities for Arkansas attorneys. We offer some of those same opportunities to our attorney members’ support staff.
Q. Who is a supervising ArkBar Member?
A. Paralegal Affiliate Members must be employed by an ArkBar member attorney who is responsible for supervising their work. Employment and supervision must be confirmed annually.
Q. Can this be incorporated into firm billing or the supervising attorney’s billing?
A. Yes. Call Michele Glasgow at 501-801-5661 or email mglasgow@arkbar.com.
Q. How do I join?
Please click below to download and complete a membership form. (We are not accepting online membership applications for Paralegal Affiliate membership at this time.)
Download Printable Paralegal Membership Form Here
Benefits of Paralegal Affiliate Membership
Benefits to the attorney member and law firm:
Law office management. Improved efficiency and effectiveness, leading to increased profitability.
Law office professionalism. Paralegal Affiliate Membership provides opportunities for networking with peers across the state to learn and experience a higher level of professionalism.
Free and low-cost training. Law office budgets also benefit from the free and low-cost training for their support staff who are Paralegal Affiliate Members.
Employee benefits. A law office that pays for its support staff to have Paralegal Affiliate Membership is providing an attractive employee benefit. Providing this benefit signals to support staff and clients that a law office respects and is willing to invest in the work and professionalism of its support staff. Law office attorneys and Paralegal Affiliate Members have opportunities to connect in ArkBar committees and volunteer work.
Community recognition. A law office with Paralegal Affiliate Members may advertise to the public that its support staff are Paralegal Affiliate Members.
Benefits for the affiliate member:
Access to Fastcase, ArkBar’s free legal research tool.
Networking through the ArkBar Community Exchange (ACE) community. Using the ACE community, Paralegal Affiliate Members can network with each other, post documents and take advantage of the discussion forum to communicate with each other.
Free unlimited access to Affinity Insight. Over 150 training videos and thought-provoking webinars. Topics range from training on page numbering in Microsoft Word, using the typewriter tool in Adobe, creating rules in Outlook, and using any of the other products in the Microsoft Suite to training on legal-specific products like Clio, Hotdocs, PCLaw, Tabs3, and many more.
Free unlimited access to the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. (CALI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of law schools, law libraries, and related organizations. CALI conducts applied research and development in computer-mediated legal education and creates tools that increase access to justice. CALI hosts and facilitates the creation of CALI Lessons, a library of over 1,200 interactive legal tutorials written by law professors. Resources include books, webinars, lessons, podcasts, online classes, and more.
http://www.cali.org
The Arkansas Lawyer Magazine – online version.
Arkansas Bar Association
Guidelines for Paralegal Utilization
Proper utilization of the services of paralegals contributes to the delivery of cost effective, high-quality legal services. Paralegals and the legal profession should be assured that measures exist for identifying paralegals and their role in assisting attorneys in the delivery of legal services. The primary governing rule in utilizing paralegal services is Rule 5.3 of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct:
Rule 5.3. Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistants.
With respect to a nonlawyer employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer:
(a) a partner, and a lawyer who individually or together with other lawyers possesses comparable managerial authority in a law firm shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurance that the person’s conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer;
(b) a lawyer having direct supervisory authority over the nonlawyer shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person’s conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer; and
(c) a lawyer shall be responsible for conduct of such a person that would be a violation of the rules of professional conduct if engaged in by a lawyer if:
(1) the lawyer orders or, with the knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved; or
(2) the lawyer is a partner or has comparable managerial authority in the law firm in which the person is employed, or has the direct supervisory authority over the person, and knows of the conduct at a time when its consequences can be avoided or mitigated but fails to take reasonable remedial action.
View the Arkansas Bar Association Guidelines for Paralegal Utilization