AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PARALEGAL EDUCATION

Transcription

1 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PARALEGAL EDUCATION Mission: To provide greater access to legal services by promoting quality paralegal education Minutes Board of Directors Meeting February 19 and 20, 2010 Nancy Caine Harbour, President Carolyn Smoot, Immediate Past President Mary Carol Parker, President Elect Joy Smucker, Secretary Ed Husted, Treasurer Ed Quist, Director South Central Region Joan Marler, Director South East Region Scott Hauert, Director Pacific Region Patricia Lyons, Director North East Region Donna Schoebel, Director North Central Region Linda Chin, Director of Baccalaureate Programs Steve Dayton, Director of Certificate Programs Dora Dye, Director of Associate Programs The meeting of the Board of Directors of the American Association for Paralegal Education took place February 19 and 20, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana. This will be the site of the 2010 AAfPE National Conference. All members of the board were present. Also present were AAfPE Executive Director Gene Terry, of Talley Management Group (TMG) and Chuck Sapp of TMG. The full board meeting began at a.m. on Friday, February 19, with a call to order and welcome by the President, Nancy Caine Harbour. Prior to this business meeting a Newcomer s orientation was held with the Executive Committee and the newly appointed and elected members. With five new board members, the meeting began with a welcome by the President and introductions of all the board members. The President acknowledged the mentoring and support of past president, Carolyn Smoot, as well as her dedication and work on behalf of AAfPE. The following occurred via after the October 2009 board meeting and before the February 2010 board meeting: 11/23/09 The programming agreement between AAfPE and the vendor, Nelix, shall include a one time fixed cost contract of $3,070.00, to allow NELIX to build a navigable data base for the Electronic Research Library with search capability using document titles, document descriptions and document keywords. Approved with one no vote. 1

2 1/18/10 After extensive review and discussion, the RFP process was concluded. With a vote of 10/2 the board agreed to a new contract with Talley Management Group. Minutes The minutes of the October 2009 board meeting were approved with minor corrections. The board confirmed the recording in the minutes that there was approval of setting up an AAfPE Facebook page by Dora Dye. President s report The president identified goals for her term. These included making better use of headquarters, open and inclusive communication with all board members and management, and developing policy and procedure with respect to our vendors that is consistent, fair and welcoming. The president discussed new initiatives including the Electronic Resource Library (ERL), the AAfPE Bytes publication, the new contract with TMG, and greater use of TMG resources. She is seeking a new chairperson for the writing task force and the marketing committee. She will provide the board with a list of committees and position openings so that board members can recommend people for committees and leadership positions. Executive Director s Report Gene reported on new memberships and renewal of dues. There are 120 members (Institution, Associate and Individual) that have not yet renewed. Gene will send Mary Carol (Membership committee chair) the list of members who have not renewed. blasts have been very effective in bringing in renewal dues. Follow up calls by regional directors has also been effective. We are further ahead with membership renewals than last year. Some members have communicated with TMG about late dues and plans to renew. Lex scholarship competitions there are 26 this time; for essay scholarship contest last year there were 12 Things are going well with the National Conference committee. There have been several conference calls and regular communication. Gene is working with regional hosts for all of the regional conferences. National Conferences are booked through 2012 with Baltimore, Maryland in 2011 and Savannah, Georgia for TMG will have site location options for 2013 at June meeting. Work on the Educator is going well. Gene works closely with Janet Olejar, editor, and Steve Dayton, Publications chair on the process of formatting, proofing and editing. Each article has at least three 2

3 peer reviewers. There are over 30 articles and columns for the March publication which will be out the end of March. There is ongoing discussion on ways to improve the AAfPE website. This will be discussed further tomorrow. We revisited the schedule for February and June board meetings and confirmed through a reading of the June 2009 minutes that the board had agreed to a schedule of Thursday for arrival, with meetings all day Friday and ½ day Saturday, adjourning by 1 p.m. to allow for travel back on Saturday if possible. Treasurer s report Treasurer stated this to be one of his easier reports. Our income is up and we did very well with the national conference at Portland, Oregon. We made the most on this conference than we have over the past 8 years, where in some cases we have shown a loss. Additional revenue streams include the dues, which are expected to be up this year, interest income and the regional conferences. Income interest is down, as expected. The sweep account has been as high as nine thousand and this year is three thousand. Expenses include our management fees (the biggest line item expense), board travel, food and lodging, and cancellation insurance for our national conferences. This year we lost three institutional members and their dues due to discontinuation of their programs. Membership report Chair (President elect) of the membership committee reported on status of our membership. We are at 74% for membership renewal, ahead of where we were relative to last year. Chair raised a question about individual paralegals that seek membership. Currently this is not possible as an individual member but could be as a sustaining member. This discussion was tabled for the June meeting. Joy will provide any historical background on this issue after reviewing minutes. Chair asked that each board member try and identify 3 5 programs in region that are not members and ask them to join. Committee reports Carolyn Smoot reported on behalf of the Technology Committee. There are currently eight active members. She is developing relationships with many software vendors including Amicus, Time Matters, Summation, Smart Draw, and SoftPro. She is working on the technology page of the AAfPE website and hopes to have links to the ABA legal technology site as well as a webinar. Steve Dayton shared information about a free technology newsletter that is put out once a month and this would be a useful link. 3

4 Carolyn reported on a session at the NFPA technology conference concerning MS Office in the law office that was interesting and relevant for a preconference idea for AAfPE national conference. She shared that many law offices are looking at options with MS Office rather than some of the more specialized legal software. She will continue to identify and develop relationships with software companies and see what training and resources they may offer to members. Board members provided additional suggestions including Best Case, Trial Director, Abacus, Adobe, Redact, Concordance, Exhibit One and Indata. There are opportunities to connect with NFPA and NALA around technology issues and what paralegals are actually using in the law office. There will continue to be a board liaison for the Technology committee and a new chair by October. Publications report Steve Dayton, committee chair, discussed the process of review and edit of articles for the Educator. Adobe is working well as an editing tool with TMG and the Educator editor and reviewers. With the reduction to two issues, the process of editing is more accurate and the quality of the magazine will be improved. The question of increasing the page limit for articles was raised with no action taken. Steve will work with TMG and the president to set up an Editorial calendar that has a checklist of things to do for respective issues, for example, president s column, candidate statements and report from the national conference chair. The Publications committee is considering a column or article about counterparts around the world or about international issues in general. There was a suggestion to contact Toni Marsh who has written about international law in the past. She and her school are also setting up a legal clinic in Tanzania. Other suggestions were to contact Lawyers Without Borders and International Boarders for Justice. Steve will follow up on this and report back in June. There was discussion about the AAfPE website which Steve had previously at which Steve had previously agreed to review. Comments included that it is difficult to navigate, the membership information is hard to locate and often inaccurate. Under the new contract with TMG, there are specific duties with respect to website management. The President reported that Mary Carol, president elect, will take on the task of review and update of the website working with TMG. We heard about applications that are free or virtually free that will automatically send out requests for updates on member information. Gene will check into these options. Steve will send Mary Carol his review to date, including problems with the links to past Educators. Some have expired and some are still available, with no consistency. 4

5 The March issue will be out in late March and a call for papers for the August issue will be announced in a few weeks. LEX We have over 100 new inductees since last year, and one new LEX chapter, Pikes Peak Community College. There were 26 essay submissions for the LEX competition. There was a reminder that this year there will only be three scholarship winners. North East, Pacific, and North Central will all have elections in the fall (2010) for LEX regional representatives. Linda will send out an Eblast to members in the Fall and Spring, reminding them to get their graduation forms in and for orders for stoles. The new stoles are selling well. Listserv In October the board approved a move from Yahoo to Google. This was officially launched February 1, Dora reported that things are going well, postings are up, and she is also referring people to the digests for topical information. She will close down the yahoo site and archive the old postings. The membership seems fine with the new format. Alternative Delivery The task force has been working hard with the soon to be launched AAfPE Bytes. For each issue, vendors will be given an opportunity to submit a column. Pearson will be asked for this issue as they funded the online competition at the 2009 national conference. It will not be an advertisement. In the future, Joyce Becker will provide an article about online classes and ABA approval. The task force is also looking at articles about best practices with alternative delivery classes. The task force will again be sponsoring the online teaching competition at the national conference and hope to have several submissions. This will be raised at the regional conferences and should be in the script for regional representatives and hosts. AAfPE representatives to the ABA commission A short report was provided to the board. An issue was raised by the board concerning interim reports and the lack of substantive information. We agreed that having the President talk to the ABA about getting more content was the best process. AAfPE pays for this representation and we would like to have some feedback from our representatives. Executive Sessions The Board went into Executive session with Chuck Sapp of TMG, upon conclusion the board continued in executive session. Policy and Procedures Manual 5

6 Secretary provided February report with policy and procedure updates. There was an explanation of the background to the Policy and Procedures manual as well as the update process. We discussed the need to update the dues structure in the manual to reflect the decision of the members and the board to include the ERL costs and services as part of the member dues. We also discussed the language in the report concerning the effective date for the increase in dues for There was consensus that the members wanted ERL to be a part of the dues and that the intent of the board was to raise the dues effective The board acknowledged that membership dues was an issue that was always open to discussion at subsequent meetings or by subsequent boards. We reviewed the language in the Eblast that went out to the members where the board reported the increase in dues effective 2010 and describing what is provided with membership in AAfPE. This matter was tabled to Saturday. The board adjourned at 3:10 p.m. to take a tour of the hotel. Saturday, February 20, 2010 The meeting was called to order at 8:50 a.m. Policy and Procedures Manual After a brief review of the discussions of the previous day, It was properly moved, seconded and approved, with no opposition that the dues structure in the AAfPE Policy and Procedures manual reflect the following categories of membership and dues beginning in January 2010: Institutional, Affiliate and Associate membership dues are $ per year Sustaining membership dues are $ per year Individual membership dues are $ per year Honorary members will continue to pay no dues It was properly moved, seconded and approved, with one vote in opposition, to clarify the Policy and Procedure Report of February 2010 regarding ERL that the $50.00 fee for ERL be included in the AAfPE membership dues beginning Vendor Relationships We discussed the issue of developing policy re vendor relationships, including sharing opportunities (i.e. articles in publications) and sponsorship of AAfPE events. Regional hosts generally make their own decisions as to how they use vendors for regional conference. Gene shared information about the significant role vendors play and their contributions, financially and otherwise, to AAfPE. 6

7 We do not make money from vendors for pre conference events except for the additional and optional registration costs that we have charged to members. There was some discussion about pre conference events in general and whether members should have to pay more money for these. Could these be part of the conference? This issue was tabled as we focused on the issue of policy and process for vendor presence and participation at conferences. It was moved, seconded and unanimously approved to create a task force on vendor relations. The task force will include our Executive Director, Gene Terry, Carolyn Smoot, past president, Nancy Caine Harbour, president, Scott Hauert, pacific region director and others to be appointed. The task force will look at equity in vendor sponsorship, advertising, and pre conference events. Content of events sponsored by vendors needs to consider member needs and avoiding repetition. ERL ERL is up and running. Board agreed that we need to have more content. Too many coming soon links. President will talk with ERL committee with a goal of more content by March 1, Member Directory Aspen publisher is no longer able to subsidize the print version of the AAfPE member directory. They are strong supporters of AAfPE and will continue to support conferences and other sponsorships. After discussion about an online directory and costs (no additional costs to AAfPE for online, just creating a PDF), It was properly moved, seconded and unanimously approved that the AAfPE member directory be online. There was additional discussion about adding more information (i.e. courses taught, types of programs offered) to the online directory and no action was taken. Google Groups Dora Dye reported on successful transfer of AAfPE listserv from Yahoo to Google. All is running smoothly. The board thanked Dora for all of her work on this transition and her continuing service as the listserv manager. Other AAfPE Listservs The board discussed the recent development of other AAfPE Listservs with specific content/members. Currently there is four or five content specific and member specific AAfPE Listservs. We discussed the pros and cons of content specific AAfPE Listservs open to specific committees or membership groups. There was general consensus that it is useful to have forums for specific groups to 7

8 talk together but that these should not be exclusive and there should be easy access for all if such forums are established. Scott agreed to look into options besides the listserv model where there would be easy access to all. In the meantime It was properly moved, seconded and unanimously approved that all Listservs except the one AAfPE listserv will be suspended pending further study of equity and access. The president will send a notice out to that effect. Facebook Dora gave a brief presentation on setting up Facebook for AAfPE. We agreed that for now, Dora and a few designated board members would be able to post otherwise it will be access only. We agreed to have the mission statement on the page. It was properly moved, seconded and approved with one vote in opposition, to proceed with setting up Facebook for AAfPE with a launch date of April 16, Regional reports The board heard updates from the regional directors including status of regional conferences. Program Director reports The board heard from the program directors. Associate program director compiled a list of comments and concerns from directors of associate programs, that included: articulation agreements with four year schools, moving from a two year to a four year program, job placement, legislation/lobbying for paralegals and programs, and certification exams. Baccalaureate program director shared an interest in more academic focused panels at the national conference and additional panels on scholarly research and writing. There is also an interest in discussing prelaw tracks in existing paralegal studies programs. There will be a workshop about this at the national conference. Certificate program director shared concerns about how various the certificate programs are, stand alone, with a two year program and with a four year program or all three. The director is working on ways to reach out to certificate program directors. National conference report 8

9 We discussed the need for good communication between the national conference committee, TMG and the board. Gene and the president are happy with increased contact and communication. There are several new board members and Jill Martin has been appointed co chair. We discussed possible optional events. There is an American Indian museum and the NCAA hall of champions. The Indy race track is no longer an option. Gene visited the museum and the NCAA venue. After describing the facilities and activities at both places the board agreed to recommend the NCAA hall of champions. Gene will continue discussions with them about price and amenities. We had some discussion about the high cost of the optional events and the possibility of including an event in the conference fee; this will be discussed further in June. The committee is planning a charity auction with proceeds to benefit a deserving agency in Indianapolis. There may also be a state declaration for Paralegal day or Paralegal week during the conference week. The pre conference events will be agreed upon with input from the board and conference committee, one idea is to have the ABA boot camp as a pre conference event. Other Business We discussed the need for a chair or co chairs for the legal writing task force. Steve Dayton and Janet Olejar are possible for co chairs and there are others who might be interested. The president will consider options and make the appointment(s). The president will review other committees and task forces, including listserv task force, to see where chair appointments may need to be made. The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 a.m. 9