I Got A 98!!!!!

Last night was a great class. And not just because I got a 98 on the first test I have taken in 20 years... But I was pretty happy about that!

I think I mentioned about the fact that my teacher we started off with, who was a 25 year veteran of paralegal work, had been diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks into our class. We were told her replacement would be a young woman fresh out of law school. Well, our first teacher taught the first four weeks and the thing I liked most about her were her stories that she could share from her many years of experience. Everything else was in the book and she didn't add a lot to that, but I knew the new gal wouldn't have that kind of experience behind her.

Well, let me tell you that last night's class was awesome! Turns out that our new teacher started working in law offices as a teenager. She said she had always wanted to be a lawyer. And when she was a teen, she called around law offices until she found one willing to take her on and let her learn some of the inner workings of a law office. She offered to work for free, but ended up getting paid. She graduated from college 10 years ago. Met her husband, married. Has two children, one 6 and one 5. And just graduated from law school.

She started out our class by introducing herself. Telling us a few minor changes she planned to make to our class. Then she shared a really interesting case that got into a huge ethics dilemma back in the late 70's. Our class last night was about ethics. We were all on the edge of our seats and very involved in asking questions and responding. It was great! We were there the whole class time and while I heard one student grumble about that as we walked out the door 2 hours and 40 minutes later, everyone else seemed pleased. (Our previous teacher vowed to have us out by 9 each night and most weeks we were done between 8 and 8:30 because she needed to spend time with Ms. Moore, our new teacher).

And one more thing...as a paralegal, I have three very important rules to follow(there are more, but these three are big). One of them is that I cannot give out legal advice...not to anyone, friends, family, acquaintances, stangers. But I will share a general something I just learned. Be careful using legal software for legal documents. They tend to be one size fits all and each state has different rules. So do some research in your state before using those documents.