Summer 2003

In This Issue

Profile: Todd Wiggins flies high in new career with Cohen Pollock President's Message: A Wind of Change at AALA! Suicide in the Workplace: Prevention and Resources Legal Strategies: Establishing An Effective Evaluation Program Opinion: Human Go-Betweens Appropriate Record Retention Policies: Eight Basic Steps Business Strategies: Six Easy Steps to Improving Cash Flow Service Juris Project: From Painting Walls to Shoveling Dirt, The Atlanta Legal Community Gets the Job Done July Chapter Lunch/Social Hot Dog - The Varsity National/Regional Update News From the Editor

Profile: Todd Wiggins flies high in new career with Cohen Pollock
By: June D. Bell

When Todd Wiggins interviewed for his first legal administrator job, he didn't try to fake out his prospective bosses. He candidly told the partners: "I don't know anything about what you do." What he did know how to do was to run an airport. Todd had a decade of experience overseeing facilities, staff, catering needs and other operations for America West Airlines in Wichita, Las Vegas, Columbus, Seattle, Phoenix and Atlanta. The attorneys who considered him weren't at all worried. "They said, if you can manage an airport, you can manage this. Managing is managing," Todd says. And they were right. Click here to read more about Todd Wiggins' experience as legal administrator at Cohen Pollock Merlin Axelrod & Tannenbaum.

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President's Message: A Wind of Change at AALA!

Over the last couple months our Chapter has probably experienced more change than in its 26-year history. Most of these changes have been technology driven and allowed us to provide instant and up-to-date information to our membership. Other changes have been implemented through feedback from our members and focus meetings with our vendor sponsors. One thing is certain, 2003 is shaping up to be a big transition year for the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators (AALA,) full of excitement and innovation.. Click here for details.

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Suicide in the Workplace: Prevention and Resources
By: John Richard Breland

Just four years ago, writing about suicide was something that I never thought I would be doing. My closest personal experience with it occurred in December, 1998 when the 24 year old son of a friend ended his own life. Little did I know that less than a year later suicide would claim the life of my stepson at age nineteen. Seven months later, suicide also took the life of my wife. The real tragedy of suicide is the fact that, contrary to popular belief, it is a preventable cause of death. Click here to learn more, including links to resources for suicide prevention.

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Legal Strategies: Establishing An Effective Evaluation Program For Your Law Firm
By: Mary Anne Ackourey, Attorney at Law, Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP

In the litigious environment that law firms and other employers face, performance evaluations can present special problems. If approached and conducted properly, performance evaluations can be a firm’s best weapon in a discrimination action, however, they too often inflate an employee’s performance and simply are not accurate. As a consequence, a familiar and problematic situation is an employee who receives a favorable employment evaluation not long before his or her termination or the associate who is denied partnership without prior warning of a problem. Click here for advice on establishing an effective evaluation program.

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Opinion: Human Go-Betweens
By: Barbara Foley

It's only 10:15 a.m. and your head is already spinning. Torn between completing the financial report you must present at a noon-time Executive Committee meeting or dealing with an emotional crisis of one of the top secretaries in the firm, your consideration of these issues is forcibly interrupted by a shareholder who has a crisis of his own. With these three balls up in the air, your telephone is constantly ringing and e-mails are coming fast and furious. Of course this is a typical day in the life of a law firm administrator and quite possibly, if these events are the worst that happen, this is a day which we would describe as a good one. Click here to learn what keeps us coming back for more.

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The Importance of Appropriate Record Retention Policies: Eight Basic Steps to Develop and Implement a Sound Policy
By: David Shub, Discovery and Records Management Director, Document Technologies, Inc.

With HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and various high-profile corporate fraud cases focusing on record destruction, national concern with record management and record retention has reached new levels. In the resulting legal and business environment, it is more important than ever for firms and companies to develop and implement appropriate record retention policies. A sound policy ensures that records that serve important business or legal interests are maintained and remain relatively easy to access, while other, potentially harmful, records are destroyed. Click here to learn more.

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Business Strategies: Six Easy Steps to Improving Cash Flow
By: Jack T. Eigles, President of Cash Management Solutions

Proper management of a law firm's revenue cycle can dramatically improve cash flow. Adopting these six basic principals is something any firm can easily do to improve cash flow while enhancing the law firm/client relationship. Click here to learn more.

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Service Juris Project: From Painting Walls to Shoveling Dirt, The Atlanta Legal Community Gets the Job Done

Five hundred members of the Atlanta area legal community (including members of the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators) once again joined forces with Hands-On-Atlanta for the fourth annual Service Juris Day on Saturday, June 21. Service Juris Day, created in response to a widespread desire of professionals in the legal field to give something back to their community, has become a yearly tradition for many in the legal industry. Click here to read more about this worthy event.

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July Chapter Lunch/Social Hot Dog - The Varsity

Well, it can never be said that the members of the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators (AALA) don’t know how to have some fun! The gang all came out to our July Chapter lunch at Magnolia Hall located in Piedmont Park. We came ready to socialize with other members and business partner sponsors and, most importantly, remember those good ole days having a “Varsity” moment. Click here for the full details, including prize winners (photo to right: Carole Morris thoughtfully providing Rolaids and mints).

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National/Regional Update
By: Susan DeVore, Region 2 Director & Member of AALA

As you read this column, the Association of Legal Administrator's (ALA) 2003 Chapter Leadership Institute (CLI) will be a thing of the past but several of your members, I am sure, are still full of ideas and enthusiasm from this event in June. Michael Stephens, Robin Buckley and Jeff Gray represented the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators (AALA) along with a record number of other chapter leaders and regional officers, to include Amy Webster, and your Board of Directors. Over the years CLI has evolved into one of ALA's most valuable tools in providing the education and support needed to develop ALA volunteers into energetic chapter leaders. Click here for further details.

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News From the Editor
By: Debra F. Goldman, Goodman McGuffey Lindsey & Johnson, LLP

Click here for miscellaneous “tidbits” that may be of interest.

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Comments to the Editor

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Editor: Debra F. Goldman (dgoldman@gmlj.com)

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