Most people use the Google search engine every day to look up information on everything from restaurant reviews to driving directions to the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow. In fact, the word google (lower case G) officially appeared as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. The free web is especially useful for “ready reference” materials like census results, information about businesses and individuals, sample documents, government information and more. It can also be a great way to get up to speed on (or keep up with) an area of law by accessing the wealth of legal blogs, scholarly resources and substantive bar association publications available for free online. Lawyers will find that a familiarity with advanced search features of the Google search engine can help unearth useful information in a very short amount of time.
The Google search engine is designed to be easy and intuitive. They are constantly refining the search algorithm to help users find the most relevant information based on the keywords. While a basic search will yield great results, it will often yield too many results to adequately review. There are number of ways to filter and refine a search in Google to narrow them more specifically to meet the needs of the inquiry – without having to read thousands of results. Here are a few to memorize:
Last week, a white blanket fell upon the grounds of the Biltmore Estate. The silence of new fallen snow covered the land and buildings as far as you could see.
It will not stay quiet forever, because in a few short months those same grounds and buildings will be filled with lawyers! For the first time ever, the North Carolina Bar Association will hold its annual meeting in Asheville at Biltmore. The largest private residence in the United States will host the largest gathering of attorneys and legal professionals in North Carolina.
To-do List For
Annual Meeting at Biltmore
Mark the dates on your calendar:
June 20 – June 23, 2019
Check out biltmore.com to make a list of the things you want to experience.
Watch for more information in the coming months.
The Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Bar Association has been the single occasion where attorneys of North Carolina from all practice areas and all locations can gather together. As this year’s theme will revolve around the wellness of legal professionals, the setting at Biltmore makes the event a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As the brochure explains, “When George Vanderbilt created Biltmore, he envisioned a country retreat where family and friends could escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life to spend quality time together.”
We will still enjoy the opportunity to visit Asheville and the mountains, but with a new twist. Centered at the new Amherst at Deerpark facility, the guests at the Annual Meeting will spread out across the grounds of Biltmore to the Inn on Biltmore Estate™, the Village Hotel, the Mansion, the Gardens, the Winery, the Farm, Antler Hill Village, and even the Land Rover Experience to experience unique opportunities and fellowship.
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Our monthly reports at the N.C. Bar Center provide a wealth of information about the members of the North Carolina Bar Association. We can see how many lawyers, law students, paralegals and paralegal students comprise our membership, as well as how many members are participating in each of our sections and divisions.
The reports also reveal how many members hail from each of North Carolina’s 100 counties. There are thousands in Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg and Wake counties, and more than a hundred members in each of 13 additional counties.
Another important number also stood out in a recent membership report for Gates, Graham and Tyrrell counties: one. That’s right – in each of those counties, we had one member, each of whom has a story to tell about their lives, their careers, and their reasons for being members of the North Carolina Bar Association.
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North Carolina Bar Association Members Get $150 Off Standard Registration
ABA TECHSHOW has over 31 years of experience bringing lawyers and technology together. Legal work today is dependent on technology to manage day to day activities, to practice more competently, and to service clients more effectively. ABA TECHSHOW teaches you how technology can work for you. Through the expansive EXPO Hall, CLEs, presentations, and workshops, you will be able to get your questions answered and learn from the top legal professionals and tech innovators, all under one roof. Regardless of your expertise level, there’s something for you at ABA TECHSHOW.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Catherine Reachhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngCatherine Reach2018-12-07 16:31:502018-12-11 13:01:37ABA TECHSHOW 2019 NCBA Member Discount and Some Marketing Tips
We are pleased to announce the formation of the NCBA Privacy and Data Security Section. Privacy and data security issues are constantly evolving, which makes this field uniquely suited to collaboration and information sharing. Further demonstrating its importance, in November 2018, the N.C. State Bar recognized its first class of privacy law specialists. Even if your practice does not focus specifically on privacy and data security, join us to stay informed as to the latest trends and developments that may affect your clients. The new Section, which we anticipate will be formally recognized by the NCBA starting in July 2019, is open for registration here.
For more on the Section’s mission, read Chair Alex Pearce’s inaugural blog post.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00NCBARBLOGhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngNCBARBLOG2018-12-07 12:11:122018-12-07 12:26:33Join the NCBA Privacy & Data Security Section To Stay Up On This Evolving Field
Did you know that it is very easy to edit a PDF document unless you take steps to secure it? You can convert a PDF to Word in MS Word 2016 or in Adobe Acrobat and other PDF conversion applications. You can also easily edit a PDF in Acrobat. If you want to secure a PDF there are many ways to do so, but the strongest security is to apply a watermark, disable copying and printing, and apply a digital signature. This three-step process will create a document that is very difficult to alter or reproduce.
To create a PDF document that would be difficult to tamper with, including reproducing from a screenshot, you can take a three-step approach:
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Catherine Reachhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngCatherine Reach2018-12-04 11:52:422018-12-04 12:39:38How To *Really* Lock Down a PDF Document
Few things make people feel helpless like a natural disaster can. If you’re like most attorneys, your daily work doesn’t involve feeding people, clearing giant trees, or repairing homes. As we settle into our day-to-day work, it’s easy to feel like we don’t have anything to offer people who have lost basic needs like clothing and shelter.
But what we forget is that many of our jobs, at their core, DO involve helping people clean up messes – and the knowledge and skills we’ve picked up along the way are probably more useful than we think.
Molly Gross, a young lawyer in Hickory who’s been bitten by the pro bono bug, has figured this out. Her story is proof that attorneys like you can impact people with big needs, even with just a little time. We at the NCBA Pro Bono Committee were so inspired, we thought we’d give her a shout out.
Finding a mutually available time to meet with multiple busy people including clients, colleagues and other parties used to mean a lot of negotiation and multiple emails. Then tools like Doodle and FreeBusy came along to make scheduling much easier. Now users of Microsoft Office 365 can take advantage of a built-in polling tool called FindTime that integrates directly in the Outlook calendar for free!
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Catherine Reachhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngCatherine Reach2018-11-27 08:00:432018-11-29 10:07:35A Better Way to Find Time
With the holidays approaching, we can look forward to gathering with friends and family, celebrations, and merriment. We also look forward to lots of great food and tempting treats. For many the holidays also add stress, tension and increased feelings of depression. Make time to keep up with exercise, which will help guard against weight gain and help boost your serotonin levels. Need motivation? Your mobile device likely has a pedometer built in to help you keep track of your steps and stay on goal.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Catherine Reachhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngCatherine Reach2018-11-20 08:00:182018-11-28 16:31:30Take Steps This Holiday Season
Are you using two factor authentication? You should be! Passwords alone are not enough anymore to thwart motivated hackers from accessing your accounts, whether by a keystroke logger infection on your computer or a data breach of the systems you use every day online. Two factor authentication, or two step verification, adds strength to your passwords by using something you know (your password) and something you have. The “something you have” is often a code sent separately to a mobile phone via text. Without the code you will not be able to login to an online account on a device you have not previously trusted. Ostensibly it would also thwart anyone who had your password as well. You can turn on two factor authentication in most online accounts by going into your privacy and security settings.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Catherine Reachhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngCatherine Reach2018-11-12 17:02:502019-04-02 10:41:49Is a Password Enough To Keep Your Sensitive Information Safe?
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