Announcements!!!

Congrats on surviving the first week of fall semester! It's been quite a week. Here are some reminders:

• You should have gotten a Lexis Advance password via email. If you did not, or you deleted it, or your email account got wiped clean, or the dog ate it, or whatever, please send me an email. (If you have already sent me an email, you don't need to send me another one.) Please check to make sure your username and password work. Do NOT wait until you have an assignment due.
• Ivy Tech Student Life is showing the movie "Home" tomorrow at 9 p.m. Bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on. If you're in one of my classes, you are eligible for 10 points if you attend. I doubt that there's a sign-in sheet, so take a selfie. 
• Lafayette Civic Theatre is putting on a staged reading of the play "The Amish Project" on September 15, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. This is a pay-what-you-can event. If you're in one of my classes, you are eligible for 10-20 points if you attend. Get there early. It's a small theatre, and a big cast with lots of friends and family! Click on the link to see the Civic Theatre's page for more information.  The Amish Project
• The Monday afternoon PARA 101 class will be going on a field trip to the Tippecanoe County Courthouse on October 5, 2015. We'll be there from 2:30 until they kick us out at 4:30 (ish). Class lasts until 5:20, so I am hoping to scope out a meeting location downtown where we can discuss what we saw afterwards.
• Next week we will bid a very fond semi-farewell to Linda O'Gara who is leaving us (partially) for a full-time job. She will continue to teach her Torts and Legal Research classes this semester. Duran Keller will be taking over for her in Contracts, and Sue Sansone will be teaching the Bankruptcy Law class.

Have a great weekend!!!

Welcome to Fall Semester 2015!

A Cautionary Tale for the New Semester

If you've ever had me for a class, you'll know why this particular story from the ABA Journal tickles my fancy. And if you haven't had me yet ... you'll learn.

Judge fines himself for ringing cellphone

Posted Aug 21, 2015 05:45 am CDT

By Debra Cassens Weiss

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A judge in Hillsboro, Ohio, held himself to the same standards as others in his courtroom Tuesday when his cellphone began to ring.
Judge Rocky Coss fined himself $25 for the infraction, WCPO reports.
Coss has a sign warning all those who enter his courtroom to turn off their cellphones, and he enforces the measure with $25 fines when he hears a ringing phone.
Coss says he left his cellphone in his shirt pocket and forgot all about it until his wife called him. It’s his first offense, he adds.
“I don’t see how I can hold someone else in contempt and fine them for disrupting the proceedings when I do the same thing and not fine myself,” he tells WCPO.

Great Advice for the Fall Semester

I want to share an article I just found about dealing with school-based anxiety. The article is written for law students, but it's equally applicable to paralegal students (or, really, any student). It addresses fears of failure, of speaking in class, and of exams, and there isn't a bad piece of advice in it. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to prepare for the upcoming semester, for both new and returning students.

Conquering Fear

Lexis Advance

If you're a currently registered Paralegal student, you should have gotten (or will soon be getting) a Lexis Advance user ID and password. These replace any Lexis user ID and password you had before. You'll like Lexis Advance.Seriously. It's less overwhelming than Lexis used to be--more like Google Scholar.