My Book
A practical guide to ethics for paralegals and legal assistants. Boston, MA : MCLE New England, 2018. Co-Authored by: Carmelina M Commito; Dorothy Nyen-Cassidy; Jaclyn Baker; Halye Sugarman; Caitlyn Tobey
Awarded the International Association for Continuing Legal Administration (ACLEA) prize for “Outstanding Achievement” in 2019
“For its highly practical focus, conversational style and innovative approach, MCLE was presented with the Award for Outstanding Achievement for its new publication, A Practical Guide to Ethics for Paralegals and Legal Assistants (MCLE, Inc. 2018).
Written by experienced paralegals from healthcare, academia, law firm, and corporate in-house settings, this nine-chapter handbook is designed to challenge, inform and educate paralegals and legal assistants on ethics, competency, professionalism, confidentiality and accountability. In addition to practical features such as practice notes, exhibits, commentary “from the field” and examples, each chapter concludes with a self-assessment that tests mastery over the information, thoughtful questions to spark discussion, and checklists to teach, underscore and ensure best practices. This book, along with these engaging and didactic features, can form the basis of a firm’s paralegal training program—as well as help lawyers satisfy their own obligations under MRPC Rule 5.3, pursuant to which they are responsible for ensuring that the conduct of paralegals, legal assistants and other non-lawyers over whom they have authority is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer.”