Committee Meetings and Minutes

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Paralegal Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	September 10, 2019
Time	12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location	Rio Grande Campus

Members Present
No member attendance has been recorded.
Guests Present
No guest attendance has been recorded.

Item # 1:	Paralegal Advisory Committee Meeting Fall 19
Presenter	Shawn Slack
Discussion	For a signed copy of the meeting minutes please contact the department at 512-223-3713 or sslack@austincc.edu Members Present: o President, Nova Coker, Certified Legal Assistant, Case Manager at Sharp & Cobos, Attorneys-at-Law, and ACC Paralegal Program Advanced Technical Certificate Graduate o Judge Woodie Jones, Of Counsel, Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend; Retired Chief Justice, Court of Appeals o Megan Becker, Paralegal, Law Offices of Joel A. Levine o Cullen McMorrow, Staff Attorney, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality o Enrique Varela, Assistant Attorney General, Senior Attorney, General Litigation Division. o Mario Aguilar, Austin Community College Full-time Faculty, Paralegal Department o Secretary, Shawn Slack, Austin Community College Department Chair, Paralegal Department o Reagan Wood, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Duncan & Shelton Commercial, LLC o Carrie Taylor, Senior Legal Assistant, Office of the Attorney General Old Business: • Program revised to add Business Computer Applications • Evening class at EVC with childcare available. o Report by M. Aguilar on enrollment in fall 2019 EVC section and use of childcare facility. Only one student using ACC childcare. o Board discussed other options for offering classes where childcare is available. o Board discussed how to make sure students are aware of options. o Department will offer another Intro to Law class at EVC in fall 2020 and only one section of Intro to Law at RGC, instead of two. • Report on ABA approval process by S. Slack. New Business: • Curriculum Planning o The Committee reviewed the elective options in the degree plans and discussed eliminating elective category distinctions. The Advisory Committee voted unanimously to approve this change. The Dept Chair will request Curriculum Committee adopt this program revision. o Program Objectives: Committee reviewed written assessment plan from TracDat and discussed program level student learning outcomes. Board discussed need to continue to emphasize legal research, despite it being somewhat routinely reported as a skill not observed (i.e. not applicable) by supervising lawyers of program paralegals. Committee decided to take home the provided copies of the written plan, review, and discuss in more depth at the spring 2020 meeting. o Graduate Performance: Committee reviewed intern evaluation rubric and summary of results in TracDat. Discussed how it’s used for direct assessment of program level outcomes and other marketable paralegal skills. Discussed how this instrument is invaluable for determining how well graduating students are meeting industry expectations. Dept chair also explained that a second instrument is being created to survey alumni that have been out of the program and working as paralegals longer. Committee decided to take home the provided copies of the rubric, review, and discuss in more depth at the spring 2020 meeting. • Job Market Assessment: The committee talked about the availability of paralegal jobs. The consensus among committee members is that there is a very high demand for paralegals in central Texas right now. The program will continue to attempt to graduate more students to meet this demand. • Evaluate Library Services o Dept chair gave report on recent tour of the State Law Library. Committee talked about the availability of resources on the library’s website and how to leverage those in the paralegal profession. o Committee discussed recent switch from Westlaw to Lexis and whether access to Westlaw’s Practical Law program justified additional costs. The committee believes Lexis access for Legal Research and Adv Legal Research is adequate. • Adjourn

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5930 Middle Fiskville Rd.
Austin, Texas 78752-4390
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