2022 Compliance Bundle: Ethics, Technology and Staying Normal in This New Normal
12:25 Registration
12:55 Welcome and Introductions
1:00 Trust Accounting Is the Worst*^
Joshua T. Walthall, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, Raleigh
A former State Bar prosecutor explains how to stay out of trouble while tackling the ever-annoying task of trust accounting. Topics covered include the Rules of Professional Conduct on maintaining a trust account, the basic principles of trust accounting, the most common mistakes lawyers make in handling entrusted funds and keeping a trust account, common misconduct in handling client funds and recordkeeping, best practices in reconciliations and reviews, safeguarding funds from embezzlement, recent trust accounting scams and mishaps, and the random audit program.
2:00 Break
2:10 Email Wrangling: Taking Control of Your Inbox*‡
Catherine Sanders Reach, North Carolina Bar Association, Cary
Email is the communication tool we love to hate. It is a constant, as is the management of it. In this session, learn some tips and tricks for managing your inbox, turning email into tasks and calendared events, and saving email as part of the client record for retention. Also, hear discussion on guarding against potential ethical traps email presents, including security issues like phishing, inadvertent disclosure via the dreaded "whoops" moment, and when/how/why you need encryption. Let's help take control of this tool to keep you and your clients happy (and safe).
3:10 Break
3:20 Staying Normal in the New Normal†
Julianne Ludlam, Ph.D., KKJ Forensic and Psychological Services, Durham
What does attorney mental health and wellness look like in a post-pandemic world? Dr. Julianne Ludlam discusses the history of mental health problems for legal professionals, risk factors influencing attorney mental health, and recommendations for preventative care and well-being to help avoid crisis and declining health as we adapt to our "new normal."
This program offers important reminders on trust accounting, tips for managing email and guarding against potential ethical traps, and ways to help avoid crisis and declining health as we adapt to our "new normal."
Contributors
Julianne Ludlam, PhD
Julianne Ludlam, PhD is a Clinical Psychologist at KKJ Forensic and Psychological Services in Durham. She conducts psychological evaluations for adults, youth, and families.
Psychological evaluations can help with many kinds of personal, legal, or emotional issues. Evaluations require careful assessment, respectful investigation, and a clear report for decision-making. Julianne also believe evaluations should appreciate individual differences as well as sources of oppression and trauma; my assessments are all trauma-informed. She believe quality assessments can be both informative and therapeutic.
Julianne has a Master's degree in Early Childhood Risk and Prevention from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Alliant International University in Clinical Psychology. Her research and clinical interests have centered around the topic of trauma and trauma-related disorders.
Prior to teaching in the undergraduate psychology program at the University of Missouri, Julianne trained at the California Pacific Medical Center's outpatient mental health clinic, the San Francisco County Jail's psychiatric services unit, and a community mental health center in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
Catherine Sanders Reach is Director for the Center for Practice Management at the North Carolina Bar Association, providing practice technology and management assistance to lawyers and legal professionals. Formerly she was Director, Law Practice Management and Technology for the Chicago Bar Association and the Director at the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center.
Prior to her work at the NCBA, CBA and ABA she worked in library and information science environments for a number of years, working at Ross and Hardies as a librarian. She received a master's degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa in 1997.
Catherine's professional activities include articles published in Law Practice magazine, Law Technology News and GPSolo Magazine, as well as numerous other publications. She has given presentations on the use of technology in law firms for national bar conferences, state and local bar associations and organizations such as the National Association of Bar Council and the Association of American Law Schools. In 2011 she was selected to be one of the inaugural Fastcase 50, celebrating fifty innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the field of law and in 2013 became Professionalism for New Attorneys (PNA) a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management. She served on the ABA TECHSHOW Board from 2007-2009, 2014-2016 and is co-vice chair in 2019.
Joshua T. Walthall is a partner at Boerema Blackton LLP in Raleigh. He represents lawyers before the North Carolina State Bar and other licensed professionals before various licensing boards: physicians, nurses, dentists, land surveyors, engineers, real estate agents, and accountants. He also assists clients with unauthorized practice of law issues and in matters before the Board of Law Examiners. He also helps lawyers and law firms clean up their trust accounts.
Joshua was formerly with Nelson Mullins in Raleigh. Before entering private practice, Josh spent nearly a decade at the North Carolina State Bar prosecuting attorney misconduct and the unauthorized practice of law.
Joshua earned his B.A. from the College at Southeastern and his J.D. from Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law.
Prior to law school, Joshua worked in the land surveying, banking, and construction industries and was a middle school teacher and soccer coach.