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The Causeway
The Monthly Newsletter for the Franklin County Bar Association
December 2018
"The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely" Robert Bolt, playwright
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YLD Happy Hour @ Relax Lounge - Thursday, December 6th
FCBA Admission Ceremony - Friday, December 7th
FCBA Annual Meeting - Friday, December 7th
YLD Holiday Party - Thursday, December 13th
YLD Games Night - Tuesday, December 18th
FCBA Office and F.C. Law Library CLOSED for Christmas - Tuesday, Dec. 24th - Friday, Dec. 25th
FCBA Office and F.C. Law Library CLOSED for New Year's Day - Tuesday, January 1st
YLD Business Meeting - Friday, January 4th
FCBA Board of Directors Meeting - Friday, January 18th
YLD Business Meeting - Friday, February 1st
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'Tis the Season! FCBA Women's Club decorate the Courthouse Planters for the Holidays
Thank you to Marty Walker, Barb Townsend, Kristen Hamilton and daughter Emma for decorating the planters! They managed to decorate before the rains came on Saturday, December 1st.
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Need PA CLE credits? The Franklin County Bar Association is now offering online CLE courses!
The Franklin County Bar Association is pleased to announce that we have partnered with Axom Education to offer online courses for PA CLE!
Our first online course, which we hope to expand to a series, is
Spanish for Lawyers: An Intro to Basic Legal Terminology in Law Offices and Courts, presented by Renu Urvashi Sagreiya, Esq. It's available now for $10 for 1 PA substantive credit or free for noncredit at:
This course is being offered at a discount rate as part of an effort to expand access to legal services for Spanish speaking clients. The course is taught in Spanish and designed for attorneys with basic Spanish skills to improve their knowledge of legal terminology and concepts.
The next compliance deadline is December 31st for Group III. PA attorneys are permitted to complete six of their twelve required credits each year through online CLE, and both ethics credits can be completed online. For more information on CLE requirements, or to check your credits needed for the year, visit
https://www.pacle.org/faq#distancelearning
You may also be interested in these other new courses from bar associations around PA. You don't need to be a member of the sponsoring bar association to take the course. Check out the full list of other available courses at
www.axomeducation.com
Malpractice Avoidance 2018
$30, 1 PA ethics credit, from the Westmoreland Bar Association
This course includes a discussion of recent trends in legal malpractice and a detailed discussion of recent PA cases, along with helpful practice pointers to assist attorneys in minimizing malpractice risk.
A Primer on Real Estate Practice in Fayette County
$99, 3.5 PA substantive credits, from the Fayette County Bar Association
Though this introductory course on real estate and title practice includes some resources specific to Fayette County, any practitioner interested in title work in Pennsylvania will find helpful concepts and practice pointers in this course, which includes a downloadable ZIP file of more than 100 sample forms, letters, and other documents relating to real estate practice.
Social Security Basics
$30, 1 Substantive PA CLE, from the Butler County Bar Association
This course is designed to introduce the concepts associated with social security benefits, including length of marriage rules, spousal benefits, survivor benefits and resources.
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FCBA YLD Blanket and Food Drives
We are collecting handmade blankets and nonperishable food items until December 7th.
Project Linus
Project Linus' mission: Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer "blanketeers."
Project Linus accepts NEW, HANDMADE, WASHABLE, blankets and afghans for giving to children ages 0-18 years. Project Linus blankets are not donated to adults. Project Linus donates blankets to children, infants through teens. Many sizes are appropriate depending on chapter need. For example, blankets could be as small as 36" × 36." The majority of Project Linus blankets are about 40" × 60", or what is called "crib size." Blankets could be as large as twin size for teens. visit www.projectlinus.org to learn more.
You may donate a handmade blanket at the FCBA office until December 7th.
The YLD will be making "no sew blankets" on Tursday, December 13th. We are accepting donations of fleece fabric, blanket kits and money until 12/7. Please drop your donation off at the FCBA office. Fleece fabric and blanket kits may be purchased at Joanne's Fabrics, Walmart, or from online retailers.
Join us on 12/13 to cut and knot our handmade blankets. No crafting experience necessary! We will be making blankets at the FCBA office in the afternoon.
Handmade Blanket Drive:
Handmade blankets can be donated at the FCBA office until 12/7
Fabric, kits and $ can be donated until 12/7
Blanket making day is 12/13 at the FCBA office
The FCBA Young Lawyers Division is hosting a Food Drive this holiday season!
We're holding a food drive to benefit the St. Vincent de Paul Ministry food bank of the Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in Chambersburg. Look for the gift-wrapped box near the Sheriff's office on the first floor of the Courthouse to make your donations.
We will be collecting donations at the Courthouse between Monday, November 26th to Friday, December 7th. The food bank will accept any non-perishable food item, but is in need of:
- Canned Vegetables and Fruit
- Macaroni & Cheese
- Pasta
- Spaghetti Sauce
- Canned Tuna
- Stuffing Mix
- Instant Mashed Potatoes
- Gravy Mix
* Please no glass containers
You can bring your donations with you on Friday, December 7th when you attend the Admission Ceremony & Annual Meeting! Food donations will also be accepted at the FCBA office, 11/1 until 12/7.
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Spanish for Lawyers/Español para Abogados! (Fall 2018-Spring 2019)
Mark your calendars! The next Spanish for Lawyers CLE will be held on Friday, December 14th and will cover Spanish for Lawyers: Family Law. On January 25th our CLE will be Spanish for Lawyers: Immigration.
Because this is series of lunch & learns, each session will cost only $5 per participant. (example - If you or your staff attends 5 sessions the cost would be $25.) There is a scholarship available for members or their staff to help cover the CLE costs. If you would like to attend the CLE and require financial assistance, please contact Amelia Ambrose director@franklinbar.org
ONLINE CLEs
The Franklin County Bar Association is pleased to announce that we are partnering with Axom Education
www.axomeducation.com
to offer Pennsylvania Distance Learning CLE courses online. All of the FCBA's current courses can be found at https://www.axomeducation.com/franklin
and you can also browse courses from other bar associations across Pennsylvania as well! (You do not need to be a member of the bar association offering the course to enroll.) We will be continuing to add new courses over the next few months, including more sessions from our popular Spanish for Lawyers series. Attorneys with Pennsylvania licenses may complete up to six of their twelve required CLEs each year as distance learning courses, which may include both of the two ethics credits required.
You may view the the first Spanish for Lawyers CLE for $10 and earn 1 CLE credit -OR- you may watch the CLE for FREE with no credit by visiting:
https://www.axomeducation.com/franklin
The second Spanish for Lawyers CLE on Criminal Law was recorded and should be available online in about a week.
About the Instructor!
Renu Urvashi Sagreiya grew up in Ambler, PA. Her ease in picking up
languages stems from her experience growing up bicultural and bilingual in Hindi-English. She began learning Spanish at the tender age of 9 in 1997, and has continued studying it through elementary, middle, and high school. Ms. Sagreiya has Latino relatives (Puerto Rican and Colombian) in her family and loves practicing with them, especially her cousin's 3 kids. Ms. Sagreiya graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2010 from Agnes Scott College with a B.A. in Sociology & Anthropology and a Minor in Spanish. There, she was selected to work as a Spanish Department Tutor.
After undergrad, she served extensively with the Latino immigrant community, both at a predominantly Hispanic high school in Philadelphia, PA as well as at a domestic violence agency in Boston, MA. She graduated from Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law with honors in 2017. During law school, she used her Spanish often, especially at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she worked as an interpreter/translator for PDs. She also assisted in leading a Spanish "Know Your Rights" presentation and legal clinic in Gettysburg, PA during her 2016 co-op at HIAS. Ms. Sagreiya sincerely hopes that this course will assist attorneys and support staff to provide linguistically and culturally competent services to Latinos of Franklin County. In her free time she likes kayaking, birding, beachcombing, museums, pets, 76ers and Scrabble.
Please contact Ms. Sagreiya at renu.sagreiya@alum.agnesscott.edu
Note: While the instructor serves as a Judicial Law Clerk full-time,
she is offering this course in an individual capacity as a member of
the FCBA and not as an employee of the 39th Judicial District.
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Franklin County Legal Journal Notice Rate Increase
Many of you have published your legal notices with Franklin County Legal Journal in the past. We are writing today to inform you of an increase in our publication fees. Please see below for the new fees, which will go into effect on December 1, 2018:
Estate notices - $90.00
Sheriff Sale notices - $215.00
Corporation notices - $70.00
Fictitious Name notices - $70.00
Name Change notices - $60.00
Other notices are billed on a per line basis. The fee per line is $1.75 with a minimum fee of $45.00.
Additionally, the Franklin County Legal Journal will begin accepting credit card payments for legal notices via Paypal on December 1, 2018. If you wish to make a payment with a credit card, please visit www.franklinbar.org/legal-journal.
Thank you,
Tracy Ross
Legal Journal Committee Chair
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Save the Date
Introduction to Immigration: What do all these acronyms mean? Lunch & Learn
On February 15th the FCBA will be hosting a Lunch & Learn be "Introduction to Immigration: What do all these acronyms mean?"
Our facilitator: Brittany Henderson is an Attorney with Franklin County Legal Services. Prior to joining Franklin County Legal Services, Ms. Henderson worked for a nonprofit organization in West Virginia providing immigration legal services to low-income immigrants and their families. She also worked with refugees resettling in the state. She previously worked for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and for Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez as an immigration fellow. Ms. Henderson graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 2012 with her law degree and a Masters of Law in international law. In law school, she participated in the Immigration Clinic where she argued in front of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, interned with the Miami Immigration Court, and interned with an immigration legal services nonprofit that serves unaccompanied immigrant minors. Prior to law school, Ms. Henderson attended Shepherd University where she majored in Political Science and Spanish. Ms. Henderson is a member of AILA and is fluent in Spanish. She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York.
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Amazon Smile for FCB Foundation
Did you know you could make a donation to the FCB Foundation when you shop at Amazon?
CLICK HERE to select FCB Foundation as your charity.
You shop. Amazon gives.
- Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.
- AmazonSmile is the same Amazon you know. Same products, same prices, same service.
- Support your charitable organization by starting your shopping at smile.amazon.com
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Bridge the Gap Facilitators Needed
The Franklin County Bar is hosting a Bridge the Gap session in the 1st quarter of 2019 for our Law Clerks and new attorneys. We are creating a list of members who are willing to be facilitators.
What does a facilitator do?
The facilitator is provided with a training guide and Bridge the Gap DVD. They show clips from the DVD and lead the attorneys in discussions regarding the material. The training guide and DVD are available for you to review prior to the CLE session.
Facilitators earn 8 ethics credits for teaching this session!
What is Bridge the Gap?
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has added a Bridge the Gap requirement for newly admitted lawyers. The program is designed to provide the type of information necessary to smooth the transition from law student to attorney. It is intended to give recent law school graduates the "know-how" which is otherwise learned through trial and error. The Bridge the Gap requirement must be fulfilled prior to a newly admitted lawyer's first CLE requirement deadline. This basic program will provide practical insight into key areas that new lawyers need to know in order to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct and avoid potential malpractice claims. This seminar will fulfill the Bridge the Gap requirement for newly admitted Pennsylvania attorneys. Moderators will lead the discussion and answer participants' questions.
PA Attorneys attending Bridge the Gap earn 4 ethics credits.
Please contact Amelia Ambrose at 717-267-2032 or director@franklinbar.org to learn more or to sign up to be a facilitator.
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Press Releases, Memos and Important Notices
Please be advised that Judge Shawn D. Meyers has a new legal assistant, Kimberly Bowling. Judge Meyers asks that all attorneys receiving this notice provide it to their office staff so that they can update their contact information for his chambers. Attorneys and staff are asked to send all email communications to his new assistant Kimberly Bowling at the following email address: kgbowling@franklincountypa.gov.
Judge Meyers also encourages attorneys and staff to stop by chambers and introduce themselves to Ms. Bowling.
Franklin County Legal Services is seeking counsel for multiple potential clients with a potential claim against a property owner for leasing condemned properties in Franklin County. Since these are potentially fee generating cases, you may negotiate payment arrangements directly with the clients. If interested, please call Franklin County Legal Services at 717-262-2326 for further details. Please ask for Brendan Sullivan, Esq.
Walters & Galloway, PLLC,
and Justice Eakin
cordially
invite you to
share the spirit of the
Holiday Season with them.
Open House
Thursday, December 20, 2018
3:00 - 6:00 p.m.
at
Law Office of Walters & Galloway
54 E. Main Street
Mechanicsburg, PA
Across-Street Parking
Courtesy of Myers-Buhrig Funeral Home & Crematory
(Look for the Myers-Buhrig tent and parking lot attendants)
Please RSVP to Lynn.Zembower@pacourts.us
Click here to view the December 3rd Newsletter
PBI is going green-ish! Starting November 1, PBI will be providing downloadable materials instead of printed manuals for most courses.
A download link will be emailed to registrants prior to the course. We're recommending that customers bring a laptop or tablet with them to follow the materials.
Customers can also choose to purchase printed materials at a discount as part of their pre-course registration by calling customer service at 800-932-4637. The book will be shipped approximately two weeks following the course. Sites are not to print the materials for the attendees.
Why are we taking this first step towards going green? PBI is about serving lawyers and the public, and ultimately, what's good for the environment is good for the people we serve.
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Upcoming PBI CLEs at FCBA
Wednesday, December 12: Trials of the Century III, Live via Simulcast, 5 substantive & 1 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Wednesday, December 12: Enrolling in Medicare 2018, Video Replay, 3 substantive & 0 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Tuesday, December 18: What Fiction Writing, Copywriting, and Songwriting Can Teach Us About Litigation Writing, Live via Simulcast, 5 substantive & 1 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Tuesday, December 18: Family Law Update 2018, Video Replay, 3 substantive & 0 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Wednesday, December 19: General Practitioners Year in Review, Live via Simulcast, 5 substantive & 1 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Thursday, December 20: Spotlight on Ethics - December 2018, Live via Simulcast, 0 substantive & 6 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
Wednesday, January 9: Getting the Deal Done, Video Replay, 3 substantive & 0 ethics credits. Please call PBI at 1-800-932-4637 for more information.
Thursday, January 17: Elder Law Update 2018, Video Replay, 3 substantive and 0 ethics credits. Please call PBI at 1-800-932-4637 for more information.
Wednesday, January 23: Practical Medicaid Planning 2019, Live via Simulcast, 3 substantive & 0 ethics credits. click here for more information and to register
Friday, February 1: My Client's Dead, Now What? 2019, Live via Simulcast, 3 substantive & 0 ethics credits. Please call PBI at 1-800-932-4637 for more information
Tuesday, February 12: Guardianship Practice & Procedure: The Rules Have Changed 2018, Video Replay, 2 substantive and 1 ethics credits. Please call PBI at 1-800-932-4637 for more information.
Wednesday, February 13: Truck Accident Litigation 2018, Live via Simulcast, 4 substantive & 0 ethics credits. click here for more information and to register
Wednesday, February 20: 23 Mistakes Experienced Contract Drafters USUALLY Make 2018, Video Replay, 5 substantive and 1 ethics credits. Please call PBI at 1-800-932-4637 for more information.
Thursday, February 28: Estate & Elder Law Symposium - 2019, Live via Simulcast, 5 substantive & 1 ethics credits click here for more information and to register
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Member News
We have volunteer openings:
The FCBA Member Resource Committee is looking for new members. Our committee is the Bar's version of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. If interested in joining this committee, please contact Amelia Ambrose - director@franklinbar.org or 717-267-2032.
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Newsletter items deadline
The deadline to submit items for The Causeway is the 20th of each month
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Coffee Corner
"Coffee Corner" is a periodic column in The Causeway by Bar members Annie Gómez Shockey, Brandon Copeland and Nikki Sipe.
by Nikki Sipe
It's that time of year where most of us are getting into the holiday spirit. With that in mind, we've asked some members of our Bar what the best holiday present they have ever received. Here are the things that brought the most joy to our colleagues:
- Giving noisy toys to grandkids
- A Carl Edmond Cabbage Patch kid (circa 1986)
- A Harley
- Six toy cars (given after asking for an actual car)
- LEGO Monorail System
- Nintendo NES
- Concert tickets for a favorite band
- An eco-drive watch
- Nintendo 64
- Finding out she was having a baby
- Diamondback bike
We also asked what our members were wishing for this year. We got a range of answers from practical and reasonable to some big ticket items they didn't expect to get! Here's our Bar's wish list this year:
- Good health
- A 2018 R8 or RS5 Audi coupe
- Family being together
- An Amazon gift card to buy books
- New skis
- Espresso maker
- Books, plus storage for the new books
- Roomba
- A 10" refracting motorized tracking telescope on a motor-driven equatorial mount
- Candle-making kit
- Ninja Foodie
- World peace
And with that, I hope everyone has a great holiday season! See you next year!
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Franklin County Bar Association
100 Lincoln Way East, Suite E, Chambersburg, PA 17201
director@franklinbar.org
717-267-2032
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