Reflection
The best thing that I could have developed within the Office Admin- Legal program is the fact that we were able to learn the process of each matter. Working at Clifton Kok, the legal assistant that I worked with the most didn't attend school for legal administration, so she would reply on previous files and instructions from the lawyers to know what step is next, which isn't a bad way to learn, but I feel that in having this education it makes me a little more independent in my working career.
The program does well in giving us the knowledge for this career, which a lot of the other students would also agree, and in most ways it prepared me well in my placement. The only thing that I would say is that certain formatting was kind of too enforced. My experience with the letters at Clifton Kok showed me that little formatting things aren't the way they would like it, an example is the spacing after the date; I never did more than 2 enters. They also liked to put the postal code on its own line when typing out the address. I also noticed that the way Wills were formatted were a tiny bit different, the signature lines weren't formatted like how we learned and we also only capitalized the person's last name, rather than the full name we were taught.
That being said though, I really did have a standard for the documents being produced. It would bother me so much seeing that the account template was all tabs and no tables. Mostly the templates were made nicely, so there wasn't much needed to change in order to satisfy me with those ones.
I actually really enjoyed blogging, I would write myself notes on what I did each day and then when reviewing the questions for each post I would refer back to these notes- which I felt helped me in reinforcing new concepts and could help me in the future as well. Personally I wouldn't want to do a written report, since I really liked reading what my other classmates were doing and I enjoy this type of open discussion.
The program does well in giving us the knowledge for this career, which a lot of the other students would also agree, and in most ways it prepared me well in my placement. The only thing that I would say is that certain formatting was kind of too enforced. My experience with the letters at Clifton Kok showed me that little formatting things aren't the way they would like it, an example is the spacing after the date; I never did more than 2 enters. They also liked to put the postal code on its own line when typing out the address. I also noticed that the way Wills were formatted were a tiny bit different, the signature lines weren't formatted like how we learned and we also only capitalized the person's last name, rather than the full name we were taught.
That being said though, I really did have a standard for the documents being produced. It would bother me so much seeing that the account template was all tabs and no tables. Mostly the templates were made nicely, so there wasn't much needed to change in order to satisfy me with those ones.
I actually really enjoyed blogging, I would write myself notes on what I did each day and then when reviewing the questions for each post I would refer back to these notes- which I felt helped me in reinforcing new concepts and could help me in the future as well. Personally I wouldn't want to do a written report, since I really liked reading what my other classmates were doing and I enjoy this type of open discussion.
Megan! It was nice getting you ! Good luck with the future!
ReplyDeleteMegan,
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting reading this post and that the legal assistant who was training you never attended school for it. It sounds like sometimes that her having to look back on files made things slow down a bit when it came to accomplishing tasks/work. Did you find that there were times you felt a bit held back with your knowledge gained - or that you wanted to show her a way to do something - but felt like you might be overstepping?
I really hope you enjoyed your placement... and I also want to say you have the most amazing blog! You're great with this stuff :)
Week 3, Comment 1 (Monday, April 24 - Sunday, April 30)
ReplyDeleteHi Megan! I found that Lennox and Penney have their own ways they like to do things, and that also includes how they like their correspondence formatted. So I have very little to do with that apart from to continue what they like to be done. The spacing after the date is one of those things (although formatting is not that important as long as things look tidy). We only have one blank space after the date as things stand.
There are some things I am taking on which have been being done by people with many years of experience but that I'm finding are lacking. These are not formatting issues, but content of actual documents. My lawyer has told me that I go ahead and alter them in accordance with what I learned during my course. He is very supportive of that. In light of this I was very interested in what Tara asked you - did you take the plunge and alter things when you saw they needed to include other information? I ended up raising two copies for some things, showing the way they were doing it, and the way I would do it going forward.
It was scary though!
Hi Megan!!
ReplyDeleteYour blogger is beautiful. are these floral leaves?
Megan! Thank you for helping me to make my blogger. I still remember that you kindly explained how to make a blogger and selecting font types, color, design, etc. You have warm heart. Thanks again!
I found it really amusing at my placement because a fair number of legal assistants at the firm were conestoga graduates. You could learn everything on the job, but I agree it is nice being able to be a bit more indenpendant
ReplyDelete