Greetings TBPA members!

As your incoming President, I would to thank all of you for allowing me the honor of once again serving alongside you for the next year. I know with help from all of you we can continue to grow the success of our organization. I look forward to working with you and getting to know each of you better. I am grateful to have such an amazing Board to work with this coming year.  Please join me in welcoming your new board for the 2019 year:

President: Barbara C. O'Shaughnessy, FRP

First Vice President: Valerie Cisco, FRP

Second Vice President: Emily Merlin, CP

Treasurer: Melissa J. Cook, FRP

Secretary: Katie K. Turley, CP

Director: Rebecca S. Wilt, ACP, FCP, FRP

Director: Elaine Schroeder, FRP

Director: Irene Medina, CRP

Director: Lance Cochran LaFleur, FRP

Director: Linda Woolard, ACP, FCP, FRP

Director: Nichole Parsons

We accomplished many things in 2018. The TBPA 2018 Annual Seminar held on October 5, 2018 was a huge success. Thank you to our seminar committee for all their hard work on this project. We also continued our Pro-Bono projects with Wills for Heroes, and our community service projects with the USO of Central Florida, A Kids Place of Tampa Bay, The PACE Center for Girls, and End 68 Hours of Hunger. Checks will be presented to each organization at the upcoming Annual Holiday Luncheon scheduled for Thursday, December 13, 2018.

Although we accomplished a lot in 2018 there is always more work to do. You may not know this, but our volunteer committee members are crucial to our Association and continuing the work it takes to grow and promote our profession. If you are interested in serving on a committee, please contact me for more information. 

Stay tuned for additional announcements detailing all the exciting events we have planned for the coming year, as 2019 is going to be a great year!

In the meantime, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Tampa Bay Paralegal Association, I would like to wish you and your family Happy Holidays and warm wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.

Suggestions?  If you have any suggestions, ideas for speakers, updates, or information on any subject that you feel might be of interest to other paralegals, please feel free to reach out to me at president@tbpa.org.

Sincerely,

Barbara C. O'Shaughnessy, FRP

President, Tampa Bay Paralegal Association, Inc.

president@tbpa.org

www.tbpa.org

Upcoming Events:         

Thursday, December 13, 2018 is the date for TBPA's Annual Holiday Luncheon.  We hope you'll join us!

Saturday, January 12, 2019 is the first quarterly “Wills for Heroes” event for 2019 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Hillsborough County Bar Association, Chester H. Ferguson Law Center located at 1610 N. Tampa Street. If you are interested in joining other TBPA Members at this Pro Bono event that helps our Tampa First Responders (including members of the police force, sheriff’s office and fire departments), please contact our Pro Bono Chair, Lance Cochran LaFleur at probono@tbpa.org.

Thursday, January 17, 2019 is the first Monthly CLE Luncheon of the year.  Our speaker will be Christine Taylor, Esquire from Fidelity National Title Group, topic TBD.  Our sponsor this month will be Milestone Reporting Group and our charitable focus will be Voices for Children.

Thursday, February 21, 2019 is our February Monthly CLE Luncheon.  Our speaker will be Brent C.J. Britton, Esquire from de la Pena & Holiday and his topic will be on Intellectual Property Law. Our sponsor this month will be SLK Investigations and our charitable focus will be the USO-Central Florida.

Also of note:

Save the Date for NFPA’s Joint Conference – April 26-28, 2019 Denver, CO

Save the Date for NALA’s Annual Conference – July 11-13, 2019 Scottsdale, AZ

Save the Date for NFPA’s Annual Convention – October 10-13, 2019 Rochester, NY

Suggestions?  If you have any suggestions, updates, or information on any subject that you feel might be of interest to other paralegals and you would like to share that information, please feel free to send an email to our Technology Committee via webmaster@tbpa.org.

By nature we paralegals are all very busy.  Your Board continues our drive to make this organization work for you!  We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!