June 24, 2018
The director of Ursuline’s Legal Studies Program has been chosen for the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Paralegals. Beginning in fall 2018, Associate Professor Anne Murphy Brown, J.D., will serve a three-year term on this national committee.
“I was very honored to be nominated and I was thrilled to be chosen,” said Murphy Brown, who has taught at the College since 2005. “You watch the trends and see what’s going on with paralegal education and this gives you a seat at the table, in terms of how the ABA is going to respond to issues and trends in the field,” she said.
Ursuline’s Legal Studies program is approved by the ABA as a paralegal program. Graduates have excellent job placement and career success. About 10 percent go on to law school. Others work as paralegals or do legal work overseen by an attorney such as lease administrators or research associates.
Last year, three graduating seniors received substantial scholarships to prestigious law schools.
The ABA describes the committee as follows:
“The Standing Committee on Paralegals develops and promotes policies relating to the education, employment, training and effective use of paralegals. The Standing Committee, through its Approval Commission, continues to serve as the body to set standards for paralegal education. The Standing Committee monitors trends in the field and recommends for approval and reapproval to the House of Delegates (the ABA's policy-making body) those paralegal training programs that have met the standards and guidelines set by the ABA for quality paralegal education.
“In addition to overseeing its approval program, the Standing Committee monitors trends in the field. The Standing Committee maintains an information service for those persons interested in becoming paralegals. In an average year, the staff office processes more than 6,000 requests for information and responds to numerous requests for help.”
