by Erin Collins, Director, NCADA Board of Directors
The NCADA’s website now contains an online resource that connects the entire membership for discussion of trending issues, experts, recent case law, CLE, and any other topic of interest. These discussion forums are designed to allow NCADA members to easily engage, interact and brainstorm with each other from anywhere at any time by simply logging onto the NCADA’s website and using the forums.
What are these forums?:
The discussion forums were added to the NCADA website as a part of its recent update. The NCADA website contains forums for the following practice groups: Commercial Law, Construction, Employment Law, Government Law, General Liability, Medical Malpractice, Product Liability, and Workers’ Compensation. Additionally, the Young Lawyers Committee, the Women Litigators, and the Paralegals also have their own discussion forums. Members can choose to be a part of any or all of these forums.
The forums allow NCADA members to discuss any issue of interest with other members that are involved in the same practice groups or committees. So far NCADA members have used the forum in several different ways:
- Workers’ compensation practitioners used their discussion forum to collaborate regarding the impact of recent appellate court decisions;
- A construction law attorney used the construction law forum in his search of an expert;
- The general liability forum was used to brainstorm an attorney’s strategy for dismissing an untimely appeal to the Court of Appeals; and
- The paralegal forum was used to discuss an upcoming CLE.
These are all important topics and it is evident that insight from other members would be helpful to the inquiring members.
How do we access these forums?:
To use these forums, follow the below easy steps.
Step 1. Easy Log In. Go to www.ncada.org. Click "Log In" at the top right hand corner. If you have not logged in yet and set your new password, go to "Forgot Password" to have a "Reset Password" email sent to you, then create your preferred password (min of 7 characters; max of 50; case sensitive). Then access the site. Email lynettepitt@ncada.org if you have problems.
Step 2. Go to Members Area/Forums. Here there will be a list of available Forums for each practice group, paralegals, women litigators and young lawyers. You may participate in any one or all!
Step 3. Subscribe. Select your Forum(s) of interest. Click the 'Subscribe to forum' link on the top right hand corner. Once subscribed, you will receive email notifications of updates to any of the topics in the Forum with links to the new or updated topics. You may even subscribe to individual topics.
Step 4. Create a Discussion Topic. Access the Forum of interest. A 'Create topic' button is at the top of this page which will take you to a template to create your message. Then 'Create' to post and replies will come directly to your mailbox.
Step 5. Manage Your Preferences. The default notification for Forums is a daily email. You may change the frequency of the email notifications from daily to weekly or immediately.
To change your Forum subscription settings, go to the Email subscriptions page within your member profile and click the Edit Profile button. Additionally, in the Forum subscriptions section, you can unsubscribe from forums and topics and change the frequency of forum update notifications. Do not forget to click 'Save' to save your changes.
How do we convert these forums to a tool that can be useful to our members?:
This answer is simple: we must use it. The goal is to maximize the amount of useful information being provided to the discussion boards. The higher volume of members using this forum will translate to more traffic, more information, and more diverse perspectives on any given topic. Please subscribe to your forums of interest and consider using the forums when searching for information. Please also consider sharing your expertise when another member needs information.
NCADA members generally have online access at almost any time of the day and regularly need expert information, case law updates, and brainstorming sessions. The NCADA discussion forums could be an extraordinarily helpful tool if regularly used by the membership. If we all commit to subscribing to discussion forums of interest, the discussion forums have an opportunity to become a valuable part of the NCADA membership.
Thank you for your assistance in this endeavor!
