I cannot believe it is February.  I am happy that we have warmer weather, I cannot remember the last time we had a cold snap for almost two weeks here in Florida and certainly do not recall it snowing in Orlando!  I don’t know about you, but I am ready for Spring and beach weather. 

We have a wonderful group of board members as well as committee members who are working hard planning the Annual Seminar, Pro Bono Events and Social Events.

The Hillsborough County Bar Association's 19th Annual 5K Run and Food Festival is scheduled on Saturday, March 29th.  TBPA will have a table with water for the runners.

The next Wills for Heroes is scheduled for Saturday, April 19^th at the HCBA office in Downtown Tampa. You can register to volunteer on our events page.

We are working on our next quarterly Cocktails & Connections; this time we plan to be in the Tampa area. Stay tuned for details!

Registration is now open for the Annual Seminar!  Please be sure to check the Seminar page for updates.  We are also planning a celebration for our 25^th Anniversary which will be held immediately after the Seminar.  If you have photos from prior TBPA events that you have attended, please forward them to me, we would love to see them and share them with other Members.

We are always looking for suggestions for speakers and topics.  If you have a great speaker or a suggestion for a CLE topic (is there hot topic in your area of practice? a new rule change or proposed rule change), please reach out and share.

As an Active Member, you are eligible to serve on the Board of Directors. If joining the Board is not for you right now, you can still get involved by serving on a committee. If you have considered getting more involved with TBPA, please reach out to me to chat, I am happy meet you for lunch or coffee, on a phone call, zoom.  You can join a committee at any time.

Did you know as a member of TBPA, you receive a 15% discount on NALA dues?  NALA is celebrating its 50^th Anniversary this year.  The NALA Conference will be held July 10^th through 12^th in Atlantic City, you can register for the conference now.

Feel free to reach out to me anytime if you have questions or suggestions on how to continue to grow TBPA.

Sincerely,

Nita Serrano, ACP, FRP, AACP

President

Tampa Bay Paralegal Association, Inc.

president@tbpa.org

www.tbpa.org

Please note Effective January 2025, Monthly CLE Luncheons will be moving to the second Tuesday of each month!!

The Florida Bar News recently posted a very interesting article on March 21, 2019 titled Survey Looks at Paralegal Salaries that discusses paralegal's salaries.  "Sixty-two percent of Florida law firms use paralegals and 51 percent of those say their paralegals averaged more than 1,000 billable hours last year"  Do you know what average salaries for paralegals are where you live?  Take a look at the full article here.