Maria DeFilippis
Associate Professor
APPLICATION FOR CAITL FACULTY FELLOWSHIP
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PROPOSAL: Creating a Model for the Comprehensive Integration of Technology Across the Paralegal Curriculum
GOAL: To create an open database for legal web sources and software in a variety of substantive law topics
OBJECTIVE: Enhance the professional development of adjunct faculty & provide program students with web-based competency


As the Coordinator of the Paralegal Studies Program here at RVCC, I have always considered it my responsibility to ensure that program students receive a consistent and a current education. Surveys conducted each year of program graduates and their employers continually mention the need for more web-based research abilities and legal software and technology knowledge. Over my eleven years here, I have made it a professional development goal to become techno-savvy myself, and to translate my professional development into classroom tools. I have developed and teach an on-line Legal Ethics course. I incorporate legal software tools into my legal classes whenever appropriate, and I assign and require students to engage in various forms of Internet research as part of their course grade. I have, with the help of Kevin Keefe, obtained a Perkins Grant for the purchase of legal specific software for various substantive areas of law taught in the program. However, I am but one instructor in a program that offers a possibility of 13 different substantive law courses. How can I insure that students receive relevant technology instruction in all program courses? In attempting to integrate technology across the entire paralegal curriculum, two major challenges arise:

1. How to integrate technology and web-based resources into the traditional knowledge base of adjuncts within the program. Keeping myself current is tough enough; reaching the adjunct faculty is a challenge. The adjunct professors teaching in the program are traditionally-educated practicing attorneys, with little training in the use of web-based tools to enhance student learning or classroom experiences, yet these tools are increasingly demanded by area employers of program graduates. Creation of an open database, accessible by adjunct faculty, would give them the tools they need to easily incorporate technology into their individual substantive law courses.

2. How to insure coherence in web-based instruction within the program curriculum. As the only full-time faculty member teaching in the program, I can be certain that all my students receive basic web instruction, but I cannot expect adjunct faculty to invest the enormous amount of time needed to investigate and evaluate the vast number of web resources available within the legal discipline they teach. Creation of a database, with open student access, covering relevant resources specific to each course offered in the program, would provide a centralized location for individual student inquiry, a tool they could access for current articles, court opinions, etc. Ultimately, the entire paralegal program would gain technological coherence, and each graduate would be provided with a web-based commonality to bring into the marketplace.

My fellowship proposal then is to create an open database for legal web sources in a variety of substantive law areas. I believe the process will involve three basic steps: first, I will need to do the necessary research to create a user-friendly database. This will require the use of search engines and entail significant research to locate relevant sources in the legal field. Next, I will need to design and present workshops and seminars to adjunct faculty and students in the effective use of the database. With faculty, I will stress the methods for integrating these web tools into traditional coursework; with students, I will stress the need for web-based knowledge and inquiry in their future careers and in the marketplace. And finally, I will need to collaborate and continually assess the database, to make certain that it is a dynamic, rather than a static tool, allowing continual input and change from and by users. I will evaluate student familiarity with web sources through surveys in collaboration with program adjuncts. I will assess the efficacy and currency of the database with the support of various college constituencies, including adjunct faculty, M.I.S., and CAITL, and with various professional constituencies, including the area attorneys and business people on my program advisory board as well as graduate and coop employers.

The project will require community support and I will collaborate with and share progress with colleagues in other areas such as:

  • Instructional Design: creating & posting the database
  • CAITL: leadership guidance
  • RVCC Library: assisting with finding web resources
  • Student Club: sponsoring student seminars on use of database & promoting same among their peers
  • Adjunct Faculty: integrating the database into existing courses, feedback & collaboration
  • Paralegal Studies Advisory Committee: evaluating efficacy of database from perspective of area employers and business professionals

Institutional benefits of the project would include:

  1. Enhancing the professional development of adjunct faculty within the paralegal program
  2. Enhancing student learning and ultimately their marketability
  3. Providing web-based and technological coherence to the paralegal program curriculum
  4. Serving as a useful model for faculty colleagues in other disciplines
  5. Possibly becoming a broader community resource, one which the college might provide to area legal professionals, especially if permanently posted on the college web page.

Finally, evaluating the success of the project will consist of several steps. First of all, I will develop a timetable for completion of the project. Meeting that timetable will be one measure of success. I will also measure the success of the project in a quantitative way by counting “hits” to the database page. Finally, and probably most important, I will conduct student and faculty evaluations of the database. I will develop two surveys, one for students and the other for faculty, assessing their perceptions and their use of the database, in order to measure the qualitative success of the project.

MARIA M. DeFILIPPIS, Esq.
P.O. Box 116, Schooleys Mtn., NJ 07870
mdefilip@raritanval.edu

Bar Admissions:
  • Member of United State Supreme Court Bar, 1996 to present
  • Member of New Jersey State Bar, 1979 to present
  • Member of Pennsylvania State Bar, 1979 to present

Education:
  • Rutgers University School of Law – Juris Doctor, May 1978
  • Douglass College – Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, May 1975

Legal Career:
  • Includes four years as a Somerset County Prosecutor, and 10 years in private litigation practice in central NJ law firms. Currently maintains a solo legal practice in Somerville, NJ, and has been actively involved in the paralegal regulation issue in NJ for over 15 years.
  • Has served on the NJ Supreme Court Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, when it issued the infamous UPL Opinion 24 on independent paralegals, and the NJ Supreme Court Committee on Paralegal Education & Regulation, when it issued The PERC Report recommending state paralegal licensure.
  • Currently a member of the NJ State Bar Association Paralegal Committee, and serves as chair of the NJSBA ad hoc Committee on Paralegal Regulation.

RVCC Career:
Promoted to Associate Professor in June 2001

Coordinator of the ABA Approved Paralegal Studies Program since its inception in 1991, teaching a variety of paralegal courses, hiring and evaluating adjunct faculty, and handling program development and outreach

Developed new Paralegal Certificate for the Program

Advisor of the Paralegal Club, providing academic and career counseling for students and job placement for graduates

Chair, Business Department “Life After 2000” Regional Conference, AY 1997/98

Co-chair of the AAfPE (American Association for Paralegal Education) Northeast Regional Conference in Princeton, NJ, Spring 2000

Course Development, including: Computer Applications for the Law Office, which emphasizes legal specific software, internet resources and technology; Alternate Dispute Resolution, which incorporates service learning as an integral part of course requirements, providing students with training and opportunity to serve a court mediators in the tri-county judicial district; and Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility , taught entirely on-line.
  • Authored two published papers: ADR: Integrating Classwork with Community, The Virtuosity of the Community College Mission, 1999, and Teaching Ethics in a Practical Legal Setting, NJCATE, National Science Foundation, 1996
  • Presenter at over 20 seminars and workshops within the last five years, both within RVCC and outside the college in the broader legal and educational community
  • Service on numerous college committees, including within the last five years: Honors Advisory Council, College Conduct Hearing Board, Curriculum Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, Teaching On-line Committee, Middle States Periodic Review Committee, President’s Retention Committee, Presidential Evaluation Committee
  • Elected to various college positions, including within the last five years: Forum Steering Committee, AFT Executive Council and Union Negotiating Team

Legal & Professional Memberships:
  • NJ State Bar Association – Chair, President’s ad hoc Committee on Paralegal Regulation
  • Member, Standing Committee on Paralegals
  • Somerset County Bar Association – Member, Programs Committee
  • NJ Supreme Court – Appointed to Court Committee on Paralegal Education & Regulation;
  • Appointed to Court Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law
  • AAfPE – Member and Co-chair of Northeast Regional Conference
  • American Bar Association – Site Team Member to review paralegal programs in colleges in both Connecticut and New York states
  • NALA & NFPA – Membership in National Paralegal Associations
  • LAANJ & SJPA – Membership in State Paralegal Associations

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Updated 9/16/2002 by AKT