First of all, I would like to say thank you for allowing me to serve as your Chair for 2017-2018. I am truly humbled by the honor. It is hard to believe how fast the past three years have flown by since I took over as treasurer for the Division. It seems like just yesterday that I sat in nervous excitement, wide-eyed and full of wonder in my first retreat/council meeting in 2012 at the North Carolina Zoo. Several years have passed, but I still sit wide-eyed and full of wonder at the amount of talent, intelligence, and experience that sits around me at our council meetings. We are truly fortunate to have such a hard-working, engaged group of professionals in our Division.

I would like for our goals this year to be: (1) to continue to encourage engagement statewide for representation on the council, our committees and as section liaisons; (2) to continue to look for ways we can embrace technology and/or be the segue way of bringing new technology to our firms/employers; and, (3) to continue to seek out pro bono opportunities as a way for our membership to give back to the Bar Association and the citizens of North Carolina.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to become involved in one (or more) of our committees or to sign on as a liaison to a Bar Association section. I am involved in both and have found it to be extremely satisfying to be a part of something beyond simply being a member of the Association. In the near future we will be putting out some basic information about our committees and what each one does, and I hope you will read over these short blurbs and decide to become more involved with the Division!

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions, if there are things you feel the Division needs to be doing, if you have webcast or CPE ideas we can pursue, or feel there are other ways we can enhance your membership. I am looking forward to serving you this year!

Debbie Harris has been employed with Davidson County Government in Lexington since 2003, and is a government/public sector paralegal and Clerk to the Board of County Commissioners. Debbie has been a member of the Paralegal Division since 2005 and serves in the Division as the Scholarship Committee Chair and the Division’s liaison to the Juvenile Justice and Children’s Rights Section.

August 18, 2017/by NCBARBLOG