One Car Crash, Two Miracles and the Many Wonders of BarCARES

By Jeff Bradford

I’m presently in my fifth year on the board of directors for BarCARES, a wonderful non-profit that provides a wide array of confidential counseling services to lawyers and their families.

My BarCARES story began on July 15, 2009. I was driving home from a nurse expert deposition in Greensboro when I met Gerline. I met her at about 5 p.m. in the left-hand lane of Highpoint Road, between a Toys R Us and a Bojangles’. I was traveling about 45 mph when she turned out of the opposite left-hand lane, through the turn lane, and directly in front of me. I had no time to react. I just hit the brakes, decelerated maybe 5 or 10 mph, and then slammed into her. My airbag deployed as I caromed across several lanes of traffic to my right, pushing her along with me. It was extremely frightening. We ended up directly in front of Bojangles’.

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Defend Your Firm Against WannaCry and Other Cyber Attacks

 By Joyce Brafford

A malicious program called WannaCry has affected more than 200,000 people, businesses and institutions in 150 countries in recent days. Through a bit of luck, an antivirus professional found a kill switch for the primary program. But other variants are still working. Global attacks may have slowed, but they haven’t stopped. Your law firm needs to update its software and get prepared for the inevitable onslaught of similar programs in the future.

Here’s what we know about WannaCry, and what you need to know to stay safe.

Name and Aliases: WannaCry, WannaDecryptor, WCry and WannaCrypt

Operating Systems at Risk: Windows, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 and Windows 8. The latest version of Windows does not have the exploited vulnerability. If you are running any of the unsupported systems, or Windows 8, download the security patch immediately. You can find guidance from Microsoft here.

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Ode To Working Moms, From a Guy Who Gets It

By Russell Rawlings

The original version of this column appeared in the newsletter of the Communications Section of the National Association of Bar Executives (NABE) as a tribute to the young professional women serving on the section’s executive council. The sentiments contained therein, however, also apply to the thousands of working mothers who count themselves among the membership and staff of the North Carolina Bar Association.

My first big boss was a woman. Her name was Elizabeth Swindell, and she owned The Wilson Daily Times. That is where I began my professional career as a sportswriter in 1974 – before many of the women I’m writing about in this column were born.

Miss Swindell, as we knew her, would never weigh more than 100 pounds, yet she remains to this day the toughest woman I ever met. In addition to her duties at the newspaper, she was also a mother, grandmother and, by the time I started working for her, a great-grandmother.

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