A Comprehensive Guide to Your ALA Benefits

Opportunity Knocks

Membership in ALA offers opportunities for:

• Knowledge sharing and networking opportunities (locally, regionally, nationally and internationally)
  
• Professional recognition
  
• Chapter and leadership support (substantive educational tools, idea exchanges and workshops to educate chapter leaders)
  
• and a whole host of resources and opportunities for professional development - see more about all of ALA's member benefits below.

Educational Opportunities

For an overview of all Education Events see the Education area on this site.

• Certified Legal Manager (CLM)^SM Program provides members the opportunity to measure their knowledge and help raise professional standards. The certification assessment process includes meeting educational and experience requirements and passing an examination that tests knowledge of 56 key competencies.
  

• Annual Conference & Exposition - This ALA Annual Conference is the legal management profession’s most comprehensive event of its kind. Featuring more than 100 educational sessions focusing on legal industry trends and developments, unparalleled networking opportunities and a three-day Exposition, the Annual Conference brings together more than 3,000 legal management professionals, business partners and experts from around the world.
  

• Regional Conferences - ALA's six regions host smaller and shorter annual conferences of their own, which also provide great educational sessions and create a support network of colleagues and vendors from around their region.
  
• Retreats and Specialized Programs - ALA's educational opportunities include a wide range of retreats and specialized programs that will enhance and broaden your legal management knowledge base. You can find more information about each of these programs in the Education area of this site, or for specific, current program information, see Meetings and Events on this site. Included in this lineup of special programs are the Essential Compentencies for Legal Administrators, Law Firm Financial Management Conference, Large Firm Principal Administrators Retreat, and the Intellectual Property Retreat.
  
• ALA Webinars - gives members, lawyers and their staff the opportunity to gain knowledge and insight into a variety of law office management and personal development topics. The Webinars, presented live by subject-matter experts, allow participants to sit in their own offices, conference rooms or even their own homes as they listen by phone and view via the Internet.
  
• Law Firm Profitability Enhancement Webcast - a unique distance learning opportunity, ALA is excited to bring you the Law Firm Profitability Enhancement Program. This Webcast will show you how to control costs, target your firm's financial strengths and increase profitability with a quick and easy cost-accounting tool.

Publications

Whether you are a legal administrator, support manager, managing partner, solo practitioner, or other functional specialist in your legal organization, you will find that ALA’s large family of publications offers a variety of unique articles, insights, and information to meet your professional development needs.

Member Discounts on Management Resources

The ALA Bookstore offers, at discounted rates to members, a collection of informative resources prepared by experts, all designed to increase productivity, profitability, and quality of services. The Bookstore also carries a variety of logo products.

Books are available for legal management professionals on the following topics:

• human resources
• finance
• technology
• facilities
• leadership
• total quality management
• marketing

ALA's Value in Partnership (VIP)^SM Program (discounts/special benefits from the following organizations)

• ABA Retirement Funds
• Allied Van Lines
  
• Bank of America
• Daryl Flood Mobility Solutions/Agent for Mayflower®Transit
• GLJ Benefit Consultants, Inc.
  • John Hancock Life Insurance Company
  • Principal Life Insurance Company
• Grand & Toy (Canada Only)
• The Gunlocke Company (Office Furniture)
• OfficeMax® Legal Solutions
• Quill.com
• Robert Half Legal
• Thomson Reuters myPay Solutions
• United Parcel Service

ALA Management Solutions^SM

ALA Management Solutions^SM is a free reference service for ALA members. Its purpose is to help you find targeted information and answers to legal management questions.

Reference Desk is run by full-time ALA staff members with extensive research skills and experience in law office management. These researchers have access to the Association's ever-growing database of legal management information. They use a systematic approach to understand your questions, conduct research and deliver information and resources to help you tackle most law office management issues.

Peer Consulting works on the theory that a fellow legal administrator can be one of the best resources for answering your work-related questions.

Extraordinary Law Firm Initiative

The Extraordinary Law Firm Initiative is built upon a very special purpose-the promise that ALA can improve its members' return on their investments in the Association by helping them bring more values to their employing organizations and empowering them to make their organizations great places to work for everyone who works there. A tall order indeed-and one we have been building upon each year through our publications, educational offerings, and expert guidance.

Legal Management Resource Center (LMRC)

The Legal Management Resource Center (LMRC) is an online Internet-based resource available to help you answer today's most pressing legal management questions.

Career Center/Job Bank

Resources available through ALA's Career Center/Job Bank:

• Job Seekers - Job Bank Resources, including job ads available any day, any time and resume posting.
• Employers - Job Bank Resources, including blind box ads and online ad posting.
• Peer Consulting Directory - peer experts to assist ALA members with their hiring and career needs.
• Career Talk - a monthly article supplied by Robert Half Legal®, with a wide range of career-related subject matter.
• Hiring a Legal Administrator? - for prospective employers.
• Additional Career Resources, including articles from Robert Half Legal®, and other links and information pertaining to your career needs.

Legal Marketplace

When looking for products and services in the legal industry, make ALA's Legal Marketplace your first stop.

Community Service

As a professional organization, ALA takes its role as a corporate citizen seriously. ALA members have tremendous individual talents and skills that can be applied to making a difference not just in their law firms and within the Association, but also in their broader communities.

Community Challenge Weekend (CCW) program helps them do this and to provide a focus for chapter community service, ALA designates the month of October each year as a time for all members and chapters to address challenges their communities face. Everyone is encouraged to pick a project that will make a difference.

Many chapters undertake community service projects in addition to their participation in the Community Challenge Weekend. These volunteer efforts range from toy and gift donations around the holidays to outreach programs aimed at helping high school students explore career options.

Network of Expertise

Members, staff, educators, consultants, and vendors willingly share their accumulated knowledge, wisdom and experience with others. Although much of this sharing occurs informally-during lunch at a chapter meeting, over the phone, in the hallway at a conference- ALA also provides programs and people to help get questions answered.

The ALA Membership Resource Directory will help you meet Industry Colleagues through networking opportunities provided at chapter meetings and other ALA events; join online discussion forums or electronic roundtables covering the subjects that interest you. The Peer Consulting Database located in the Legal Management Resource Center (LMRC) Home Community is an excellent resource as well.

Also, take advantage of ALA's Regional Management Teams and the Headquarters staff. These people have the knowledge and experience to help, and if they can't answer your questions, they can usually find someone who can.

Diversity

Diversity is reflected in a number of ways: race, religion, gender, ableism and cultural behaviors. To operate and manage effectively with these demographics, ALA's diversity initiative is designed to increase awareness of and sensitivity to the differences among our workforce, and to advance the concepts of inclusiveness and acceptance.

Professional Legal Management Week^SM

Professional Legal Management Week^SM (PLMW) provides a forum for recognizing those in legal management for what they do and the role they play in the success of the organization, and in its service to its clients and those who work in the organization.

Charitable Foundation

The Foundation of the Association of Legal Administrators (FALA) is an education and research affiliate of ALA dedicated to supporting activities that advance legal management and service to the legal profession and community.

Online Members Only Website Benefits

• ALA Currents
  This newsletter about law firm management trends and innovations is provided exclusively to all ALA members via e-mail. Featuring a comprehensive redesign for 2009, ALA Currents is disseminated twice a month (24 times per year, typically on the first and third Thursdays of each month) as an HTML e-mail and is a “must-read” for principal administrators around the world.

• ALA Management Solutions^SM
  ALA Management Solutions^SM is a full time reference service and information resource. Staffed by research specialists, the Management Solutions team will provide clear, detailed and on-point responses to your legal management questions – often within one business day. Prepared "research studies" are immediately accessible for the most frequently asked management questions.

• ALA Value in Partnership (VIP)
  Resources and services from nationally known companies. ALA members, their employers and their families have the opportunity to enjoy the savings or special benefits these programs provide.

• Chapter Resources
  Many useful tools are available to create, guide and develop an effective chapter of ALA.

• Classified Ads
  Advertise products, services, equipment, rentals or other items that may be of interest to other members and/or their employer organizations.

• Diversity Resource Database
  Designed to provide information to facilitate the recruitment of diverse candidates; market the legal field as a viable career path; collaborate on activities with other law-related organizations; and partner and encourage relationships with minority vendors.

• Learning on Demand
  ALA has partnered with other learning organizations to offer ALA members an opportunity for continuing education.

• ALA Discussion Groups
  * Technology – A bulletin board for technology issues in law firms, corporate legal departments and similar organizations.
  * Human Resources – A bulletin board for human resources issues in law firms, corporate legal department and similar organizations.
  * ALA Open Forum – A bulletin Board to share ideas, pose questions and seek solutions on almost any issue relating to legal administration and management.

• Question of the Month
  Each month, ALA posts a commonly industry asked question. A short summary of the answer is provided, along with links to content in the Legal Management Resource Center (LMRC) where you will find many resources that will address the question posed.