I don't recall when Rose and I came up with this concept for a new non-credit course that could be offered at the Stetson Center at Celebration. Perhaps around 2009.

We learned that there was a association called NALS … the association for legal professionals. NALS, at this time, had a certification program to become an Accredited Legal Secretary (ALS). (The NALS certifications have since expanded and have been renamed.)

The program had its own textbook, and certification required passing of a fairly lengthy test based on information in the textbook. Those passing the test would earn the Accredited Legal Secretary certification. Something very nice for someone attempting to earn an entry level job in a law firm.

We approached NALS, asking if we could be an authorized provider of their program, using their textbooks, and with the students who passed our certification preparation course taking the ALS Certification Examination to earn the ALS certification. Plus, we would structure the cost of our course to provide ALS some mutually agreed upon share of each student’s fee. They agreed and we were on the way. We hired an attorney who would teach the course and began advertising for students. And the classes began. Shortly, we had a created quiz for each chapter and an end-of-course exam. By 2011 we also had an online version and it was doing well. The program was a success! We had motivated students and an excellent attorney/instructor. Rose kept a close eye on the program (as well as everything else).

What? A Test Before the Class? There was one aspect of the course we delivered at the Stetson Center that people reading this might find interesting. Here's an explanation using an example. Suppose the class met each week for three hours on Thursday night and the lesson for the week was on bankruptcies. But for every class, in this case, bankruptcies, class members had to take an online test that had to be turned in by Wednesday night, a day before the actual class. Now you might wonder take a test before you even had the class? This is what we explained to our students. In the learning hierarchy for certain subject, there are facts that deal with that subject. Some number of these facts, when grouped together, provide information on some particular aspect of the subject. Now combine these packages of information and they can be turned into a subject application which is useful, possibly for profit. Then, with experience, the various applications can be compared and contrasted, and possibly modified to create a superior application. So, we would say to the students, can you see how starting with facts we build a hierarchy of knowledge? And we would continue by pointing out that Stetson University was paying an experienced attorney a fairly substantial salary to be present on Thursday nights. So if our attorney had to deal with students who had not mastered any of the facts or any of the information (as measured by our pre-class quiz) then the lawyer would be forced to deal with the bottom end of that hierarchy, instead of being able to share his or her higher level experiences so that students could better understand applications and be able to begin to compare and contrast them. Never got one bit of an argument from the students, and they were all faithful in taking their one-day-early quizzes, (which were part of their final grade).

My employment with Stetson ended in January 2012, and Rose carried on with the program, eventually converting it to an online program. This continued until around 2016 when Rose, who had ended her employment with Stetson to better care for her mother, and continued through 2016 as a contract employee.

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Footnote. The Association of Legal Secretaries has changed his name once and is about to change his name again. And their certification name has also changed and is about to change again. And while Stetson University, at the time we ran the program, was the only program outside of the actual association that was running a legal secretary certification program, now there must be at least 20 nationwide.

The NALS course initially followed a blended learning format, with tests and course materials available both online and in textbooks. Classes were taught in person by professionals working in the legal field. Around 2013, the course transitioned to a fully online format, attracting students from across the country while maintaining a very high pass rate on the NALS examination.

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