Meet IPA Director Gordon Ferguson
At the September 11th Board Meeting, Gordon Ferguson was appointed to fill a vacancy on the IPA Board of Directors. Below is Gordon's Candidate Statement, submitted to the Board for review.
Background
Across my twenty-year paralegal career, I have provided legal support in a variety of litigation matters and venues, from patent and product liability disputes in mass torts and MDLs, to mortgage foreclosures and EEOC claims, to commercial and construction litigation. I have interviewed, hired and managed paralegal teams, supported on-site trial teams in state and federal courts, and trained paralegals and new associates on firm processes, court procedures and electronic discovery.
I began my career in 2003 at what was then Schiff, Hardin & Waite and is now Arent Schiff Fox, working on patent litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in cases with millions of pages of documents and tremendous stakes for our clients. In 2007 I moved to Boston to work for Peabody & Arnold on their pharmaceutical product liability practice in cooperation with other firms on cases in courts across the country, successfully identifying and researching expert witnesses, developing fact patterns in hundreds of cases, and providing courtroom support during hearings and trials. After a year working remotely from New Zealand, I returned to Chicago and joined Gould & Ratner in 2016, supporting their broad-based commercial litigation and employment practices in Illinois state and federal courts as well as other administrative bodies. I currently work as Director of Litigation Support for Goodman Law Group | Chicago, managing discovery projects, e-filing, and providing any other necessary support in their cases, which primarily business insurance litigation, but also other types of commercial disputes. I have been a member of the IPA since 2017.
Objectives
My goal as a Director of the Illinois Paralegal Association is to empower paralegals at any stage of their careers to reach their full potential. I believe that a paralegal with the right set of skills and experience is an undervalued asset in many law firms and legal departments, so my hope is to help show what a wide variety of roles a paralegal can fill, and to help paralegals, attorneys, and clients understand that a smart, experienced paralegal can enable attorneys to both focus on their highest-level tasks and protect them from procedural and factual errors. I believe this is a vitally important way to promote the profession in a time of rapidly evolving work environments, opportunity, and technology.
I’ve been privileged to work with terrific paralegals (whatever their title) from across the country and I’ve seen the importance of a good network in realizing opportunity and developing skills. I think the Illinois Paralegal Association is an amazing vehicle for that type of exposure and education and I know how much I have benefited from my membership. As a member of the Board, I hope to encourage other paralegals and legal assistants to seek those benefits and expand their careers beyond “traditional” paralegal roles, and to educate their attorneys on the high quality and wide variety of work we can accomplish, and the value we can create, as essential members of their teams.