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Paralegal by Day - Drag Queen by Night

Taken from my favorite tabloid - Above The Law.

Res ipsa loquitur; we'll keep our commentary to a minimum. Click here to access a short video about Antonio Haynes / Jenna Saisquoi, "Paralegal by day, drag queen by night." Fabulosity!

Some commenters will surely have irreverent observations. We say: Caveat commentor. Are you sure you wanna mess with Ms. Jenna Saisquoi? Paralegals are talented at hunting people down -- and Ms. Saisquoi has an impressive set of guns (and bazookas).

P.S. At the start of the video, Haynes mentions that he won't mention where he works as a paralegal. Consistent with that, please don't identify or speculate about his legal employer in the comments. Thanks. (Source>>>)

Paralegal Participates in Guardian Program

Some of the most vulnerable people in Pierce County now have another place to turn for help.

Earlier this month, state court officials launched a new guardianship program in five counties across Washington, including Pierce.

Low-income people deemed “incapacitated” by a judge can get services through the program, including help with their finances and assistance finding adequate housing, according to a news release issued last week by the Administrative Office of the Courts, which will oversee the program.

Only people referred through the courts qualify for the program.

Someone is considered legally incapacitated if he or she is unable to exercise his or her rights or provide for his or her basic needs without the help of a guardian.

A guardian is a surrogate decision maker for such a person and has court-ordered authority to act on that person’s behalf.

A state task force that studied the issue last year found that about 4,500 people in Washington need such help because they have no family members able or willing to help them or can’t afford to hire a professional guardian to assist them in their daily lives.

The Legislature appropriated more than $1.4 million to launch the public guardianship program this year.

Loralee McDonell-Williams has been appointed as guardian for those who qualify for help in Pierce County.

A county native, McDonell-Williams is a paralegal by profession and has worked as a private guardian for a number of years.

“Basically, I’m able to help people manage their funds, pay their bills, get them into a healthy living environment,” McDonnel-Williams said last week.

Clallam, Grays Harbor, Okanogan and Spokane counties also are opening pilot programs this year. (Source)

Paralegal Opens Educational Supply Store

Since Anderson Education Center and The Learning Zone closed in 2006, Anderson teachers have been forced to drive to Greenville, Easley or Seneca for classroom supplies. But a pair of friends plan to fill that void when The Chalk Monkey opens today.

Anderson residents Crystal Parsons and Kristy McKain started talking about opening a small business five years ago. Standing in a Clemson gift shop they were thinking of buying, the two realized their passion was in educational supplies.

Parsons, who’s spend the past 17 years working in preschools, was ready for a change and selling classroom supplies allows her to use her teaching experience. McKain is a mom and part-time paralegal.

“There was nothing here,” Parsons said. “There was no place for a teacher if you needed something on the fly or last minute.”

The Chalk Monkey’s 1,400-square-foot store carries bulletin board paper, letters and borders, posters, Christian and secular teacher resources, as well as educational toys from Melissa & Doug, HABA, and First Note.

A play area for children is set up by the register. The women also offer teacher registries, a wish list shoppers can search by name like a wedding or baby registry. Parsons said her goal is to accommodate customers’ requests — she’s even willing to stop by classrooms after hours to determine the best way to meet a specific need.

“It was a big loss when (Anderson Education Center) went out of business,” said Casey Ellison, a third grade teacher at Whitehall Elementary. “This will definitely help.”

She and other teachers received e-mail announcements from The Chalk Monkey, and they are certain there’s enough teaching business in Anderson to support the store. Every year, teachers need new borders, sentence strips and other items you can’t find at Office Depot, said Catherine Hurray, a sixth-grade science teacher at McCants Middle School.

“You get so tired of driving out of town or ordering online,” she said. “It’s so nice to go in somewhere and browse.” (Source)

Paralegal Builds Success in a New Home

At age 18, Shamoon Poonawala was excited about moving to Canada from Pakistan. "I've travelled in many countries and have been one of those individuals who could go anywhere with confidence and make friends," he says. But his enthusiasm was quickly stifled. "I found it very difficult initially to fit in," Mr. Poonawala recalls about arriving in Toronto with his family in 1997. "Coolness is very crucial to youth here. I had to change the way I dressed. It took me a while to make friends."

For the first year, he lived with his family in his uncle's one bedroom apartment; there were nine people living in the unit, all whom were over the age of 16. "It wasn't very comfortable," he admits. His first job was at a fast food chain where he earned about the same wage as his parents who were forced to abandon their professions for minimum wage jobs. His father, an engineer, took a job as a janitor.

Mr. Poonawala wanted to make something of himself. Through his travels he can converse in six languages, so he also wanted to practise in a profession where he could help other newcomers to Canada cope with social and professional barriers. Initially he attended university with hopes of a career in law but was forced to drop out because his family had no money and he was denied a student loan. He then settled for a paralegal diploma from Herzing College.

Following graduation, he started a business plan for a paralegal service but had to revise it when Ontario introduced new paralegal legislation. "I had to go back and do all the research to be sure I was eligible for licensing," he says.

With financing and mentoring from CYBF he finally launched Magnate Paralegal Services in the troubled Malvern community. "I could have gone downtown [in Toronto]," he says. "But I decided to set up the office in the Malvern region because I thought it would be best to reach the people who I knew needed help."

His mentor, Brian Tapner who works in risk management, served as "the sound of reason."

"As a young entrepreneur, one of the problems I found was recognizing who I should have as a client," says Mr. Poonawala, who had to rein in his altruistic nature to achieve business success. "It wasn't about money but about business sense. Brian pointed out there are good clients and bad clients, and bad clients would be the ones who will eat up a lot of time. For our business, it's very crucial the client is able to trust you and you can trust the client."

Open more than one year, Magnate Paralegal Services employs three people and is growing in its client base. Mr. Poonawala also serves as vice-president of the Paralegal Society of Canada and volunteers actively in his Malvern neighbourhood. "I wanted to raise the ideology that a person in Malvern can make a difference," he says.

Like Mr. Poonawala's parents, Liliana Olmedo Garcia wasn't able to practice her profession when she made the move to Vancouver from Mexico three years ago. She moved on her own at the urging of a friend, leaving behind family, friends and a budding career as a veterinarian.

She didn't realize that resuming work in her field would be a challenge; she faced an 18-month wait just to write the provincial certification exam at a cost of $4,000.

She was also unable to find any type of related work, even as an assistant, so she took a job in a retail clothing store. "I wasn't working in my background, which was a little bit difficult but it was good because I had the opportunity to chat with many people, learn more about the culture and talk to people about animals," she says.

Ms. Olmedo Garcia heard about CYBF through a friend and began thinking about how she could parlay her professional background into a business opportunity.

Within a year, she launched Animals Overcranked Daycare Centre Ltd., which is akin to a consultancy on animal behaviour focused mainly on dogs.

She is modelling her business after fellow Mexican, Cesar Millan, a world-renown behavioural specialist for dogs, and is in the throes of planning a physical location complete with a recreational park and training facility for dogs.

When asked if she has any advice for newcomers to Canada, she is succinctly assertive. "Don't ever, ever, ever give up. It might be especially difficult for the first year but don't stop, there are a lot of opportunities." (Source)

Paralegal Creates "Bit o' Lit"

Bored and cranky, Shannon MacDonald was riding the Metro one morning four years ago, headed to her job as a paralegal at Akin Gump.

She was tired of crosswords and Sudokus. She'd never been much of a newspaper person. She was a "book nut" -- but due to recent poor choices at the library, she didn't have anything good to read.

Cue the light bulb: Wouldn't it be great if you could pick up free commuter-length book excerpts at Metro stations? Wouldn't publishers be eager to cooperate, to promote new books and authors? Couldn't somebody, say Shannon MacDonald, turn this into a profit-making enterprise?

Well, she's about to find out. It took a few years for MacDonald to focus her ideas, meet publishers, line up designers and printers and quit her day job. But she's now the sole publisher of the latest and most literary addition to the local freebie reading lineup -- Bit o' Lit.

A bite-size (8 1/2 -by-5 1/2 -inch) magazine containing four or five excerpts in each issue, Bit o' Lit made its debut May 5 and has come out on alternate Mondays since then. In a world where more and more reading is being done on a screen, the 25-year-old MacDonald is headed in the other direction: using one dead-tree medium to promote another.

"It's kind of a retro idea, in this read-excerpts-online world, but it's a neat idea -- giving books to people who have time to kill on the subway," said Carl Lennertz, vice president of Independent Retailing at HarperCollins.  After meeting MacDonald last winter and liking her concept, he put her in touch with other publishing houses; so far, Bit o' Lit's expanding lineup of sources includes Farrar Straus Giroux, Hyperion and others.

From her New York office at Spiegel & Grau, a division of Random House's Doubleday group, marketing director Meghan Walker said she liked the contrast to the "free rags and celebrity gossip" handed out to Manhattan subway riders. Like other publishers, she selects which excerpts are printed, and she leans toward those with D.C. relevance or marketing potential -- like putting Matt Taibbi's "The Great Derangement" in Bit o' Lit just before the author's appearance at Politics and Prose. "He had a great turnout," Walker said, and while it's unclear how much of that was due to Bit o' Lit, she said the magazine was "affordable and worth the gamble." Lennertz of HarperCollins put Fergus Bordewich's "Washington: The Making of the American Capital" in Bit o' Lit's second issue.

Publishers pay MacDonald $148 per page, with excerpts running four to eight pages. That money covers the basic design and printing costs, but not much else. MacDonald has had little success in selling advertisements, which means she hasn't seen much in the way of profits.

Since she's on such a tight budget, MacDonald also delivers the 20,000 copies of the magazine herself, sometimes getting friends to help in exchange for pizza. She estimates that 75 percent of every edition has been picked up.

If MacDonald is discouraged, she doesn't show it. She emphasizes that the magazine is new, and she's learning the business as she goes along. For example, her first distribution boxes had flat tops. After a few were crushed when people sat on them, she switched to boxes with slanted tops, of which she now has 50. Both kinds of boxes can be found in Metro stops and other central locations in the District and Arlington.

One of the things MacDonald remains adamant about is that the magazine will not include reviews. She maintains that people have such different tastes that they should be able to judge the books for themselves.

"A good portion of the population . . . does not read book reviews, because there is no common language to talk about writing," she said. "Someone could say 'This is the best book in the world!' and that could mean nothing to me." (Source)

Paralegal Perspective: Carbon Dioxide is a Necessary Thing

The feature article on the front page of the May 29 Tennessean is entitled, "A cluster of emissions," and the first sentence proclaims, "Tennessee's four largest cities rank among the worst of the nation's carbon emitters."

As is normal in newspapers, a news photo accompanies the article, in this case a shot of downtown Nashville obscured in a thick haze with an electronic sign proclaiming "Air Quality Alert."

But wait … what's wrong with this picture? The article is about carbon dioxide emissions, and carbon dioxide is an invisible gas. Whatever was fouling the air in the Nashville skyline in that June 2007 photo was most certainly not carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is a perfectly natural component of the atmosphere, and life could not exist without it. Plants could not grow without carbon dioxide, and without plant life there could be no animal life. In fact, if it were not for carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the earth would be too cold to support all but the most primitive species. Those particulates that are dirtying the Nashville air in the picture, whatever they are, are not a product of carbon emissions.

Climate change is natural

The ordinary reader would logically assume if carbon emissions were cut, the air quality would improve, and people could breathe better. This is not true. Smog, ozone, haze, etc., are not caused by carbon emissions. Nashville is located in a basin, and when atmospheric inversions (when warmer air aloft traps particulates beneath it) occur, particularly in the summer, there will be dirty air at times. But it undoubtedly was worse decades ago, when pre-catalytic converter automobile engines were less efficient and people burned coal for heat.

Oh, and the article was continued on Page 8A of the newspaper. And once again there is an accompanying photo, with downtown Nashville again experiencing a Los Angeles-like smog, this time a 2004 file photo. I guess in case readers did not get the point from the first picture.

Climate change has happened throughout history, the earth has been much warmer in the past and much cooler in the past, as well. All scientists agree that human activity only accounts for a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In fact, a big volcanic eruption can produce more greenhouse gases than all of human activity throughout history combined.

Human activity has added additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere since 1998, and yet the earth has actually cooled since then, and this is not consistent with the original greenhouse theory. This is a serious subject worthy of serious debate, one that should not be clouded by inappropriate use of pictures that could be interpreted as sensationalizing the carbon emission debate. Carbon dioxide emissions did not cause the smoggy air in the photos, and that's what's wrong with this picture.

John Fox is a paralegal who works in downtown Nashville.  (Source >>>)

Paralegal Successfully Transitioned from Legal World to Hospitality Industry

Shirley Wick was nearly born in a police car, and she’s been speeding along ever since.

After a high school teacher said he wouldn’t waste time helping her because she was a girl, Wick was even more determined. By age 18, she was the administrative secretary for six criminal attorneys. Later she owned a paralegal company for 23 years.

A member of Executive Women International, Wick knows the benefits of relationships and networking.

She recently took time to tell CSBJ about herself and her company.

Company: Old Town GuestHouse

Position: Senior partner and president

Hometown: St. Paul, Minn.

How long have you lived in Colorado Springs: It will be 3 years July 1.

Education: Bachelor’s degree, with paralegal certification from the University of Minnesota.

A few words about your company: Old Town GuestHouse is a AAA 4-Diamond Bed and Breakfast. It has eight soundproof rooms, with seven balconies that overlook Pikes Peak and/or Garden of the Gods. One room is Americans with Disabilities Act-approved, four have private outdoor hot tubs and three have steam showers. We serve three-course hot-plated gourmet breakfasts, plus afternoon beverages and light appetizers. We also have conference, library and dining rooms.

Recent accomplishments: I served on the board of the 1,500-member Minnesota State Paralegal’s Professional Organization for 12 years — two as national representative and two as president. The most current accomplishment has been starting a successful business in a brand new town with my husband as my business partner.

Biggest career break: Starting my own freelance probate paralegal business Jan. 1, 1983, and being successful with it for 23 years — all without even a hint of a lawsuit. It allowed me to be home for my two sons, much more so than working in a law firm would have allowed.

The toughest part of your job: Finding good employees — honesty, loyalty and timeliness are my most important requirements. The next most difficult thing is letting businesses know we have facilities for their conference/video conference needs.

Someone you admire: My mom. Even though she had only an eighth-grade education when my dad died, she went to business school, got a decent-paying secretarial job and kept both of us off the street. She taught me to be very independent.

About your family: My husband, Donald, and I have two sons, Matthew and Jeffrey. We also have one grandson, Matthew Lee.

Something else you’d like to accomplish: I’d love to volunteer — maybe in the line of helping adults learn to read or tutoring of some kind.

How your business will change during the next decade: I see our business growing in video conferencing, becoming more and more green (even though we do a lot of recycling and special lighting now) and becoming more of a small-specialized retreat center.

What book are you currently reading? “Life Support” by Tess Gerritsen.

What is the one thing you would change about Colorado Springs? I’d like to expand other small business owners’ understanding of how to treat customers, how to focus a store on one line of items, how many hours you need to be open to capitalize on vacationers, and that bringing in other beneficial businesses, whether permanent or seasonal, to an area will enhance your bottom line, not detract from it. (more >>>)

Alicia Keys' Paralegal Mom Helped Her Get Her Start

Most music fans know Grammy-winning musician/vocalist Alicia Keys for a string of hits that includes “Fallin,” “You Don’t Know My Name,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” “My Boo,” “No One” and “Like You’ll Never See Me Again.” But despite the fact that she’s done hundreds of interviews since the release of her debut album, Songs in A Minor, in 2001, Keys admits that it wasn’t until recently that she allowed anyone other than those closest to her to really know her.

The 27-year-old New York native performs this Saturday, May 31, at the Trump Taj Mahal’s Etess Arena. Ne-Yo and Jordin Sparks open.

“Ever since I was little, I always felt like if people knew about me, they’d be able to use it against me,” Keys said in a 2007 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “So, moving into a career where people are always prying, my instinct has always been to close up.”

Keys was born Alicia Augello-Cook in Harlem to an Irish-Italian mother and a Jamaican father. She was raised by her mom, a retired paralegal and part-time actress, who landed Keys a bit part on The Cosby Show when she was 4, and signed her up to study piano by the time she was 7.

From an early age Keys proved to be a bright, serious student, and a bit of a perfectionist. She accelerated through school and graduated from New York’s Professional Performing Arts School at age 16. In 1997, she enrolled at Columbia University but dropped out after one semester to sign with Columbia Records.

Her song “Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)” was included on the soundtrack to the 1997 blockbuster, Men in Black, but Columbia eventually shelved her album project. She met Clive Davis, who was impressed by her retro-soul sound and signed her to his label. In 2001, J Records released Songs in A Minor.

Since then, Keys has released three more multi-platinum albums — 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, 2005’s Unplugged, and last year’s As I Am — and has won numerous awards including eleven Grammys. She also began an acting career, appearing in the films Smokin’ Aces, The Nanny Diaries, and the upcoming The Secret Life of Bees.

It appeared that her career was sailing along smoothly. But last year Keys revealed that in 2006 she nearly suffered a nervous breakdown. She had been recording and touring since 2001 without much time off, and her driven personality compelled her to meet unrealistic expectations on a nearly nonstop schedule.

“I was so tired and so exhausted for so long,” she said in a February 2008 interview with Britian’s The Sunday Times. “I was finishing my tour and they came to me about doing my first film, Smokin’ Aces, right after the tour. It made sense to me at the time. But I was so beat up. Yet everything was phenomenally successful. So I thought, I can do this. I can rejuvenate myself later. But there was no rest. I thought, I have to fix this. I can see how people have breakdowns.”

In 2006 her grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her eventual death nearly pushed Keys over the brink. Instead, Keys took a much needed sabbatical. On the spur of the moment she embarked on a month-long journey to Egypt, accompanied only by a local tour guide.

She returned after the trip refreshed with a new attitude, and also with new personal rules. For example, she now limits the length of tours and the number of dates she’ll perform without a day off.

The formula seems to have worked wonders. In a recent telephone interview with Atlantic City Weekly and other media outlets, Keys came across as gracious, candid, and finally comfortable in her professional life. That comfort level was apparent in the emotionally revealing songs of the appropriately titled As I Am, and in her willingness to talk openly about herself and her songs.

---

Alicia Keys Speaks:

On the personal nature of her songs:

“The majority of my songs are definitely a reflection of my life, of my experience, because that’s what drives me to write. It has to be something that I understand personally, because then I can give it the truth that I understand.

“But there have been times when another person’s experience has affected me so greatly to the point where I can understand how they feel, and write from their perspective, or even as an observer.”

On the inspiration for the song, “Like You’ll Never See Me Again”:

“That song means a lot to me — just realizing the way that life is so friggin’ short and we just get so caught up in so many frivolous, miscellaneous, really unnecessary things.

“I called my partner [longtime boyfriend and co-producer Kerry “Krucial” Brothers] and we started kind of talking and feeling about these last minutes that you have, like if this was your last chance, you would do it so differently? You know we say goodbye to people all day in our lives and we figure we’ll speak to them again later, but in the event that we wouldn’t, how would we want to say goodbye or how would we want to spend that moment that we did have with them?”

On the song “Go Ahead”:

“It is a song that is about time for renewal and time for change. And I think that reflects many parts of one’s life, and definitely my life. So I think that the state of the world, as we’re in it now, definitely it’s obvious that we’re all very hungry for change and we’re all very ready for a newness and a renewal in that way.

“I wanted to take that thought and I wanted to create a song about it that really gave you the option to relate to it as you saw fit, be it a relationship that was ending or be it in a more political way about the ending of an era, so to speak.”

On collaborating with John Mayer on the song “Lesson Learned”:

“I loved it, it was amazing. He’s a beautiful, beautiful person and an incredible writer. It’s not often that you have like a true connection with a person whom you’re just getting to know, and sitting there writing songs with them. But it was so enjoyable, we just sat there and vibed for like hours the first day. We came up with just tons of songs and then we just kind of picked the one that really spoke to us and then developed that.

“I realized where I am at this time in my life, it is really important for me to be able to be free and open to experimenting, trying different collaborations, and really just allowing that to flow.”

On her “virtual duet” performance with Frank Sinatra at the 2008 Grammy Awards:

“You know, it was really incredible. We went through all of these different edits of the video, and then passing off the lines, and who would sing what, and when he would appear, and how it would look and playing the piano for him. … I thought it was a really exciting idea.

“My grandfather was a huge Frank Sinatra fan, so that really kind of brought me back to my childhood in a lot of ways, and also the respect that I have for him as an artist. One of my favorite songs of his is his version of ‘Someone to Watch Over Me.’ I love his phrasing, his style, the way that he just takes the words and brings them up and down; it is just beautiful.

“Although it was, to me, a little bit strange in the beginning, just wrapping my head around how does this all make sense, it really came together so beautifully. And to see it back and to see how it was just a celebration of the way that music is so diverse and it will always be that way. That’s what makes it so wonderful, and made me really proud to do that.” (Source >>>)

Paralegal Perspective: Old Movies Lead to New Conversations

By Joanne Haffly: I’m not really a film buff. In fact, my kids lament that I neglect my cultural education by missing the latest and greatest movies.

Since I haven’t even seen “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy from start to finish, I admit they may have a point. It’s just that I prefer to read books rather than spend almost three hours waiting for the hero of a movie to save the world, only to find out part two is in the works.

So, normally, I limit myself to an occasional Disney release or lighthearted comedy. But recently, I viewed an old classic film, “12 Angry Men,” for my college class.

Released more than 50 years ago, this black-and-white motion picture stars Henry Fonda and other notable actors from the era, like Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and a young Jack Klugman.

The plot revolves around jury deliberations in a first-degree murder trial. A seemingly open-and-shut case against a young Puerto Rican kid, who was accused of murdering his father, begins to unravel when juror No. 8 (Fonda) confesses his indecisiveness in the jury room. He persuades the room full of impatient jurors to look at the problems with the evidence in the case.

Filled with inconsistencies that a good defense attorney should have caught, the case hinted of racially motivated undertones. Watching it now, the message seems as relevant today as 50 years ago.

I was required to view the film as part of my paralegal class, so we looked at it from a legal professional’s perspective, noting the judge and jury behaviors and the lack of diligence on the part of the boy’s defense attorney.

Aside from the political undercurrents that the film expressed of the judicial system, it also made me realize how much I miss the old black-and-white movies.

Two things immediately struck me as I watched first few scenes of the film. First of all, it is an all-male cast, and the actors looked liked regular men. Their naturally lined faces reflected the emotions of their dilemma and the maturity of age. The broad shoulders and thick waists of some of the middle-aged men allowed the audience to identify with the normal-looking men, not the slender, adolescent, pretty boys of today’s movies.

The second thing that I noted was the entire film — minus three minutes — was filmed in a narrow jury room. This low-budget movie was originally a remake of a screenplay adapted for television.

Further research revealed that the director used camera angles and a telephoto lens, shortening the depth of field to give the viewers an intimate snapshot into each actor’s expression. The feelings of claustrophobia are palatable as arguments fly across the jury table, until the exasperation peaks and the tempers explode.

My 17-year-old son, Sam, watched the movie with me for his History of American Film class. Reading through his analysis, I was impressed with two points he made.

Sam wrote, “The clothing the jurors wore was as diverse as their personalities and matched them. Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) wore an all white suit, whereas everyone else had darker jackets and/or pants. The white caused him stand out, and made him look somewhat like a guardian angel for the boy on trial.”

He also noted, “I found it interesting how the filmmakers showed how a person’s own prejudices and past experiences could blind them to the point of sending someone to death regardless of any evidence or reasonable doubt. For instance, Juror 10 (Ed Begley) wanted to kill the boy because the kid grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, saying ‘they’re all the same over there,’ or ‘they’re born that way,’ or my personal favorite, ‘He don’t even speak good English.’

If you’re looking for a good film worthy of a deep discussion, I’d recommend borrowing this movie from the library. (Source >>>)

Paralegal Student is a Forceful Voice in Autism Debate

Kathleen Seidel is not a doctor. She's not a medical researcher. She's not an educator. She's not a lawyer. But the 52-year old Peterborough woman, armed with a degree in library science and a healthy sense of outrage, has become one of the leading voices in the public debate about a possible link between autism and vaccines.

Seidel's website, neurodiversity.com, is a clearinghouse for autism-related literature, and her attached weblog has become the site of an impassioned and thoroughly researched campaign against a group of scientists and lawyers who promote the theory that childhood vaccines cause the developmental disorder.

For Seidel, who guards her family's privacy but says she has a child with an autism spectrum diagnosis, the scientific evidence disputing their claims is overwhelming. A series of conclusive reports from government scientists have found no connection between autism and a mercury-based preservative once contained in vaccines. And Seidel said that her own family's experience has further cemented her belief that the disorder has a strong genetic component.

But those studies haven't persuaded a significant number of parents who believe that their children were poisoned by vaccines and suspect the U.S. government of denying its culpability. Their views are taken seriously. Nearly 5,000 are involved in a massive legal action to get compensation for their children, and many politicians and medical commentators stand behind the mercury poisoning theory. Among those who believe that mercury might cause autism are Sens. Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Seidel believes that the propagation of the theory causes many harms: It traumatizes parents, who believe their children have been poisoned and must be fixed; it harms children, who are subjected to medically unnecessary treatments designed to remove mercury from their bodies; it discourages vaccination, leaving children vulnerable to deadly diseases; and it distracts autism activists and researchers from the work she feels is most important.

"There's been a lot of energy, a lot of attention that been focused in an area that's not going to help disabled kids," Seidel said.

'1,000 percent'

Seidel describes herself as a "1,000 percent kind of person," who pours herself into her research and writing projects, generally spending about 30 hours a week on her website. That intensity is evident in her blog, where many posts run more than 5,000 words and contain quotations from medical journals, court documents and message groups where parents of children with autism share treatment experiences. She has made Freedom of Information requests for documents and sifted through historic archives on legal databases.

"I inhaled all the documents. I exhaled all the documents," Seidel said, describing one of her recent posts.

Seidel, who is married and has two teenaged children, has worked as a children's librarian and as an internet entrepreneur. In recent years, she has not had a full-time job, splitting her time between caring for her children, curating her website and taking college courses in paralegal studies. During a recent interview, she wore a floppy black hat over her dark frizzy hair and a T-shirt that said: "What we need more of is science."

Science hasn't settled the question of what causes autism, but it has largely ruled out the possibility that a mercury-based preservative called Thimerosal, used in childhood vaccines until 2001, is to blame. After a series of epidemiological studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine, and the World Health Organization all agree that the evidence doesn't support the theory.

Recent studies indicate that about one in every 165 children has an autism spectrum diagnosis, meaning that they have problems with social interaction, language and repetitive behaviors. The disorder is described as a spectrum because cases range in severity. Some people with autism are able to succeed in school and live independently as adults. Others have persistent physical and behavioral problems and are never able to speak. Research suggests that the rate of autism diagnoses has not declined since Thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

Seidel's writing has focused on the group of researchers and lawyers who remain wedded to the vaccines-cause-autism theory, and her blog includes accusations of ethical lapses, plagiarism, conflicts of interest and inaccurate citation in their work.

Advocates and fans say her exhaustive research sets her apart and makes her blog a must-read for those who care about the scientific, legal and political swirl surrounding autism.

"She is the Erin Brockovich of autism spectrum disorders," said Irving Gottesman, a psychiatry professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School who studies the causes of autism and is convinced that there is no vaccine link. Gottesman compared Seidel's investigative work to what he'd expect from a research team of several graduate students working under a professor. "Amazing," he said, for an amateur. (more>>>)