Kathy Smith Email and Phone Number

My responsibilities include overseeing the day to day running of the law firm office. I am responsible for the accounting department; as well as a secretarial support staff of 20. I work with 24 attorneys with practice areas that include Litigation, General Business; Business Litigation, Real Estate, Estate Planning, and Probate. We do not work in criminal, family or bankruptcy law. I handle personnel issues in concert with a personel committee made up of 2 attorneys, as well as payroll and handle the firm's profit sharing 401(k) employee deferrals along with benefit administration. My IT responsibilities include trouble shooting servers and individual CPU's; loading and training others on software programs as well as training staff and attorneys on the time and accounting software program utilized by the firm. I utilize an outside technician in areas where my expertise is limited. I work in close concert with our Personnel Commitee, Finance Committe, and our PP&E Team. My position is one of being versatile and knowledgeable in many areas and having the ability to switch roles as is dictated by ongoing office management.

With Chevron's purchase of Texaco, I was assigned to work with the Kern River, and Lost Hills Asset Development Teams and the Applied Technology Group. I designed financial reports for all three groups and trained others in query writing and graphic design. I worked with approximately 70 engineers, geoscientists and engineering technicians while with Chevron.

Strategic Planning which included forecast for the California Business Units overhead support groups. Was responsible for preparing the AFE's - Authorization for Expense for the Asset Development Teams in California. With the roll out of SAP financial system, was able to use my Marketing Skills to target the engineers and other professionals responsible for their respective AFE's in utilizing the system to see their actual costs and catch errors in the payment process. I was reponsible for saving money by cost saving implementation and training on the systems. I enjoyed training and helping to form a win win environment.