Elaine Haack, Donna Hinkle and Robin Vorel, three veteran legal assistants with more than 55 years of combined legal experience, have joined the law firm of McAfee & Taft to provide support in the practice areas of litigation, tax and family wealth.
Elaine Haack serves as a paralegal for the firm’s litigation group and has extensive experience in case management and organization, document analysis, factual investigation and trial preparation. Prior to joining McAfee & Taft, Haack worked as a paralegal for several Oklahoma City area civil litigation firms, as a bailiff within the Grady County court system, and as a legal intern with Legal Aid of Western Oklahoma.
In addition to holding an associate’s degree in legal assistant education from Rose State College, Haack teaches legal analysis as an adjunct professor for the University of Oklahoma’s legal assistant program. Since 2001, her class curriculum has focused on Bluebook Citation, analysis of cases, drafting case briefs and drafting memorandums.
Haack is an active member of the Central Oklahoma Association of Legal Assistants and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer.
Donna Hinkle has worked as a litigation paralegal since 1984 and has extensive experience in commercial litigation matters. She received both an associates’ degree in business administration and a legal assistant certificate from Rose State College. Upon graduation, she worked as a paralegal in Oklahoma City for ten years before moving to Dallas in 1994. While in Texas, she continued her career as a litigation paralegal for several large regional and national firms and was an active member of the Dallas Area Paralegal Association. She returned to Oklahoma City 12 years later and joined McAfee & Taft in July 2006.
In addition to being an active member of the Central Oklahoma Association of Legal Assistants, Hinkle holds the distinction of being one of its founding members in 1984.
Over the course of her career, Robin Vorel has gained extensive experience working as both a legal secretary and paralegal in the areas of general business law, real estate, civil litigation, bankruptcy, probate, estate planning and trust administration. Her current responsibilities include assisting attorneys in the firm’s Tax and Family Wealth group in matters related to wills, trusts, estate taxes, gift taxes and probate law.
While pursuing her undergraduate degree, Vorel began her legal career working as a paralegal in the areas of estate planning, probate and real estate. Upon graduation, she worked as a legal secretary for the UAW-GM Legal Services Plan in Del City and then later joined a mid-sized Tulsa law firm. Most recently, she served as paralegal for an Edmond-based law firm for more than 11 years.
Vorel holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Central Oklahoma and is also an honors graduate from the University of Oklahoma College of Law’s legal assistant program.
About McAfee & TaftMcAfee & Taft is one of the largest, most experienced law firms in the Southwest, serving clients throughout the region and nationally in the areas of aviation, business law, corporate and securities, employee benefits, environmental law, healthcare, intellectual property, labor and employment, litigation, oil and gas, real estate and tax and family wealth. The firm employs more than 200 Oklahomans, including nearly 120 attorneys.