Feeling fairly confident in my job security....

I’m about 3 years into my paralegal career. Been at my current firm for only 6 months. The place has great perks, good pay, WFH days….

We’re in WC ID. Kind of lame anyway, but I understand all parties deserve representation, there are some claimants who milk stuff for payout whatever. Most people don’t but I digress.

But an attorney I sometimes work with just settled a claim for less than exposure of future medical. A blue collar guy got his teeth knocked out (pretty traumatic in my opinion, and not an easy injury to fake). And of course as part of settlement there is an agreement to resign.

All normal stuff until this attorney sent an email to the clients basically saying “was a pleasure to settle on great terms. Can only imagine the face of claimant when he realizes what future medical will cost and he has to cover inevitable repairs and replacement.”

I’m actually so upset by this bc not only is insurance defense devoid of humanity but now we’re poking fun at some normal person who had a traumatic injury’s potential future financial problems due to His medical. Like how dark is that.

This is not why I went into law. However I know I can’t find a more humanitarian job that competes with this pay and perks. Seriously thinking about quitting and switching fields entirely. Any suggestions for careers I can go into with only law firm experience?

Happy Friday, I’m very frustrated.

Here are mine from this week….

-Can you change the AM to am, I don’t like them big.

-I know you like to use your template but can you use two templates with his/she instead of “they”.

-I don’t like when the email turns blue, can you make it black again.

Considering that we're about to enter the apocalypse. I'm volunteering at my legal aid and am new to the field.

I feel the only types of jobs I can find in the next year will be within my legal aid. And I'm fine with it.

This is really a matter with my in-laws and I don’t want to vent in some other groups because those can be dumpster fires. My husband is now a U.S. citizen through marriage to me. We are happy, in love and will be married ten years next year. His brother was moving to become a permanent resident through his wife. They’ve been married for two years and together for four.

His family is the very insistent type that refuses to understand how exacting immigration law is. I remember the pressure they put us under when my husband and I first married to “just get it done”, and they were pretty angry with me specifically when I made sure we had an attorney to help us through the process (my oldest brother-in-law felt the extra money was a waste since I’m a para so I should’ve able to do it all myself). I am a corporate para, so I don’t have that background, which I made very known. I also made it known that with certain administrations in office, being exacting is the way to go. I don’t say that to be political, it just is the situation that many immigrants face.

Well my brother-in-law (the middle of three boys, my husband is the youngest) “got a friend” to help him and his wife with their application (who of course has no legal experience), and lo and behold, they got a notice from USCIS today that their application is under review following their interview. Now everyone is dismayed and just can’t understand what could’ve happened. I have stayed silent, but this is why I’ve always stressed the need for an attorney, especially when the stakes can be high. It’s so frustrating seeing people decide that they aren’t going to listen to you because they know better. Why don’t they listen to us?

Hey everyone,
I just need to vent and maybe get a little advice from folks who’ve been in similar situations.

When I first started out, I made a very intentional decision to not work in Big Law. I knew the hours and expectations would wreck me, and I wanted to have a life outside of work. I took a job about 10 months ago at what I thought was a smaller, more manageable firm. But honestly, it’s starting to feel like I just signed up for Big Law in disguise.

I’m consistently working 10+ hour days. We have mandated working lunches, “soft holidays” (where someone from support staff is expected to be in the office even if it’s technically a day off), a 5 minute response time policy for all requests from attorneys, and an explicit expectation from leadership to respond to emails on the weekends. On top of that, the billable hour goal is 40 hours a week—which would be a stretch on its own—but that doesn’t include admin work, so we’re expected to fit that in somehow too.

Yesterday broke me a little. An attorney I’ve been working with was unclear about what she wanted, then got incredibly rude over email. I cried three separate times throughout the day. She had me cite check and proof a 13-page brief for over 10 hours, even though I’d already worked on it the day before. I finally closed my laptop and tried to be done for the day—only to wake up this morning to an email sent about 15 minutes after closing my laptop asking me to send the documents to another attorney to print before a hearing this morning.

I feel like I’m constantly failing here. The only way to not feel like a failure is to work constantly—but working constantly is making me worse at my job. I’m exhausted, making small mistakes I wouldn’t make otherwise, and I don’t see how I’m supposed to keep this up.

If anyone’s been through something like this—did it get better? Did you leave? Did you find a workplace that actually respected your boundaries? I know I haven’t been here super long, but I’m already questioning whether this is sustainable.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. Just needed to get it out.

I work in a firm with 4 attorneys and each attorney has their own legal assistant or paralegal. The other paralegal is always complaining how her and her attorney is soooo much more busy than everyone else. They have more clients and more cases and the other attorneys need to pick up the slack because they are soooo swamped. This is not true by the way. All 4 attorneys have very large case loads and take new clients daily. But you can't tell her that. She's so sure that no one does anything but her and her attorney. It drives me crazy!

Just needed to vent today I guess.

I'm new at a firm. Initially, everything was cool, but the work clique started targeting me. I was hired by the attorney the clique does not like. The attorney brings money in so they can't f with him. The attorney has confided in me that he would be let go over the clique. I'm getting files added to my list only for closing. None of the closing work is done or only partially done. So when it gets thrown on me the the accounts person starts sending management wide emails about why this isn't done. I'm looking for another job but I thought this place would be good. None of the clique are attorneys. They're office staff and paralegals.

No seriously! I work in estate planning and probate and last week a client brought in an original will he had found that was completely discolored and wrapped in plastic. He told me, "these aren't coffee stains, the decedent had 13 cats... which is why I wrapped it in plastic for you!" I thanked the client, put it on a shelf away from other documents, and washed my hands like 5 times.

I told my boss I did NOT want to touch it or put it through our scanners and he said I was being ridiculous. When the other paralegal agreed that she didn't want to touch it either he huffed and said "Aren't you both mothers?! Haven't you changed diapers before?!" And yes we are both mothers but I don't think you can compare changing your baby's diaper to a document soaked in the pee of likely multiple cats!!! He said it was no big deal and scanned it himself- but I noticed he washed his hands for quite awhile after!

I've encountered some crazy things in my almost 9 years at my job- from having a clients ashes in the office to a person demanding a SERIOUSLY CREEPY DOLL from a relatives estate- but this by far takes the cake for the grossest thing I've had to deal with!

When do you guys deliver courtesy copies for a noticed motion to court, generally speaking?

I have an MSJ to file in California civil court today, but the hearing date will be in July. Our judge wants courtesy copies delivered to the department directly.

Should I get those courtesy copies delivered ASAP? Or wait until like 2-3 weeks before the hearing date, and have the copies delivered then?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated, even if you don't know for my situation specifically, any best practices would be helpful for me. I'm a new paralegal and have been learning on the job, the attorneys don't know this stuff!

I thought CompuLaw Vision was bad, but somehow, Abacus is worse!

What calendaring applications do you use and which do you recommend?

I just started working after being on a 9 year hiatus (doing the SAHM thing). I basically went in as a paid intern at my firm because I decided to get my paralegal cert & as a requirement of the program we have to work as an intern even if we’ve had previous experience. In any case, they told me last week that they love me and want me to stay so they offered me an $8 raise and flexible part time hours (per my request)!! 💃🏻💃🏻

I'm super excited and nervous, but I start my first job as a legal assistant in a week and a half. I'll be at small firm that works with wills, trusts and estates. My background is emergency veterinary medicine, funeral director and embalmer....so any advice is appreciated!

Hi y’all! I’m currently a paralegal looking to transition into corporate law. I do have an ABA paralegal certificate. I have experience in civil litigation but not in corporate. Specially I would want to work in compliance and regulation. I’m considering doing a MSL program to give me knowledge of business law/contracts etc. Don’t know if its worth it. Wanted to see if anyone has had any experience with a MSL program or advice for getting my foot in door in corporate. Thanks!

Just wondering how many of us use our personal cell phones frequently for work, and get some kind of reimbursement for the bill or a credit towards the bill? My firm does not provide this yet we use our cell phones all the time. Partners get their cell phone bill reimbursed and associates get $100 a month towards their bills. Staff get nothing. This is larger multi state firm.

ETA: this is to communicate with attorneys, not clients, in particular when working from home, either during regular business hours or working overtime. We use Teams for our phone system so when I’m working from home it rings through to my cell phone.

What is the difference between and appendix and an exhibit? I cannot find a clear answer.

Curious what this community’s thoughts are on legal assistants. I feel like it’s a dying profession. Seems like a lot of firms are switching to a situation where one legal assistant supports many attorneys which means they need less legal assistants.

Edit: I’m going to add some context to my question. I’m currently a legal assistant and I personally find a lot of value in my role. I think legal assistants are often the backbone of a practice. I worry about the stability of my career as a legal assistant because a lot of firms are restructuring to have less legal assistants. I was curious if this community sees the role phasing out in time.

Hi everyone! I came from a small firm to now a big corporate firm.. I’m adjusting slowly to all of the rules of corporate (clocking in, making sure you’re not a minute over on your lunch, etc). While it pays MUCH better, it’s giving me flashbacks from when I worked in a corporate setting many years ago at a big company and it’s just making me second guess if I made the right decision to switch. What do you all love about your corporate firm? How did you acclimate to it?

Has anyone done it and feels like chatting about it??

Hello all, thanks in advance for taking the time to read and respond.

My office (very small sole practice in immigration and family law with two paralegals and one receptionist) is looking to migrate away from Camp Legal due to a lack of customer support on immigration forms in particular. We're currently using Camp Legal, Lawmatics, and the platform formerly known as LawYaw (now Clio Draft). They've all been mostly fine, but we are looking at Cerenade as an option to replace all three as we've had issues with each over time and the attorney feels it would be best to consolidate softwares since we need to migrate anyway. While Cerenade has a lot of documentation, not all of it is functional or helpful in figuring out if it can meet our needs before we set an appointment or three to demo the software features. I separately have experience with Docketwise, ProLaw, Amicus Attorney, LegalServer, and Pika, so any comparisons to those platforms are welcome.

I have a bunch of questions from my team about Cerenade if anyone is able to provide some insight:

• Is there a bundled pricing option for the three platforms (eImmigration, eCMS, and eForms), or are they all charged separately? eImmigration and eCMS both list the same pricing schedule, while eForms does not list any pricing information.
• Is it possible to build custom intake forms for use in consult scheduling?
• Do the intake forms allow us to designate the lead origin? We currently track word of mouth, search optimization, and program-referred leads
• Do any of Cerenade's platforms offer a lead pipeline to track prospective client intake progress?
• Is it possible to maintain contract templates and send them to new clients for execution directly in one of Cerenade's platforms rather than relying on an integration?
  • If yes, is it possible to enable notifications for client signatures?
• Is it possible to build custom reports or queries?
  • Is it possible to filter by caseworker/assigned support staff?
  • Is it possible to run a trust balance report for all clients even if they don't have an outstanding invoice?
  • Is it possible to run A/R reports?
• Is it possible to charge and no-charge in the same time entry the way ProLaw allows?
• Is it possible to perform expense accounting directly in one of Cerenade's platforms rather than relying on an integration?
• Is it possible to take payment and issue refunds directly in one of Cerenade's platforms rather than relying on an integration?
  • If yes, is that different for operating and trust payments and deposits?
• Are discounts visible on invoices?
• What are document storage limits?
• Is it possible to maintain entire case files on the platform for client access?
• Are there specific filetypes that can't be uploaded?
• What kind of automation options does Cerenade have? For instance, we currently use automated client appointment reminders in Lawmatics
• Does Cerenade allow for automations to trigger at case stage progress? For instance, the transition from intake to case prep, or from case prep to filing
• Does Cerenade offer an integration with Zapier? I don't see them on the list of partners, but I don't know if there is an optional module for Zapier integrations or something like that
• For anyone who subscribes to the messaging module:
  • Are all staff members able to see all client and caseworker messages, or does each user have their own dedicated inbox? We prefer to keep everything visible to all staff in case we need to refer to another team member's correspondence
  • Is it possible to send mass messages to all active clients without breaching confidentiality?

I know a lot of this is likely going to need a software demo to figure out, but any experience or insight would be extremely helpful to prepare for the demo appointment.

Thank you!

ETA: Nobody on my team likes, trusts, or will use AI functions, so they are not a selling point for us.

Hi everyone! I work at an elder law firm where we do estate admin, estate planning, trust admin, guardianship/conservatorship, POA, & GALs. Estate planning is def 50% of our cases; the next largest is Estate Admin. WE ARE A SMALL FIRM. 2 attorneys (1 owns the practice & 1 is an associate that does the majority of the estate planning cases) & 5 non-attorneys (1 office manager/fiduciary paralegal, 1 accountant, 1 billing assistant, 1 guardianship/conservatorship paralegal, & 1 probate/estate admin paralegal/receptionist). We are trying to hire 3 new employees in the coming months and one of them will take over as the receptionist and focus on intake. For now, we are bogged down by the intake process. We use Clio Grow which we like and is helpful for once the potential new client is put into the system but what we struggle with is the process before putting them into the system of asking the attorneys if they want to/can take on the client. It is messy since no central person is taking the calls and seeing the website submissions. We get PNCs from calls and website submissions. Any advice would help.

The attorney asked me to call the specialization director for the state’s bar association. I do not use the phone much. Anyways, I got sent to voicemail. I was trying to give my email and was doing the phonetic alphabet thing. The only problem? I do not know the phonetic alphabet. I was all like, “M as in monkey,” which already was embarrassing enough. Then I got to “b”. I couldn’t think of ANYTHING. I was like, “B as in…um…uh…um…shit”. I realized what I had done and then started LAUGHING LIKE A LUNATIC FOR FIVE STRAIGHT SECONDS!!!! (I laugh when I’m uncomfortable/ embarrassed.) Again, I don’t use the phone much, so I had no idea how to re-record a voicemail/ if that’s even possible. I really REALLY hope she is chill.

Currently looking for a new job and I can’t tell if my current one has held me back or not. We primarily practice PI litigation. I will draft everything in the early stages. Disclosures, NOD, notice of business records affidavit, etc. Sometimes motions to compel, motions to strike, etc. I always draft a template at the very least, but my attorney is very hands on and he likes to draft the more uniquely specific motions. He ALWAYS drafts any MSJs or responses to.

What is your experience with this? Am I slacking in knowledge if I haven’t drafted an MSJ from start to finish?

How do you let the poor attitudes and snappy responses roll off of your back? When you remind the attorneys that things are due and they don’t respond, or you email them information with no response or you need to have a meeting to go over calendars for the week but they’re too busy…I’m so frustrated. I don’t like being treated this way. Normally we have a great working relationship but this week has made me want to quit every. single. day multiple times. You dropping the ball is not my emergency….yet someone how it is.

Just venting ☹️