Pros
• Pay is decent for people without experience and right out of college; overtime tends to make up for a lot of the pay disparity and for a lot of teams, overtime is inevitable. • Training is mentor-based and the entire team is involved in training. This is good so that no one get pigeonholed as the “Trainer”. • Shared responsibility and rarely any finger pointing (expect where obnoxiously obvious). • Many opportunities to learn, but people need to remember learning is active not passive. • Managers recognize potential and when to listen to Paralegals who understand the newer technologies. • For the larger client there is the option for remote access for Paralegal level caseworkers which is nice because you can essentially get forms and reviews done at home. • They have taken a push to more electronic and paperless office environment, which helps immensely in managing files and casework.
Cons
• They hire people right out of college and thus a lot of the caseworkers still have some maturity issues. Part of this immaturity, shows up in people showing up late, staying later, but then complaining about it or thinking staying late earns you extra recognition. • For the larger client, there is a large divide between NIV and IV. NIV rarely (never) gives IV any opportunities to prepare NIV cases, short of scanning or printing checks during CAP season. This has created a small political divide in the office. Sometimes it feels like IV has to step in to save face for the office (though we’ve certainly had our own hiccups). • Technology has been the biggest heartache with the firm. While we are finally updating our database tracking method, we still have sudden shut downs and this costs time and money as the office then feels obligated to adjust everyone’s time sheets to hit the 7.5. • The remote access for Paralegal level case workers is not in lieu of being in the office. What it ends up offering is the option to do overtime at home (not a terrible con, but it would be nice to have At-Home access).