Pros
None of the negligible perks come close to mitigating the psychological and material harm inflicted by upper management, so this section probably isn’t relevant.
Cons
- First and foremost, the company quickly grew from a smaller, boutique firm to a megafirm without adequately planning for such expansion. This has resulted in seriously absurd workloads across the company. For certain roles within the company, workloads more than doubled over a period of approximately six months and have increased—albeit at a slower rate—in the several years since. To handle your responsibilities “by the book” and without cutting any corners would likely take 16 hours a day for some positions, so plan on expending a lot of energy deciding which corners to cut. Also expect the Sunday Scaries to become the Friday Night Scaries, at least during the busiest periods (either because you’re already dreading Monday or because you need to work through the weekend to stay barely afloat). - While 90% of clients are pleasant and easy enough to work with, the 10% who are not can absolutely wreck your workday. These clients range from those who think they know best and reject the expertise of the staff at every turn to those who insult, curse out, and otherwise personally attack staff members. The company generally responds to such interactions by trying to appease the client at the expense of staff members, typically by demanding lots of extra work to satisfy unreasonable client demands. - Management is so, so, so far removed from the actual work staff members do. They know the product they ultimately want but have no clue how those products are produced. There is simply no understanding that it takes time to write, that it takes time to review countless pages of evidence, that it takes time to navigate unique and difficult situations in a client’s case. At least to do so adequately (and if a client finds something to be inadequate, management will almost certainly blame whatever staff members are working on the case). There’s a strong sense that management thinks staff can complete tasks just by snapping their fingers. - Management is also callous, cruel, and inhumane. They have threatened termination over minor disagreements about case strategies or internal systems. They have publicly mocked employees over mental health and other personal issues. They have likened modest requests toward improving working conditions to “Communist China.” They have regularly belittled both staff and attorneys to the point of tears. The list goes on. - Management’s response to recent unionization efforts have included unwarranted terminations (sometimes by locking an employee out of their company accounts and then formally terminating them a day or two later), baseless lawsuits against terminated or other former employees, and major changes to work responsibilities. They have redirected several of their URLs to a webpage attacking several terminated employees in truly the most absurd way. In one termination email, they likened an employee’s organizing activity to a hate crime resulting in a woman’s murder. It really is difficult to communicate how damaging this company can be to its employees. If you are a fast and adaptable writer with no goals of promotion, someone who can shake off harsh and unwarranted criticism, someone who can handle the constant threat of termination for even the most minor (and inevitable) mistakes, then perhaps you can survive and just do your thing, though I’d look elsewhere first. Otherwise, if you want to spend your days on the cusp of a panic attack and your nights dreading every next day, I’m sure they’ll be happy to have you.
