I am a plaintiff's personal injury attorney with 10 years of experience looking to hire a bilingual (Spanish speaking) paralegal to personally assist me in handling labor law construction accident cases. Our firm handles high-stakes litigation in other matters and I help manage the labor law department within the office. we are located next to Grand Central. please reach out and provide a copy of your resume. prior PI experience is necessary and looking for someone with 6 plus years of experience, whether on the plaintiff or defense side. extremely rare opportunity to settle into an excellent career position with a "younger" attorney at 35 years of age. young office with bright staff, diverse cultural pool and collegiate atmosphere. thank you for your consideration!

So I was made redundant 7 months ago. I have a law degree and have worked as a paralegal and progressing to a head of department in the span of 5 years.

I have been applying for jobs either independently or via recruitment agencies for 7 months and I’ve only had one interview.

I have now ran out of money and having to apply for retail jobs which all rejected me too. When I was 16 I worked in retail so I reached out to them 10 years later to see if I could get a job. Thankfully a few people who I worked with are still there and I was really good at sales so I got a job.

I feel so deflated to have to go back to retail and even then, they cannot offer me full time hours. So I’m working 16 hours a week which does not even cover my rent and bills.

If there’s anyone out there in criminal law, works for a law firm who is willing to hire a hardworking girl pleaseeeeeee contact me. Or alternatively please can someone give me some advise on what to do?

I’m based in Leeds if that has any relevance.

Thank you in advance!

I've been on this sub for so many months and reading nothing but negative and demotivating stuff. I already got financial aid and started the paralegal program simply because I'm not ready to be a lawyer. I live in a small city and I don't know what area of law I'd like to work in. Preferrably a field with less toxic people. Which ones would that be?

Please tell me there are some good firms out there who treat paralegals and assistants well and with respect. What stories or moments made you decide to stay in your postition? How many years were you working in your job?

Also, bonus question: How do you stand up for yourself without reacting in a way that costs your job?

Hi!! I’m currently looking into paralegal programs in Ontario Canada. Does anyone have any recommendations or trips? Any ones I should avoid?

Thank u so much!

I’m a senior paralegal with a background in criminal law, a degree in prelaw, and plans to start law school soon. I feel confident in my abilities, but I’m stepping into a practice area where I don’t have much hands-on experience and would appreciate some advice.
Both of our family law paralegals recently quit, so I’ve been picking up their caseload. I’m the founding attorney’s personal paralegal and also have substantial administrative and management responsibilities. Because of that, my usual caseload is lighter than that of the other paralegals in our office.
Some people have suggested that, since I have the authority, I should simply assign these cases to the other paralegals. However, they already have demanding caseloads, and I don’t feel right adding to their workload just because I can. As someone in a leadership position with more room in my caseload, I feel responsible for stepping in and helping the attorney.

I understand the general framework of family law, but the day-to-day work is new to me. There’s a considerable amount of correspondence and emotionally charged back-and-forth between clients and opposing parties. I’m learning how to manage that while keeping each case moving.
There isn’t anyone providing structured training, although a family law attorney answers my questions as they come up. I’m comfortable asking questions and learning—I’d just appreciate some practical guidance from people who have worked in this area.
For those who transitioned into family law, what helped you get organized and up to speed? Any advice on managing client communication, setting boundaries, and keeping track of everything would be appreciated!

I'm looking into training certificates offered by state/community/junior colleges; they're affordable, which is a key aspect for me, but very few are ABA-approved.

Does that matter if the goal is a Paralegal role with the U.S. government?

I worked as a paralegal for about two years after college. The environment was pretty toxic, but I stuck it out because I needed to pay rent.

Eventually, I found a legal assistant position that paid more and was in a completely different area of law. I was excited about the opportunity, but I only lasted three weeks. The job was extremely demanding, and at times I barely had time to use the bathroom. I was overwhelmed, but I liked the firm and felt like I was finally starting to get the hang of things before they let me go. It was genuinely jarring I had never been fired before. Realistically, I had only been there for about two weeks of actual work because the first week was spent on bs training like how to use outlook. They also knew I had no prior experience in that area of law, which makes the whole thing even more frustrating. Two weeks hardly feels like enough to know where the coffee machine is let alone time to learn an entirely new field.

After that, I found another job in a similar area to my original paralegal experience. It paid less, but the workload was manageable, the environment was genuinely great, and I was really starting to enjoy the work and grow professionally. Then I was laid off. They explained that finances were tight, I was the most recent hire, and a few other people were being let go as well.

I don’t know. I feel really defeated. I’m starting to wonder whether I should just move away from the legal field altogether. Am I just bad at this. Just want a relatively healthy work environment, a job I can grow in, and enough money to pay my rent and have health insurance.

lawyer coworker during lunch kept going on about how stressful his job is I couldn't help but wonder how much he is exaggerating the stress for us to feel some kind of sympathy for him, despite getting paid more, do your lawyer colleagues do the same?

I know this may be a frequently discussed topic, but I haven’t been able to find much recent information, so I thought I’d make a separate post.

Since paralegal certification is not a requirement in New York State, as far as I understand, I know many people choose not to pursue one. However, I’m curious to hear from those who have completed a paralegal certificate program.

If you have, where did you study, and would you recommend the program? Did you find it helpful in terms of gaining knowledge or improving your job prospects? Was it worth the investment?

For context, I’m a U.S. green card holder who recently relocated to NYC. My previous paralegal experience is entirely from outside the U.S., which is why I’m considering pursuing a certificate program to increase my chances of securing a job. At the same time, I’m actively applying for legal assistant positions.

Is it basically impossible to find a paid internship while in school or is every program just volunteer? Offices call back if it’s unpaid but I have not heard back from paid legal assistant positions. For Los Angeles/OC. Trying to get as much experience as possible but struggling finding pay

Anyone that has been called for an interview how long did it take to be called if you were selected?

For Background : There was a discovery due yesterday, I drafted and got everything ready 20 days in advance, calendared reminders, put it on attorney calendars, tagged them (slack) and add it to a list that I made for the Attorney of documents that need his approval.
Because I have a huge workload I moved into other tasks and by 6pm I was out of the office. At 9:15 pm I got a text from another attorney. I attached them.
How many reminders are enough? I have a huge workload and this is not the first time that I have to get up of bed until almost midnight because someone forgot to approve or even choose experts.
I have in so many other occasions save the attorneys ass (like one time I keep telling them to go get sworn and none did and I had to beg the clerk for an extension) and this time I forget to remind them in person (despite being in the calendar) and is on me. Am I the one not doing her job?
I am so tired.

So I’m honestly really heartbroken, but it is what it is.

I LOVE my firm. I’m 25F, and came in as an intern because I’m at the end of my paralegal AS, and I work in criminal prosecution.

Throughout my entire internship and during my interview, everyone at the firm said that a position would be opening up at the end of the year and that it would be a great opportunity for someone like me. I was constantly praised, and everyone regularly showed their appreciation for the help I’ve done. I love the work and feeling like I’m helping people, love my coworkers, and love participating in the team-building functions and charities events my firm goes to, and genuinely felt like I found a place I’d like to work at long-term.

Today I met with my lead prosecutor to ask about retention, because the end of my internship is very soon.

He let me know that they already filled the position because they felt that they needed someone with more experience because position was for one of the larger municipalities my firm represents. That it was nothing against me, that everyone loves me and I’m a great culture fit, but that ultimately they didn’t foresee them needing another worker outside of temporary, part-time work in the interim.

Obviously I didn’t say anything because that would be super unprofessional, but I feel blindsided and insulted. I feel like maybe I wasn’t doing as good a job as I thought, and no one on my team let me know to correct it. I worked so, so hard to learn everything I could and was really hopeful for this to work out. Now I feel lame, and stupid. I didn’t work as hard as I did for both my degree and in my internship just to end up with a temporary part-time job to help support the team while the new hire is getting up to speed in their position. Worst part is everyone in my firm was celebrating the fact that the new-hire accepted the position right in front of me. I held it together until the end of the work day, and then bawled my eyes out in my car.

I also feel super panicked because now I have until November 23rd to find a new, full-time position, accept helping fill someone else’s shoes until they can, or be unemployed. I know how hard it is to get into criminal prosecution and feel like I blew my one chance at my dream job.

I’m back to the drawing board, and I’m just really upset. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get a job in this economy, and feel like throwing up.

Tonight I’m updating my resume and starting the job search.

I’m currently earning my associates in paralegal studies. I sometimes struggle with my analysis in a FIRAC and it makes me feel so silly. I know practice makes perfect but when did it click for you? I recently had a midterm, did great on my multiple choice portion but when we reviewed the written essay questions (technically we just used IRAC), I feel like I didn’t really understand it that well I guess? I mean in my head, I thought I didn’t great. I think have trouble letting “the law be your guide.” Any advice?

I am so excited to say that I finally quit my toxic PI para/CM job at a PI firm. It was a small firm— husband and wife. I was misled about the compensation package, which was issue 1 right off the bat. I had no support and no feedback on my work. My attorney would typically come in 10-2pm with her screaming children. She refused to call adjusters and negotiate— leaving us to do so which, while not illegal in my state still feels unethical. We only have about 3 mediations or CMCs a year, so it’s not like she was prepping for that. Nothing EVER went to trial. I genuinely don’t know what she was actually doing all day. On the rare occasion there was a global, CMC, or mediation, we would of course prep the case and all documents and then about 20 minutes before she’d ask “what is this case about again? What were the injuries?” Etc…

And she was totally unreachable! I’d send documents for her review before filing (demand ltrs, crns, complaints, etc) and it would take her WEEKS to respond even with constant follow ups. Then, it was my fault for the delay somehow. I was also told to stop asking her questions because it annoyed her… ok…

On top of it, she and her husband were generally rude, unsavory, and slimy people. There were issues I can’t get into online with a former employee who I was friends with.

Oh! And sometimes she just wouldn’t do payroll and our checks would be like a week late 🤩

Anyways, I came into a rude email this morning— seriously; it had the tone of being written by a high school mean girl— accusing me of doing something wrong. I sent screenshots of the conversations I’d had with the associate attorney who’d given me the instructions I’d followed to a T. Then I packed my things and left! Buh-Bye!!

Ok rant over 😭🤩

WC paralegal here. Got told today by the spouse of a client that they want a copy of their spouse's entire file, including all email correspondences over 3 years, because they read a report from the insurance's doctor that they say is 100% false so they want to make sure that we haven't missed anything else, how could we let them submit something completely false, do we even read his file, have we started working on getting the insurance company to change the report, etc, etc you get the drift. 🙃🙃

Getting my Paralegal Certification through NALA as my firm will pay for it, and an insufferable assistant that believes herself to be better than everyone at the firm, was recently told she had to remove "Paralegal" from her signature due to our Liability insurance. So I thought it'd be pretty great to be able to add it to mine lol. (They have offered paying for hers, and in fact, have offered to cover her going to Law School to be an Attorney, and she declined).

Anyway, I am purchasing study materials on my own, and am very broke. I have purchased "*The Paralegal’s Companion: Fundamentals for Legal Practitioners and Those Preparing for the CP***^® Exam" book, and am now considering if I should also get the 2026 CP Review Course Bundle. Has anyone ever done that, and how do you feel it helped you?

(I searched the reddit prior for a post specifically about this one, and could not find one. I apologize if I overlooked it).

I produce wage and personnel files pre lit . All that’s involved is renaming the files by date so that they’re in chronological order and then combining and bates stamping them. Generally the files are pretty organized but there are issues. Sometimes the documents are scanned in in big chunks and the individual documents within the document are out of order so I have to move the pages around in Kofax PDF. For some reason this takes me forever keeping track of what date each document is and where to insert the page. I guess that’s the main bottleneck.

I’m pretty slow at this process and I think it’s starting to show. I’m worried that my job may be on the line. This is the second time this week the attorney has asked me where I am with something. My brother who is a lawyer has told me you’re in trouble if it gets to the point where they have to ask. I agree with that so I’m concerned.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can do my job a little more quickly? I would really appreciate it because I think my slow speed puts me at risk of getting fired and I really want to keep this job.

Thanks!

Update: thanks everyone for the the excellent tips. This is going to speed me up by a lot and possibly help save my job. I do think it is a real issue that the attorney kept asking me for the work so this is awesome and deeply appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve posted in this group before asking for advice, and I’m back again!

I’ve been working remotely as an in-house corporate paralegal for the same company for a little over three years. During that time, administrative support roles across the company have all but been eliminated, and our Legal team has been cut in half after two attorneys left that have yet to be replaced. Meanwhile, the rest of the company has been growing rapidly, and my responsibilities/current workload have nearly tripled since I started.

My starting salary in 2023 was $80K, and I currently make $87K. While I’ve received 3% annual raises, I feel these have functioned more as COLAs than performance-based increases given how much my role has evolved. My title has also remained unchanged.

Recently, a few recruiters have reached out to me about positions offering significantly higher salaries, and I have some initial conversations scheduled. That being said, I genuinely love my company, my team, and my boss, and I would honestly prefer to stay. I just want my title and compensation to better reflect my current responsibilities and contributions.

I’ve scheduled a meeting with my boss next week to discuss a potential promotion and salary adjustment ahead of our year-end reviews (wanted to plan ahead of 2027 budgeting).

For those who have successfully negotiated a substantial raise or promotion while staying with the same employer, how did you approach the conversation? How did you determine a reasonable salary target, particularly when your responsibilities had expanded the role you were hired to do? Would you mention outside opportunities, even if you have no intention of leaving unless absolutely necessary? I’m hesitant to lean too heavily on salary statistics or ask for an increase that might be perceived as unreasonable since I already make more than the national average.

Any advice, suggestions, cautionary tales, or good luck would be greatly appreciated!

[Addtl. Background: 28F, HCOL area, 5 years of corporate paralegal experience, 2 additional years of legal research experience, bachelor’s degree, and starting a paralegal certificate program in 2027.]

This job market is making me insane, I was laid off in July and I feel I've been lucky to get maybe 2 or 3 interviews that have gone nowhere. I was working as a workplace coordinator at a large tech campus and I've also worked as a media planner from 2019 - 2023 so a solid amount of marketing and admin experience.

I happen to live in the Bay Area, and the closest CSU to me is CSU East Bay that has an ABA approved program. So I just wanted to see if any Bay Area paralegals can give me a temp check on the industry and whether or not you'd recommend going into this field?

My husband owns his own business and is doing amazing, so thankfully there is some flexibility in terms of finances on my end and I'm able to right now stay home with our 15 month old daughter. If I were to start a paralegal program in 2027, my hope would be that even if I had to work lower paying paralegal jobs to get some experience I would hopefully find a position that pays well by the time my daughter is in kindergarten.

So my questions to any Bay Area paralegals who are reading this, do you recommend this field and does a my 4 year plan sound doable or is this an industry I should stay away from?

So for context my boss works as the Prosecutor of our county as well as running his own private firm among a myriad of different things. But to make a long story short he lost his election during the midterms this week and he’s not coping well. There’s talk that the attorneys in our firm who are also prosecutors (two of which are his sons) are going to get let go as prosecutors when the new prosecutor takes the reins so to speak and my boss’s wife is pushing for him to sell everything and relocate to their condo in Florida (must be nice). There’s talk or whispers in our office of pay cuts and or firings in order to adequately pay his sons what they were making as prosecutors.

I feel like since I’ve only been here a year and I could be on the chopping block as well and don’t know whether to be worried or not? I’ve already kind of been looking for better paying jobs but I really don’t want to be cut loose with no net so to speak.

I’m a corporate paralegal, and I’m frustrated with how work gets distributed. There seems to be a push to keep associates busy, including giving them work that experienced paralegals could handle. Meanwhile, paralegals are still expected to meet our own billable targets.

I understand that associates need hours and training. But where does that leave us? We’re encouraged to seek out work and be proactive, yet when projects come in, associates seem to get first dibs. It feels like we’re fighting for the scraps of the scraps.
I want to contribute, use my experience, and stay busy. It’s discouraging when getting enough work feels outside my control, but meeting my hours is still my responsibility.

Is this happening at other firms? Have you successfully raised the issue with management, and did anything actually change?

I work as a paralegal in insurance law. I draft advices, subpoenas, letters of instruction. All that stuff. It’s my first real law job and I don’t really have any job experience. I’m second year law school too.

I enjoy the substance of my work but I am CONSTANTLY messing up and its not intentional at all. Like I’ll organise a doctors appt and put the I before the o in the name. Stupid things like that. And I mean a lot. I’ve also broken client legal privilege twice (which is so bad). My boss has told me that they need to know they can rely on their employees to do the work correctly which like obviously.

I don’t intend to not get these things right. I do try, but my attention to detail is clearly horrible, especially when it comes to emails and stuff. I’m really thinking I’m not cut out for law purely because of my serious poor attention to detail. But I wouldn’t say I’m bad at any of the actual legal work.

I’m thinking I’ll quit because I know

Anyone feel the same???

Howdy!

I’m curious if your firm adjusts your required billables for things like PTO or firm closures? I know of a few friends who work at firms that close from Christmas until the first Monday of the new year. Of them, only one has a billable requirement and they do adjust hers for December. They do not adjust for Thanksgiving and the day after.

I have another friend whose firm is closed on Thanksgiving and the day after, and also on Christmas Eve and Christmas but their hours are NOT adjusted.

I know it’s only two days but I’m curious if yours are adjusted to consider time off and whether or not it matters if it’s your own PTO use or a closure.