u/Leading_Aside_4929

I previously worked for a small government contractor. i was new so didn’t participate but I observed people writing in skills people didn’t actually have into the key personnel resumes to make them better qualified for the proposal and also saw someone sign a letter of intent for a key personnel that they didn’t actually speak to.

i really liked the job other than this but I left because I know that activity is wrong and refused to participate. was I overreacting because I quit because of that? people have been working there for years and were unbothered. it was such a relaxed job it’s a shame I had to leave lol

I worked really hard to get my first paralegal job and I’m not loving it. I’m in a certificate program and adore the classes and have done well in them. the head of the program even offered to write me a recommendation letter.

however every Sunday I feel sick to my stomach and dread going to work at my firm. I feel like I get a lot of work dumped on my desk with little to no training, and I was told I’d be doing more litigation work but really most of the time I’m requesting medical records that the pre litigation team didn’t feel like requesting.

the medical records requests are so frustrating to me since there’s no universal directory for where everything goes and I feel like I’m guessing. the files come to me and are a mess and missing things they tell me they have or they will tell me they ARE missing something, and it’s right in the file. I just hate doing it overall

the work environment has drama in it. also everyone else has hybrid work schedules and I am in office every day commuting 4 hours every day. I pay for my own commute and it’s $34 a day and I make $22 an hour on a 38 hour workweek in a high cost of living area. I’m the only person fully in the office

I spent about $700 on public transportation to get to work last month

the partner is nice sometimes but he will be a little demeaning and like over explain the simplest things to me like looking up a client in the system, but yet I have no training in the actual work like getting the medical records or how the hospitals are set up.

they also make me be the receptionist when the receptionist isn’t there and the other paralegals refuse to take intakes so I end up doing all of the intakes and then it interrupts my actual work. they also have a chaotic system for managing costs. the receptionist job is to be done at the same time as the other work, but yet involves scanning and sorting hundreds of faxes as they come in and answering all of the calls.

an invoice comes in and then you put it in the system and have to manually request a check and send a note to a username called costs. the invoice goes in the messy S drive. is it normal for a paralegal to have to manage the costs?

i basically just do the medical records and bookkeeping and I was hired to do litigation work

overall is this just a firm specific problem or am I just a bad fit for the industry?

since today is Sunday I’m feeling absolutely miserable. any advice is welcome

does anyone have a job where they don’t feel completely miserable about the upcoming week? I started a new job recently and I feel the worst I have ever felt on Sundays. I can’t even enjoy the day because I’m dreading going back there

Im looking to get into an industry or job where I won’t feel this way so any suggestions are welcome

My attorney told me I can notify a provider that we were sent the wrong persons records so I sent this letter on firm letterhead “ We have received records responsive to a different patient/client than the one identified in our request. Please review and provide the correct records for our client as set forth in the original request. For your convenience, the original request is enclosed for reference. thank you for your cooperation in this matter and if you respond via fax heres the firm fax number.” Is this okay? He directed me to send a letter over our phone call but didn’t ask to review it or specify what to say other than that we were sent the wrong ones and need the right ones. I sent on firm letterhead since that’s how they want the initial request sent

however now I’m worried I did something wrong and unauthorized - am I okay?

as mentioned before, I’m a new paralegal at a PI firm. I have been given responsibility to manage all of the medical records, requests, and review them all, and then also do other various tasks. but I’m very focused on the records.

there is no one to check my work and make sure I have every provider and am doing everything correctly. when I mail a letter or schedule a deposition or send a docusign or something along those lines, there is no one to look over it. sometimes people answer my questions and sometimes people ignore my emails and calls. majority of the time I am figuring things out myself. is this normal? I have only been here for two months

also are other areas of law better? I am feeling super sad at my current job because I worked so hard to get my foot in the door and now I’m not enjoying it

I was told I would be trained and supported many times in the interview.

I’ve been at my job for almost 4 months and I’m looking to leave because the commute is at least 3.5 hours a day and is expensive and inconvenient. The office is a little disorganized and dramatic too. it’s a paralegal job and I either want to stay as a paralegal elsewhere or move into public policy.

Im still in my probationary period and dont know if i should say this is a short term contract or if i should leave it off my resume entirely while i stay there and look discreetly.

Im leaning toward short term contract because my last job before that ended in September 2025. Im also in grad school. please help!!

what are best practices related to medical record and billing requests and client and HIPPA authorization forms?

I have been assigned a lot of different medical requests as a new PI paralegal. My senior paralegal told me a while back that nothing he has given me was top priority- however, then a discovery deadline tomorrow came up, and we are still waiting on some records. I also looked at the attorney's calendar and realized that there is an IME next week and that he plans to file the IME for this other client in two days. I truly thought that was the lower priority records to request.

I was focusing on other records for ones I was told to move "to the top of the list." Now, I'm sick to my stomach feeling like I am going to get fired or in serious trouble. Is it possible to supplement the records after submitting the IME or discovery? Please honestly tell me how bad of a mistake this is. I'm also not sure why no one followed up with me on this, but I take accountability for not knowing

is there a way to cancel Datavant records after receiving an invoice prior to paying an invoice? In my training i accidentally requested a few overlapping records. there’s also been some crossover with the pre litigation team and duplicates that way.

I feel terrible because this increases costs for my firm if i don’t fix it. I also feel disappointed in myself because im struggling with the learning curve here and i dont want to let the people down who hired me and gave me a chance

I’ve been a paralegal for several weeks now and have gotten good feedback on my work. even when I have directly asked for feedback they told me all good things and that theres a learning curve but I’m ahead of where they expected me to be since I have no prior experience.

however I noticed my firm has my exact job duties except “2-4 years experience” posted online and the description says it’s because the firm is growing but I know that to not be true. they also have another staff members job posted and they openly complain about that individual. today they added ANOTHER posting with my description and a hefty signing bonus of $2,000.

should I be concerned for my job? I don’t get why they would hire me if they’re going to pull something like this. am I jumping to conclusions or is this a valid concern? why would they not tell me things I can work on and only tell me good things if they’re going to do this

I am a paralegal and I was assigned medical records to retrieve as i am at a plaintiffs PI firm. without formally passing the case over to me, the attorney assigned me to request medical records for a client. ive been requesting them, and then another paralegal in a different group at my firm said she’s requested some already. this has happened many times before in my short tenure here and I’ve caught it earlier, where the attorney gives me duplicate work. how do I nicely tell the attorney that he’s giving me the same work and do you think it’s purposeful? how bad is it that myself and the other paralegal have been overlapping requesting and we did not realize? can we just cancel some of the requests even though invoices have been issued.

recently started at a PI paralegal firm as a litigation paralegal and it’s my first job in this field. I see it as more of a stepping stone since I have a 4 hour round trip drive for a commute every day to a city south of where I live.

I enjoy the job but I don’t see this as being sustainable commute wise, and I also would potentially like to get into another practice area. I have been there for 2.5 months. how long do I have to stay before leaving? also, in a HCOL area, how much should I expect to make in my next paralegal job?

Is it standard for a PI firm to get a new HIPPA auth form for each medical request from each hospital/facility or for them to use a signed by the client blank template and fill in each hospital themselves?

for any paralegals who have anxiety, how do you deal with this job? I sent out 5 letters that were combined notices of settlement conference/trial dates letters last week and I feel sick and anxious that I did something wrong even though I checked multiple times over everything. Same with all tasks in the job I can’t stop ruminating over them. open to any advice

I recently posted about the new job I started, but I wanted to add a part 2 to it. I struggle with anxiety in general and have been laid off from my prior job in a different field unexpectedly. I really like the paralegal job I just started but I also am super anxious every day. I feel like I don’t know how im doing and today the most senior attorney asked me how everything is going and she asked if I had talked to the senior paralegal today, I said yes. im concerned that tomorrow when he (paralegal) is in the office that it’ll be some sort of bad conversation and that that could have been something bad.

i feel very very uneasy in this environment. also they posted my job in two places after i accepted my offer with them but before i started. So maybe they are trying to get rid of me

they also critique some of the other employees and discuss replacing them which makes me feel sick to my stomach. I did get good feedback one day but that was a while ago.

i worked really really hard to get to this point and i feel like i want to be calm and safe feeling in my work environment. Should I leave or look for something else or stick it out?

I recently started a PI paralegal job and they hired me knowing I am completely inexperienced. I really like the job and the people, but my attorney told me she wants me to do a legal research project and she wants me to cite check starting next week. Then the Senior Paralegal told me he wants me to request medical records from hospitals and a lot of other sources. Of course I want to learn these skills but it makes me nervous to have this level of responsibility before I get my feet under me. I have academic experience with legal research and cite checking but this is obviously much more hand holdy than in practice, and I was very honest with them that I am new and a beginner in the interviews. For the medical records part another paralegal showed me how to request them but was super fast in the training and kind of just showed me his one example he was working on rather than explaining the background and basis for the requests. Am I overreacting or stupid? I like this job and want to do a good job but am worried this is a lot within my first two weeks

edit: I should have included this in my original post but I also think I’m on edge because before I started but after I accepted the offer i noticed that they had the job posted but with a requirement of 2 years of experience. One was an anonymous yet specific enough posting and one was directly from the firm. this was before I had even started. So I think I’m on edge because I’m in the “probation” period for the next 50 days and I saw that they had these posts up. So im worried if I don’t learn fast enough they’re already plotting for someone more experienced.