u/Outside-Question-191

I work at a personal injury firm (defense) and I just wanted everyone’s insight on this..

Our firm offers six sick days and 10 days PTO. I have plenty of sick days, so I took one this Tuesday to rest and go to urgent care. I was tested and found positive with the flu (influenza type B) and the doctor told me I am highly contagious and provided me with a doctor’s note advising that I cannot return to work until 8/23.

I forwarded these notes to my office manager, who didn’t respond until hours later, eventually saying I can work remotely. She did not clarify if i could work remotely just today, or the remainder of the week. I worked a full 8 hour day today remotely with no issues and our firm allows remote work. I offered to come in to the office with a mask if they wanted me to without a direct response. I’m getting the feeling that the office manager is upset with me for this whole situation as she blew up at me over email for asking an invoice question today. Should I message/call her asking her to clarify if I am to be remote the rest of the week, or if I should come in using masks? I’m extremely concerned about getting into any trouble/fired.

I work in insurance defense (gross I know). No matter how hard I try with subpoenas for records on plaintiff, something always goes wrong. Facilities either don’t respond or are impossible to get in touch with. I’m always serving subpoenas to the wrong facility address or department because I am given the first and last name of a doctor and have to figure out where they treated plaintiff. I use the FLDOH website to find their practicing address, and half of the time it’s their residential address or a facility different than the one

plaintiff was treated at. Records are always missing, either entirely because i can’t stay consistent with follow ups or we received incomplete records. We have 40 cases and issue almost a hundred subpoenas for each. I can’t follow up with these subpoenas as often as i should because i also do all of the scheduling. Films don’t get sent to us and if they do, half the time the film reports weren’t provided. I feel like i can’t win no matter what i do. I admit im not handling the subpoenas as diligently as I should be, but I am so discouraged by it all. I don’t even know what advice someone can give because i just physically and mentally cannot keep up unless I work beyond my schedule but my firm doesn’t pay overtime and wouldn’t pay me at all for working extra hours. I’m just over it.

I have been a legal assistant for almost two years at an insurance defense law firm. I enjoy my job and feel confident in the work I produce . The attorney I work under has commended my work product and work ethic multiple times throughout my time there. I also received a small bonus at our yearly review last year and received positive comments from the partners. Despite the seemingly positive feed back, the raise was VERY small considering my work evaluation went positively with no comments or concerns brought up, only praise.

I want to further my career and am looking for input/advice from others who have experienced this process. I am looking into becoming a certified paralegal and eventually a Florida Registered Paralegal. Would the certificate and/or becoming a Florida Registered Paralegal realistically be beneficial in building my career to find better paying opportunities?

• ABA accredited paralegal certificate programs in Florida
• The NALA exam (can it be taken without the paralegal certificate if one has relevant legal work experience and a Bachelors' degree, or how does that work?

As a side note, my Bachelors degree is in Criminal Justice.

last Friday, my boss wanted me to find a date in July to schedule four one-hour remote depositions (back-to-back) and to clear the date with opposing counsel and co-counsel. our calendar is practically fully booked for the entire month of July, and the dates that did work didn't work for OC or co-counsel. I ended up getting on to a phone conference with the attorney from OC and co-counsel and we found a way to fit the four depositions into the month of July, not on one day, but my attorney agreed this was the only way we could fit them all in.

on Friday, after filing the notices and getting each subpoena drafted to serve, I sent a question for my attorney to answer asking him to clarify which address I should serve the four deponents and he did not respond. OC claimed they included each address in their disclosure, but each deponent (they are each doctors in a fellowship program but are being deposed as witnesses, long story) has OC's office listed as their address. so, I used the FL DOH website and used the address there to ask our process server to rush service on them. I doubt this will be successful, because they are fellows who work in the GI Fellowship program and are moving around campus all day on different assignments and the FL DOH website is the general address for the school. If our process server is unsuccessful, would it be better to run accurint on each deponent and have an investigator go to their residence and serve them?

this is just a huge mess that is largely my fault and two of the depositions are coming up on 07/08.

I handle a lot of different things for my attorney, but I mostly am responsible for scheduling and for subpoena/medical record follow ups. I feel like I am drowning and I am so overwhelmed. I feel like I’m trying my best. I try to keep track of everything that’s going on and keep detailed notes on where I am at for a certain task, but things keep falling through the cracks. For example, right now we have a case where plaintiffs council is producing several witnesses that the attorney wants to depose. They are taking forever to get back to us with dates and on top of that we have to coordinate with two other parties. My attorney is pressing me really hard to get these depositions set, but plaintiffs council is only offering one date at a time in the very near future, making it almost impossible for all parties to be available. I also find myself having to chase down whether an invoice for a deposition was paid or not because the employee here who does invoices for us is not submitting them in a timely manner, and it falls back on me. On top of that and all of the subpoenas I have to draft and get out and then follow up on, I am just so overwhelmed and feel like I’m failing.

Another issue that is stressing me out right now is a deposition m set for next week that I had scheduled back in March, and my attorney did not agree with the fee set by the doctor we are deposing so I had reached out to them to ask if they were willing to accept a slightly lower amount and completely forgot about following up. They called this morning asking about the payment and I realized they never responded to my email and I never followed up. So, now I will have to get a motion drafted and a hearing set about the invoice if they are unwillingly to lower their amount. I am just not cut out for this. Does anyone have any advice on a system to keep track of things like this or any advice on how to priortize tasks?