r/paralegal

Hi! I have a strange question from a student hoping to be a paralegal.

I've had a disability since I was young that makes it very difficult and painful to write by hand and could not be resolved with physical therapy. A page is about my limit before my hand cramps too hard to continue, but even a paragraph can be tough (not to mention as a lefty, my handwriting is terrible).

To circumvent this, I'm extremely proficient at typing, but I worry as a paralegal I'll be given tasks or assignments that require something to be handwritten without any option to type. Do any of you have any duties like this? How much do you have to write by hand on average?

Side question, semi-relevant: Is the written portion of the NALA CP test administered on paper? I couldn't find any information on whether it can be typed.

I was offered a position with a generous salary and good benefits. I put in my two weeks and told my employer I’m financially motivated to accept the position as I will be attending law school in the fall.

My employer wants to keep me and offered to pay for my entire tuition (I didn’t get a very good scholarship/my loans would be very large).

I’m kicking myself. I feel horrible turning down a job offer so amazing, but the salary difference would all go towards the tuition and I would basically live on the same amount I am currently at right now.

Also, the generous salary would come with a higher workload than what I’m doing right now. I’m nervous about how I will balance school/work, but the benefits are a lot better at the potential new place.

Please help:( Would you guys stay or leave?

My boss: Can you verify the hearing times for this matter?

Me: The matters are all scheduled at 1:45pm.

MB: You’re sure?

Me: Yes, I’m looking at the case’s calendar on the court website. [starts listing them all]

MB: [interrupts me] Are you *100% sure* they’re all at 1:45pm?

Me: [Pauses] *I am sure that the Court website says they are all at 1:45pm*

Both: 🤣🤣🤣

We usually lock the front door during lunch because we only have a few employees at this office and they want to leave for lunch. I, on the other hand, typically don’t leave because I prefer to read in my office.

Well, they’ve figured this out and are now suggesting it’s okay to leave the front door open because I can “just deal with anybody that’s pops in real quick.” The problem with this is there are nonstop clients stopping in unannounced and they all do it during the lunch hour because, as you may have guessed, they are also on their lunch.

The result of this is that I no longer have a lunch break and when I brought up the fact that I’m not being paid while I spend an hour dealing with clients, I was told it’s fine because “it’s just a quick drop off or pop in and not actual work.”

I told them I’m going to start leaving at lunch because I don’t want to spend it talking to annoying clients who show up without appointments and now they are making it a gigantic deal and saying “well clients are now used to it and they need us to be open at that time.”

Am I crazy for thinking it’s not okay to expect someone to give up their lunch every day because “you aren’t even doing anything anyway?”

Edit to add: They don’t stagger people for lunch because we only have four people: two attorneys, a paralegal (me), and a legal assistant/receptionist. The legal assistant leaves for lunch and obviously the attorneys aren’t going to deal with walk-ins. We used to lock the door for years and it was no problem at all, but now that they realized I don’t leave, they want me to stay and deal with clients. It’s not even just walk in clients now either - they are specifically telling clients to come during the lunch hour to drop off or pick things up because “our paralegal will be here.”

I should note that I don’t do any receptionist duties. Like I don’t ever cover when ours is out. If she is out or on the phone, the calls reroute to one of our other office receptionists. If she is out all day for vacation or sick, we lock the door all day. So it’s not a case of me just not wanting to do my job even more; it literally is something I never do. My job here is to bill 1,900+ hours a year and make them money.

A further note is that I don’t even do any work with the attorneys at this satellite office. I work in a completely different area of law with attorneys at our other offices. I just physically go to this office because it’s the one closest to where I live. The reason I mention this is because I know absolutely nothing about these clients who stop in. I don’t know their case, I don’t know what they are coming in for, I don’t know anything about that area of law or where they should sign something…so that makes it even more frustrating. I know as much as a random stranger does about these people coming in and I’m supposed to spend my lunch hour assisting them…for free.

I have an interview to become a junior paralegal/legal assistant for a personal injury firm in a couple days and wanted to know what questions I should ask. My last interview I was asked if I had any questions and my mind went blank after the second question so I just need some ideas to bounce off of.

Please be patient with me as I have an inability to wrap my head around the units of measurement for storage in a computer. Honestly, I understand the function of the “Mississippi” as a unit of measurement more so than an MB or a KB or whatever. But, is space on your firm’s server such a crisis that IT must be consulted about every download? It is maddening to go thru an extra layer when I am trying to deal with production and reviewing documents that I have been chasing for months! How do you deal with this?
Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m a paralegal student in Michigan finishing up my courses. For an assignment, I need to interview a few working paralegals about their day-to-day work, career path, and advice for someone entering the field.

It will only take 10 minutes of your time. To keep things as easy and private as possible, we can do it entirely through Reddit DMs whenever you have a quick second to reply. (If you prefer Zoom, phone, or email, I'm happy to do that too!)

If you're willing to help a student out, please drop a comment or send me a message. Thank you so much!

*Note: My assignment requires me to list the city/state or practice area of the person I interview, but your specific firm name/identity can absolutely stay completely anonymous if you prefer!

I just got offered a legal assistant/paralegal (they said it's a mix of those two) in probate & trust administration. Anyone out there in the same field that can give me some insight on the job and if you like it?!

Hello my fellow paralegals. So I currently work at a pi firm that is small, one owner. The pay is low, we have no benefits , no pto, etc. they r very flexible if u need to be out but u just wont get paid. The attorney is easy to work with and i like the job but decided to seek out another opportunity due to the low pay and no benefits situation. I was offered another position with higher pay, full benefits, pto etc. it is on the defense side of pi and it is a large firm so there is room for growth. I’m very comfortable in my current position and I need some reassurance that I’m doing the right thing leaving a firm that i already know is a good fit. I’m nervous now to take this leap as I had bad experiences in the past. Please give me some advice!

Edit: I have asked for more money before at my current firm n they r not willing to pay more. They consider my position “entry level” but I’m not doing entry level work.

I’ve been applying to other firms and finally got an interview at a firm that I’m interested in. It went great and they reached out to set up an in-person interview this week but then I read the Glassdoor reviews and they’re horrible. I thought my current firm was bad but holy shit. The common themes from the reviews are high turnover, toxic leadership, and an abusive managing partner. In the interview they did say they’re a “growing firm” (even though they’ve been around since the 90’s) and “have multiple positions open” which might be a red flag.

I was so excited but I’m having second thoughts. I’m not sure if I should even go to the in-person interview now. How much weight do you give Glassdoor reviews?

Another day, another outage. It’s enough to make me consider a new firm because this software is a scourge and it’s terrible for
My mental health. Sitting here imagining throwing my monitors across the office and taking a baseball bat to my laptop. Why do we settle for this garbage???

Rant over. Gonna take a walk so I don’t get fired for breaking my workstation. Sigh.

I am currently the only Paralegal in my office and I’m definitely burned out, but the task that really is burning me out is saving all court notices and saving filings into the files, which feels really stupid to say but this task can literally take all day especially if it’s a busy filling day.

Keep in mind I am responsible for 6 attorney accounts.

I still have to do other paralegal work like request records and open files on occasion. I’ve taken a few days off but ultimately I know if something doesn’t fundamentally change in this office, I’m going to continue to burn out.

The age-old dilemma has now come around to me.

I currently work as an entry-level legal assistant in a biglaw firm doing L&E. It’s fine, but the pay is horrendous relative to the cost of living here, and I’ll reiterate I took this job right out of college around half a year ago. After my recent performance review, we discussed an eventual track to a remote paralegal position with the firm. Likely after a year, and with that change in title comes a change in pay.

However… because I didn’t anticipate my supervisor to be so receptive about me advancing, I’ve been applying + I’m now expecting an offer as a mass tort litigation paralegal that would bump my salary 30% and is fully remote.

Now, I know nothing about mass torts but I want to really hit the ground running and climb fast and sustainably if possible. Additionally, this firm is midsized at best. I don’t know if I’m making a bad mistake by choosing to leave and certainly no one here can predict the future, I’d love any input/words of caution regarding job hopping, growth, mass torts, L&E, etc. Thank you!!

Calling all ADD and ADHD paralegals

How do you get your billing in? I have been really struggling with billing and I get behind, then have a big rush to put it all in at the end of the month. However, that isn’t compliant with our billing policy at my current firm, which is to put it in daily as we work.

I can sit there for an hour after work trying to put it in and still feel stuck. I need to find a way to make it interesting for my brain because the “just put it in” method is not working for me. How do you guys do it?

Holy sh*t. You guys weren’t kidding. We have one pro-se litigant, we represent mom, and he’s genuinely the worst. 8+ emails almost daily. Paragraphs & paragraphs, bullet points galore. He’s not my case, but I can still see all the emails that he sends us. Apparently he’s been fired thrice by his previous attorneys. This man is genuinely a horrible person, and he refuses to leave the attorney alone lol. It’s a headache. We have no choice but to speak to him but we avoid him as much as we can. I find it amusing when pro-se clients will email us using AI, they sound very strategic & well-read. Until they attend a hearing and verbally, they sound like clowns. Family law is one big circus sometimes. Honk honk.

i’m about to start paralegal school and will finish in august. the thing is, i have physical health problems and am prescribed opioids. id rather just take cbd gummies instead of opioids and my pain management doctor is fine with it but im worried itd impact my ability to get a job. how likely is testing for thc upon hire in texas?

I have no legal background and I got hired by a firm where they're supposed to be training me. They're pushing me to do paralegal duties when I barely know what's going on half the time. I know I'm not the perfect employee but I feel like there's a lot of expectations happening and not enough training, I keep getting passive aggressive emails and messages to look up how to do stuff myself or look at documents I've prepared before when I ask questions and if I screw up then get told I'm wasting time and should have asked questions while I was doing it.

People who are supposed to be training me have decades of experience and I keep thinking that they've made all their silly mistakes and learned what they can at their previous firms. As I'm writing this, this firm probably isn't the right culture fit and I should move on but I hate feeling like I've failed myself for not being able to catch on. I know working at a law firm is mainly trial by fire but how much is it me not being suited for this work and how much is on my bosses.

Hello, I'm a paralegal with no legal background and am looking for someone to direct me to courses or trainings that can help walk me through how to prepare a chapter 11 petition. The firm I work for expects a lot of me with little guidance, so I'm throwing out a lifeline here. Examples of what I need to know are (1) in which documents do I look for certain information, (2) how to decipher AR/AP reports, (3) deep dives into how to categorize and input creditors, and (4) basically all the basics.

We use BestCase to draft petitions, so it's fairly simple to use. I just don't know when or if I'm marking/inputting the correct things because the communication here is not great. I've drafted several of these and am tired of asking questions that are not answered then getting flack for not entering information correctly. They will then make corrections or additions without explaining anything to me, hence, why the same mistakes are made each time. I've done several webinars that are of no help at all. So, any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!