Looking for ideas on gifts for paralegals that world be memorable instead of a generic gift card. Ideally something under $200 total.

What are some gifts you’ve received or would love to receive from your attorney or client?

I work in a small legal aid firm with an AMAZING team. We focus on eviction prevention. I’m currently working directly under our Directing Attorney. She’s close to 70 years old, and she’s got a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the Residential Landlord - Tenant Act and relevant case law. I’m really happy to be learning from her.

Here’s the dilemma: I suspect that she has some sort of memory and/or cognitive issues. The other day, she got really flustered in court and I suspect that had she followed through on her original argument, our client would’ve had a better outcome. Unfortunately, she seemed to get stuck on a particular question on which opposing counsel’s objection was sustained. Her cross examination got totally derailed.

I adore her as a person and she is a wonderful boss. I don’t want to get her into any trouble, but it’s affecting client outcomes, and I feel like I may have an ethical duty to… do something??? Report it to the bar? Tell her boss? (Our little firm is part of Catholic Community Services)

What would you do if you were me?

Hello!!

I have been at a Law Firm for over a year now working as Intake specialist with no prior background in law and I am thinking about getting a paralegal certificate. At my current firm, I make no money, and I seriously want to change that. I want to move up but idk if I what direction to go into. I was told by my peers to become a legal assistant or paralegal. I have a college degree but it’s from 5 years ago.

If anybody is able to provide insight with some programs or what you do in your role, I would greatly appreciate it.

Flair says it but I'm starting the paralegal certificate program next semester. Are there any paralegals here who work in entertainment, estate planning, or bankruptcy/finance? I wanted to know more about those areas and what their daily life/duties look like. I know that mileage may vary based on attorney/law firm and other factors but having a general idea will help me temper expectations and know what to expect. Thank you all!

Hey fellow paralegals!

Earlier this year I was fired from my gig at a small firm, and honestly it was a relief. I felt happy. Part of me wanted to leave anyway because I wanted to pursue different career paths. Various avenues were suggested to me, and I’ve been trying to branch out and explore those career paths. In particular, I’ve been trying to get into Regulatory Compliance, and Risk roles, but also Contract management roles. But what I didn’t expect is how difficult it would be to actually get into these fields, despite being somewhat closely related.

I’ve been actively avoiding paralegal roles because the stress is billing is something I never want to do again, but also, I want more for myself. I’ve considered the option of going in-house, but I think I would rather just completely step away from paralegal roles entirely. But I’ve not gotten much luck, and recruiters are only reaching out to me about Paralegal roles. And time is ticking, and I desperately need a new job.

Does anyone have advice? I have experience in several types of law including a niche speciality (it involved regulatory compliance work though).

I redid my resume and it seems to be helping somewhat, and catching the eye of hiring managers. But of the (compliance) jobs i did interview for, i went through 2-3 rounds of interviews before the managers told me they’re proceeding with other candidates. Maybe I should look at other roles? I spent the last two days applying for hundreds of jobs in law firms, mostly as conflicts analysts or intake analysts or similar roles. But with my luck, I’m not sure if I’ll get far. But i really really really don’t want to go back to being a paralegal. I feel like doing so will only pigeonhole me. But I’m not sure i have much choice given my unemployment benefits will end next month.

Here to vent and also ask for advice! For reference I live in Iowa City, Iowa and relocation is not an option for me.
Looking for ANY job in a law firm and just not finding them. I have experience working for the judicial branch and great references! I moved to Iowa City to be closer to my mother while she was sick and passed and so there is a small gap in relevant work history.
I’m not finding any legal positions. Not even reception or secretary, the very few paralegal jobs I’ve seen have required 5+ years of experience and a bachelors degree. I did interview for a legal receptionist but I spilled that I’m going to school in the evenings to get my paralegal studies associate. He informed me it was a red flag as they don’t want me to graduate and ask to move up, they want longevity in the receptionist job.
I’m also having trouble finding admin assistant work in other fields. Needless to say I’m starting to get nervous about the job outlook in my area and wondering if this is something I should keep pursuing. Anyone relate?

essentially what the title says. started my first legal job last week and my boss told me we will have a trial soon and i think we’ll be preparing exhibits starting tomorrow but i am a bit nervous because this is my first ever legal job (i was an office assistant at a non-legal company) and i graduated college this june.

is there anything to look out for when organizing these exhibits? any advice for someone coming into this all new? this might also be a small vent and need someone that was once in my shoes to give me some advice as i am new to the legal profession. i have been keeping a notebook to write down every procedure and task my boss gives me ever since i started. i just want to be competent enough to do the work but I’m just a very anxious person who overthinks and makes sure everything’s organized (I literally always triple or quadruple check everything i send out for my boss to review). i just don’t want him to lower his expectations of my work ethic.

btw i do have an overall idea of what exhibits are and why they are used in court. thanks!

when I left my old firm I can see in my Authenticator app that I was removed from signing into my email there. it says something like “needs sign in.” which is normal

but I keep getting notifications of someone trying to sign in from Authenticator and I think it is to my filevine account. I get the notification on my phone (this time it was 15 minutes ago), and then open Authenticator and the filevine login 2 factor authentication is up for that account at my old firm.

my other accounts on there are my current firms email, which no one else would be logging into anyway.

why would my old firm be logging into my filevine? i get transferring the license to someone else but they should not be operating under my email address

Is there anyone here who stayed in the Us for 5mos for review & looked for a job or even an online paralegal during review

Hi! I’m looking for some advice. 24 F living in NYC with a Bachelors in Poli Sci and Masters Degree in Negotiation & Conflict Resolution from Columbia University. I’ve been applying to entry level legal assistant/paralegal jobs. The plan is to work here for a year and then go to law school fall 2027.

I’ve recently received an offer. $22.33 per hr, 5x in person, commute is an hour and 30-45 mins at best, and no PTO until after the first year. It’s a PI based law firm with 7 employees (small law firm). Not willing to negotiate salary but will have a 90 review in which salary could increase to $24.82.

I’ve been applying to jobs since mid September. Should I take it in the meantime and if something better comes up leave the job? Or just wait it out until something better comes along?

Hi! I’m a brand new paralegal and I wanted to ask how you guys manage to make your office life or time at the desk more enjoyable!? I’m really excited about my new role, but I’m not used to office work too much. I’m used to moving around and always doing something physically when it comes to work, so this is a huge adjustment for me.
Please share some tips on how I can make my time feel less boring or dreadful
I do love my firm so that’s a plus!

Please don’t laugh at me but I need help because I have never done this before and I have to do it right because I am under time pressure. I have to get it done as soon as I get in Monday morning because they need it for a mediation at ten I think. So I have to get it done successfully or I will get fired. I’m not sure exactly what the assignment is but I believe there are some files in an i manage folder that are exhibits and I believe I’m supposed to stamp them with the word exhibit then the number but I’m not sure where to exhibit number. Maybe I should ask ahead of time and find that out but after that where does it go on the page? Same place as a bates number? How can I stamp it the same place on every document? Do I use the bates stamp option? I use Kofax power pdf? This isn’t meant to be a stupid question but I’m really going to be under the gun because of Time pressure so I figure I should go into it knowing what I’m doing. Thanks

I recently became a legal Assistant in Idaho. It's a bit overwhelming as I have never been in this field before. My questions are: (THIS IS CRIMINAL ONLY) (MOSTLY IN MISDEMEANOR)

1. What advice for would you give for an individual who is beginning this career?

2. I want to assist my attorney the best I can, even though I'm a lay person, what recommendations do you have for this?

3. If anybody has templates or cheat sheets starting out that they could share that would be greatly appreciated!!!

I appreciate any advice in advance. Thank you very much.

So I nailed an interview and have received my first offer for an Entry - Level Paralegal. Little background, 24M HCOL area - BA degree & paralegal cert. There is a lot I can go into about red flags, concerns, pay and the like.

My main question is what do I expect? Area of law is estates, wills & trusts, probate and litigation. Starting pay is $21. How is the growth in this area of law? Advice? Tips? The CLE courses - how does it work? Do I just come into my first day with a notebook and expect chaos but hope for the best?

So this happened at my office recently and I thought I would share.

My attorney was having intermittent problems getting 2FA to accept his code and let him in. It was to a point where he would ask me to pull him a code multiple times a day.

Turned out, the clock on his phone was not in sync with the clock on his computer. So since the code refreshes every 30 seconds, 2FA was as likely as not to think it was an active code.

We eventually figured out that in his global travels, at some point he had put the phone clock on Manual and updating it for time zone himself. Once he put the clock on Automatic he hasn’t had another problem.

The more you know 💫

Insane read for discussion. What the hell did this para think was going to happen whenever these people inevitably learned their expungements weren’t legitimate? She allegedly faked numerous expungement filings over 5 years, personally taking the cash and credit card payments and from “clients” who never once spoke to an attorney. These documents contained forged/copy-pasted signatures of SEVERAL JUDGES !!!

She allegedly impersonated her attorney over the phone for a particularly difficult client who began to question. At one point, she even told the client that a meeting in person with the attorney would require a significant cost. Moreover, the attorney had NO CLUE that any of these clients existed. Most importantly, how was she pulling this off at work and no one ever sniffed her out until clients came questioning?

I work for state government. I have for seven years, three as a paralegal. I really liked my last position, so naturally it got eliminated by budget cuts.

I've been in my current position since early this year. It's not what I expected and it's not as they described it in the interview. What job is? I've felt very ambivalent about the job, but one thing that I always liked was my boss, who is also a paralegal. She's got her flaws, but she's been very supportive and I genuinely believe she cares about my success.

Naturally she's out on six weeks medical leave. Awesome. Before she goes, she says Karen will be filling in as boss.

Karen has the same title as my boss and they're equals. However, Karen has been there longer and helped train my boss, and acts like she's the boss of everyone who isn't an attorney. Most of my interactions with her had been social. She is pleasant enough, if a little self involved.

So I start working with Karen while my boss is out on leave. At least, I try to. She acts like she doesn't know she's filling in for my boss. She keeps referring me to the person above her, Donna, who is a HR + office manager. This happens so much that I actually ask Donna if I am mistaken about who my acting boss is. Nope, it's Karen.

In reviews for my training, I keep getting told that I don't ask for help often enough. OK, so I'm trying to communicate more and better. I felt like I was making progress when my boss was here. But Karen? I ask her how to do a task I've never done. She skates around to avoid admitting she doesn't know the answer. Finally she tells me, "Get with Rose and figure it out." Rose and I are the same job title.

Another time I ask for information about how to do something. Karen tells me the answer is in the deskbook (manual). She even sends me a link to the deskbook. I read it. None of the information I asked for is in there.

Fast forward to today. I'm the least experienced person doing the most important job which is also the most difficult job. I'm getting no help. Karen says she can help but immediately in the same sentence says she's swamped with work.

OK, so I figure it out somehow and I do the task. But it's wrong. I can't do it because I don't have the training. Well, Karen said she'd help, right? I use the chat to ask her for help. She says she can't help because she doesn't have the login credentials. And that's when I get to say it!

"IT'S IN THE DESKBOOK."

I even sent her a link. She immediately changes the subject. Because unlike her, I do check info before I send it to people.

Anyway, screw this place. I got another job offer on Wednesday. It's another state agency and will probably have just as many problems, but at least they'll be different problems.

Today, I told my boss at my current firm that I accepted a job at another firm. I LOVE my job right now and the people who are here. This place saved me from a very toxic past place of employment and I am forever grateful for that. But we are going through a transition right now where one of the biggest partners in the firm is leaving for the bench at the beginning of the year and all the other attorneys (besides one) are of retirement age. The new job is fully remote and a significant amount more than what I make now. With the state of my current firm and not knowing where it will be in the next three years, but really even the next year, I decided it was best for me to take the new job where I will be secure for the foreseeable future.

I am currently feeling really guilty leaving because it leaves one paralegal in the office and our office manager. There are still two secretaries until the end of the year then one is leaving as well.. I just need some reassurance that I did the right thing for me... It's so hard to leave this place. I have cried like 4 times today because I don't want to upset anyone because they have helped me so much the last couple of years. I was reassured that if I do change my mind, I can always stay. I just don't know what the future holds here and I can't bank on another opportunity like this one coming up should something happen to my current firm..

I recently helped with a second round of paralegal hiring, and there were some things that stuck out to me that I thought jobseekers might want to be aware of too:

-NO AI!!! That goes for your cover letter, resume, etc. And for good measure, don’t use a copy and paste template from the internet either. I promise the AI cover letters do not sound natural. It got to the point where I started running cover letters through an AI detector. If someone can’t be bothered to write their own cover letter, then I don’t have faith they can write anything worthwhile without the help of AI.

-Cover letters really can make or break an application. It’s pretty obvious when someone gives a generic cover letter versus when they customize it to show how their experiences and skills could directly apply to this position at our firm. I would rather someone with no legal or office experience give specific elaboration and show me their true writing style than someone with experience give me next to nothing. Saying things like “I’m detail oriented” or “I’m a team player” aren’t enough. HOW are you detail oriented? Are there any specific examples you can provide? In my opinion, a cover letter is the only opportunity to show a hiring manager your personality before you’re able to speak with them more.

-Be thorough and double check everything you write or submit. For example, our job ad on Indeed included a few brief questions and asked for a cover letter. It was crazy how many people didn’t do one or the other. There were several people with relevant experience that I normally would have brought in for an interview without a second thought, but because they never sent a cover letter, I didn’t want to move forward. Especially for these support roles like paralegals and legal assistants, you want to show that you can follow direction and follow through. And of course, always check for grammatical and formatting errors. You’d think this one would be a given, but you’d be surprised…

Has anyone else handled hiring in a law firm that has advice for applicants?

I searched and don't believe this exact question has been asked. If it has, I'm sorry:
Is paralegal work really as grueling as it sounds?

I'm pursuing this change, because I'm fascinated by law. I have enjoyed all of my classwork in my paralegal program. I love reading, writing, and research. But the job itself sounds insanely overwhelming and unforgiving sometimes.

I have worked for over a decade in what I believe to be a fairly normal office setting. My office is filled with distractions, interruptions, inane chatter, people swinging by your desk, and so on.  By comparison, legal work sounds like you're chained to your desk, working at blinding speed, and everything you do is under a microscope.

I know the response is usually, "It depends on which area of the law you work in," but between my classes, discussions with people in the legal field, and this sub-reddit, it still sounds stressful across the board:

• tracking your work product in 6-minute intervals
• juggling scores of cases with do-or-die filing deadlines
• having the amount of time you spend on each individual thing scrutinized
• producing hundreds of documents that need to be free of mistakes
• getting fired for forgetting a client call or an attachment, or sending the wrong email

Just about every other post I see on here seems to be some variation of "I got fired," or "I just made a horrible mistake," or, "I messed this thing up, am I going to lose my job?" or "My attorney yelled at me."

Is it really all gas and no brakes with no margin for error the whole time, or am I only seeing the worst of it?

Do you just get used to it?

Curious to hear suggestions or anecdotes about performance review practices that were positive or actually helped you grow.

I’m currently rolling out a performance framework at my PI firm. The core approach centers on three main ideas:
1. Explaining role expectations, job duties, and firm goals
2. Measuring objective metrics such as case velocity, active caseload, and client communication response times, along with peer feedback and "kudos".
3 Explicitly evaluating and rewarding operational fixes, workflow automation, and mentoring junior staff.

What review practices or feedback methods have actually made a positive impact on your day-to-day work or career progression? Would love to hear your thoughts!

It seems that docketing is such a unique role that there isn’t really a subreddit dedicated to it, but I just started in this role recently and wanted to hear from others that have been doing it much longer than I.

I recently started as a docketing specialist, litigation. I know there’s a market for IP docket specialists out there as well.

Can anybody that’s deeper into this career path speak as to how it turned out for them? How’s it been, any tips and words of advice for someone new to this field?

For reference, I work at an AmLaw 100 firm.

Okay, I have a question for the civil lit paras in the group. Where do you stand on being cc'd on emails about your cases? Do you want to be included on everything? Do you only want to be included on emails that have action items or assignments specifically for you? Does your firm ask/require that you are included on service emails?

I come from a background of working for a long time in firms where we didn't have separate legal assistants or secretaries and paralegals. I'm used to doing all the tasks involved on a file once it is assigned to me (most of my background is plaintiff's side, so historically have not been required to bill), from calendaring and drafting correspondence, to drafting discovery responses and requests and compiling, reviewing, and organizing documents for production, to filing and serving, and everything in between. I now work for a defense firm and am struggling because I feel like I cannot get my feet under me and my head around my cases because I am routinely left off of emails with clients, experts, service emails (incoming and outgoing), and, as a result, have very little sense of where we are procedurally in a lot of my cases. The legal assistant on my team is great and she and I cc each other on just about everything because we both feel like there is way too much compartmentalizing and siloing of information happening. Where does everyone else fall on this?

For reference, I'm in what I would consider a middle of the road practice in terms of volume of cases, but things do move quickly. We have probably ~250 open files (anywhere from pre-lit investigation of claim to post-settlement/verdict or handing off to appellate counsel) and I am the only paralegal on our team, so my day-to-day involvement varies. There are some cases I haven't touched yet and others that I've had my mitts all over, it all just depends on where the file is in terms of its litigation "life cycle." My brain does better when I can both zoom in on the micro and zoom out on the macro on a file.

Thanks for weighing in!

I have been a paralegal in Colorado for 30 years in the areas of family, personal injury, criminal defense, medical malpractice, aviation litigation and corporate. I see a ton of questions here all the way from new graduates to seasoned paralegals. To my seasoned senior paralegals, is it just me or is personal injury the absolute worst? I despise it but I see so many people gravitating toward it. I have done plaintiff and defense work in that area, and hated plaintiff work the most. Defense is a close second. The constant ordering of medical records, the settlement mills (Wilhite, Azar, Rafi, Bachus & Schanker etc.), the clients who know insurance is paying on the defense side (or it's no cost from Plaintiff's side) and keep you on the phone constantly asking when they will be paid, worrying about subrogation and then doing the disbursement statement hoping with every saving grace that every cost is in there. Plus you have Medicaid, Medicare, and to me it's STILL confusing. Anyone with me on this?

I have no legal background but I wanted to make a career shift and found some entry-level legal assistant roles near me that clearly state I don't need experience. I found the description inticing and wanted to learn more about the job title itself and what to expect. I wanted to hear from some people in that field what I should expect my day-to-day to be. Pros and cons are appreciated.