So, you are looking for a mid-level job where you are promised the prestige, pay, and benefits that befits a necessary cog in the legal machine. You let your dream or your guidance counselor persuade you that this is a great idea and you plunge forth with the passion of the righteous. You graduate, full of pride and expectation, and you march happily to your first job. There are things you should know. Oh, there are things you should know.
This won't apply to everyone. There are those who are just born lucky who will work for wonderful offices that are more like the movies than reality. There are others who will put down their heads and push forward for decades until they get a decent position. There are also those with the right connections and the right metro area to snag a choice position. This blog is for the rest of us.
This is ten things the perspective paralegal should know before plunging head first into the shark tank of the legal world.
01. Essentially, a paralegal can do everything an attorney can do, except represent someone in court. They have to study multiple areas of law, type enough legal transcription to make them wonder why they started, do enough legal research that they become disoriented by the light of day, suffer the slings and indignities of internship, etc.; yet in the long run, most people will end up calling you a secretary or even worse, an assistant.
02. Essentially a paralegal can do everything an attorney can do, except represent someone in court. That may sound nice, but know your attorney is going to use that to the best of his advantage. It still sounds good. I mean, that is your job, right? Being used to the best advantages of your attorney? Wrong. Think of it more (sorry to non-anime viewers) like being one of Orochimaru's henchmen. Your only there because you're going to do the things that are either too horrible or too boring for him to do himself, he's going to try to turn you into a disgusting and ugly parody of the person you used to be, and once you're used up, he's going to leave your dead body by the roadside and move on.
Howdy boss.
03. You carry the reputation of your attorney, so please choose carefully. This can come back to bite you in two ways. First, if your attorney is particularly green, incompetent, etc., be prepared to hear about it when you go to the courthouse, Social Services, etc. "Go ahead through, miss... :: snicker :: That's Mr. SMITH'S paralegal :: giggling ::" Second and more crippling, most paralegals are tied to their attorneys when it comes to promotion, raises, etc. This means, if your attorney is horrible and never gets promoted to a higher level in the firm, you probably won't either. You can separate yourself from your attorney with hard work and positioning, and there is a movement to sever all support staff from their "masters", but it is difficult. This isn't just a problem in the legal world but also in many offices, especially in corporate America.
04. Your time is my time. If your attorney gives you a mountain of work that could barely be completed in a day, then makes you sit in his office for two hours listening to rambling anecdotes, it is still going to be your job to make sure that mountain is done by the end of the work day. If it isn't done, it isn't your attorneys fault for making you waste two hours, its yours for not working harder. More than likely, you will be sitting there until that work is done -- even if he comes back to regale you with a tale of how you could improve your time management skills. Even worse, depending on how your pay is documented, you may not even get paid for this extra time. Anyway, why should you? It's your fault you're sitting there anyway ...
05. Learn to lie for fun and profit ... except there won't be much fun or profit. Many attorneys like to use their offices hours on an "as I feel like it" basis. They will come in late, take long lunches, go home early, and take days off. Of course, this doesn't sound so bad, except during all of these hours, they should be interviewing clients, signing documents, or even appearing in court. That's why your trusty paralegal must be so good at lying and lying often. Remember to keep those lies straight too, because you'll need to know who you used which lie with and when. This includes things like why he can't sign papers today; because he had an emergency (afternoon off with his wife ... at best); why he has to reschedule your appointment again (due to finding something better to do at that time), and asking for a jury trial, instead of just a hearing, because your case is too severe for a hearing (meaning, I wanted to go out of state with my family that day ... just make sure he knows a jury trial costs more).
06. Running a law firm has a lot in common with blackmail. Most of the time, attorneys have a relatively set schedule for what a case will cost. They might even give you a clear contract stating what you will be charged... exactly. Look a little closer. Some clients are charged more for the same case as others, because the attorney didn't like their attitude, didn't like the look of them, or thought they could pay more than that. Those set fees are anything but set. They include mentions of things like "legal costs", which can mean anything from a bloated cost of every single thing we printed or mailed for you or even billable hours for the time my paralegal spent on your case -- which was often sitting in your interview, while I charged you billable hours. This is often the death blow to all of those contingency cases (the attorney only gets paid if you win) where you think you're only going to pay the percentage agreed to from your settlement. It starts with the percentage, and then it becomes more padded than an attack dog trainer. This isn't even the worst of it. What actually drove me from the field was a story that went something like this...
A client comes in with a very desperate legal problem that is going to be difficult and complicated (involving a child). The attorney tells them that he will take the case for a flat fee (everything but costs will be covered by one amount), telling them not to worry, since we already know it is going to go to trial. They are upset, because they just do not have that much money, but they know it has to be done. They go around to their entire family and several friends and collect enough money to pay the fee, and they relax a little as the paralegal sends the letter that will get the whole snowball rolling. The response to the letter comes to the office, and as it was expected, it is a definite refusal. We now have to go to trial. So, the attorney comes to the paralegal and says, let them know that the fee will be the same as before, since we have to go to trial. But, the paralegal says, you told them the fee would be for trial too. No, I didn't; he says. But, the paralegal says, they don't have any money left! He says, they'll find a way to pay it. The paralegal tries to plead with the attorney and is then forced to sit through a two hour lecture on how it takes money to run a law office. The clients are now in a horrible situation, because they have no money to take the case to trial, but they have already spent all the money they had, so they can't go to a different attorney. The paralegal buries their head and cries the millionth time over the case, since this is not only not the first time, it is common.
07. Your mistake is your mistake; my mistake is your mistake. If you make a mistake, you will never hear the end of it. You will never hear the end of the day your typo almost brought down civilization. If your attorney makes a mistake, it was your mistake. You will never hear the end of the day your typo almost brought down civilization. There's nothing like sitting in a deposition, seeing the opposing attorney notice that the attorney forgot to ask for something, the attorney realizing he forgot to ask for something, and seeing him do a Jhonen Vasquez style leap and point, "IT WAS HEEEEEEEEEEER!"
08. The glory is in the paperwork. Well, it has to be somewhere, doesn't it? You will get to do some fun things. Client interviews, argumentative phone calls with the opposition, legal research, assisting in trial, etc. will be yours. The sad part though is that it will almost all be *paperwork*. Everything that transpires in, around, between, on, under, and because of a case must be documented. The documentation must be documented. You will spend so many hours at a keyboard that you will begin to wonder if a court reporter might type less. Then, you will be asked to take things home to type. Finally, when that is all said and done, unless you are lucky enough to have your own secretary, you will file all of it. And once it is all filed, you will go through the files and decide what needs to be archived. Then, you will file them in archive. This job always reminds me of this ....
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09. I will have a decent income and health care! No, most likely you will not. Of course, if you are lucky enough to get a job in one of the state offices (such as the State's Attorney's office or the Public Defender's office), a large firm, or a small but kind attorney's office (I have heard that they exist!) you might; but most people will only have health benefits if they get it privately. I guess, that is getting to be an epidemic in this country though. On to pay... all above exceptions noted, you will make around the same amount to start as a mid-level manager in almost every field (think, "Drew Carey"). In fact, I took a pay cut from my janitorial position at the hospital to become a paralegal after graduation. When I left, I went to work for a credit card company, and my pay increased by several thousand a year. I have heard it said, if you duck your head and plod forth through the storm, there will be money to bed had. I suspect, it is no more money than if you did the same thing at J. C. Penney.
10. Your job is what I tell you your job is. Your attorney, as mentioned in #2 is like Orochimaru and will feel your job is to be edited at whim, and you will be punished if you don't agree and do the task. Oh, how you will be punished! This can range from your attorney making you type personal letters, instead of doing the jobs that need done (remember #4), to forcing you to watch his children while he takes the afternoon off and you mind the office and work (see #4). In my case, it even extended to forcing me into janitorial service. It started out innocently enough. A neighboring attorney left an installed mini fridge off the waiting room area occupied when he left, and it began to smell like we were doing a poor job at storing cadavers. One of the temp assistants was ordered to clean it, but she was one of those people with an overactive gag reflex to smells, so I offered to do it for her. The good job I did was noted. After weeks of our janitorial staff not cleaning the one bathroom shared by the whole office, I couldn't take it anymore, and I cleaned it. He found out I cleaned it and told me that there was no use to pay a cleaning staff when I could do a better job. By the end, I was cleaning the waiting area, vacuuming the floors, oiling the leather couches, polishing the desks, and wondering why I was getting paid less to do the same job I did before I graduated.
It's an endless cycle. Do you show incompetence, so your attorney won't make ridiculous demands; do you continue to excell, despite the fact that you will probably pay for it later; or do you try to find a balance where you show just enough excellence to prosper and just enough incompetence not to be saddled with too much? Or do you go to work for a credit card company?
I am not fully intending this cautionary tale to drive anyone away from their dream of becoming a paralegal. I just hope that my experience and those of the paralegals I have known are like the immortal words of Cruxshadows, "That children of a newer day might remember and avoid our fate."
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