Pros
The pay and benefits are meh--they want a college degree for $17 an hour. Good location with nice offices and fairly up-to-date tech. If you miss time you can make it up and save your PTO. They pay for you to take the test for your national paralegal certification, with a cash bonus when you pass. The company sponsors paid time off to volunteer for approved charitable organizations. In some locations they provide low-cost public transportation passes so you can save car expenses. I did pick up a couple of new skills.
Cons
Terrible support and morale. People are either fired or get fed up and quit, but either way they last less than a year. At day 5 -- yes, 5 -- I was assigned to train people to do what I didn't do very well yet. On day 8 -- yes, 8 -- I was "promoted." Sound the warning klaxons. This is a company that can't keep people. Very poor training. You work all day with an extensive database on which you receive zero holistic instruction. You are expected to work on this system at the same level as longer-term employees fairly soon, with information given to you crumb by crumb and usually after you’ve already made a mistake. Inefficiently managed resources. Documents and information needed to do my job were inconsistently indexed and ponderous to retrieve, and the system would be changed without bothering to notify the people who actually work with it. Any bit of data I might need could be found in one of no less than 14 places. It was often incorrect, incomplete, or missing altogether, or else there were a dozen copies of the same thing, and you’d better check all of them in case one of them is actually different and relevant. You are not expected to take any amount of time sifting through all of this. Poor support from management and peers. My questions were answered with “Save that for training later” (which never happened) or something in a “duh” tone of voice. Performance goals are set for employees, which is fine, but they are constantly being raised before the present goal has been reached, so you never get there, but you’re constantly hearing, “Are you meeting your goals? Are you meeting your goals? Why aren’t you meeting your goals?” You know, every time you call a meeting or call me into your office to discuss my goals, I have to stop working toward my goals in order to talk about my goals. I never want to hear the word “goals” again. Feedback is negative, critical, and often contradictory, coming from several different people along with the immediate supervisor. Mistakes are treated like they’re unfixable (not true) and the end of the world (also not true). My boss here was the second worst I’ve ever had. (The worst was the lawyer version of Miranda Priestly, so that bar is pretty high.) Belittling comparisons to higher-level employees who evidently walked on water. Badmouthed my coworkers to me behind their backs and bashed me behind my back as well. (Really. Do you think we don’t talk to each other?) The only person I never heard badmouthed was the boss’s pet, of course, who was frequently in the boss’s office having cozy chats, had personalized hours, and was above the rules the rest of us had to follow. UPSHOT: If you are a paralegal, be aware this is not a law office so much as a lawsuit factory, automated to the highest extent possible, in a field with a predatory reputation (collections). When you tell people what you do, they will give you the same look they’d give a tax auditor or used car salesman. You are working to fill the pockets of corporate America. This job is about numbers, not people. I have a low tolerance for politics and toxicity, and I am a poor imitation of a robot, so I was not happy here and did not excel. (Full disclosure: PCS did fire me - exactly one day before I got another offer and would have quit anyway. I was already looking because I hated it that much.) Your mileage may vary. Recent grads with good survival instincts and thick skin could find this a good place to get your feet wet, fend off the student loan people and move out of your parents’ basement, then move on to an actual law practice.
