Paralegal Blog

You’ve had a job or two (or three) that have each lasted under a year. As you sit down to revamp your resume you wonder, “how in the world will anyone hire me if they see that I truly have been job hopping?”

And, yes, I do understand that “job hopping” occurs for reasons you sometimes cannot control (nasty boss, etc.) However, lying will catch up with you ultimately.

How do you overcome this resume flaw?

Simple. Use your cover letter to explain those hiccups or gaps. Listen, if an employer does a background check, they are going to find out everything and will not hire you.

Honesty is the best policy.

Next, do you have letters of recommendations from past employers? If not, can you obtain them? If so, you’ll hit a home run by enclosing the letters with your resume. When a potential employer sees that the former employers admired you as a worker and would hire you back in a nano-second, all is well. The new employer will overlook the hiccups or gaps because of your past employers’ recommendations.

You’ve just graduated from law school.  The resumes and cover letters have been sent out and you’re finally receiving some positive feedback from potential employers.  In fact, you’ve interviewed with 2 or 3 firms and one has officially extended an offer to you.

The salary offer meets your expectations, you accept the job and go apartment hunting.  Could life be any sweeter?  You find the apartment of your dreams, make a deposit and move in.

The job starts on Monday.

How do you begin this career successfully?

Can you have a law career and a personal life?

How do you manage your staff?

Should you get involved in your local bar association?

All of the above questions (& more) will be answered in upcoming blogs, however, let’s tackle the first question:  how do you begin this career successfully?

1.  Arrive on time.  Seriously.

If your normal work day begins at 8 a.m., arrive at 7:30 a.m.  Simple as that.  You will impress the partners.  They notice.

2.  Dress the part.

Wear professional-looking clothes.  Dress conservatively.  No trendy clothes.  Save that for the weekend – on your own time.

3.  Be prepared to work.

How hard?  Whatever it takes for the first 3-5 years.   What does “whatever it takes” entail?

At a minimum, as a new associate you should expect to work 50-60 hour weeks.

No, I’m not kidding.  This is real world, now.

Perhaps it’s because you placed high in a Moot Court competition or even that you graduated near the top of your class that you feel you have something concrete, something of value to offer your new employer.  To be honest, you do not have a discernable value to the firm at this point.

Your first day at your new job is the time to prove exactly why the firm made a good decision in hiring you.

Start off on the right foot and build from there.

More to come . . .

“Whaddya Mean You Missed the Deadline???” The dreaded question for all legal staffers whether you are a legal secretary, legal assistant or paralegal. Missing the dreaded deadline could, in fact, cause you to lose your job.

I know, I know, the attorney is ultimately the one whom the local bar holds responsible for the work product. Very true. But while the attorney may get a reprimand or a “slap on the wrist” from the judge for missing a hearing date or from the local bar for missing a deadline, you could face termination from the job that supports your family.

Maybe for you, the expectation of tracking deadlines and being responsible for them is not “what you signed on for” when you agreed to take the job. Reality is, though, that the attorney absolutely needs a second set of eyes on the deadlines or hearing dates and those eyes are yours.

I’ve been asked in the past why I feel this is part of my responsibility.

In the beginning of my career, I wasn’t expected to track deadlines. The attorneys I worked for early in my career were not full-time litigators, so there weren’t a lot of dates to track. But after landing a job in the personal injury field, it was imperative that I monitor my cases very closely.

When my attorney called in, he wanted to know what was on the calendar for the week – what were the upcoming deadlines?

There is wonderful case management software out there that tracks deadlines beautifully, however, none of the attorneys I worked for would buy it.

So, what I developed was something called a “Case Status Chart”. This is simply a 4 column table with the following titles: “Client”, “Case Info”, “To Do” and “Deadlines”. For a free sample copy, simply visit my paralegal website, fill out the form on the 1st page and in the “Comment” section, type in “Case Status Chart”.

It’s important for you, as a legal staffer, to take responsibility for tracking deadlines, hearing dates, etc. Be proactive. Get your head inside the case as if your life depended on it. Well, in fact, your working life may just depend on it.

One of the most fantastic benefits from using the Case Status Chart was that my personal stress level was reduced dramatically. Oh, and of course, my attorney’s.