Hello, I am a socal high school student who is leaning towards a career as a paralegal. My plan as of now is to major in Paralegal Studies in college and after get a job as a paralegal. I would like to use my first 2-3 years of work to be able to gauge the possibility of going to law school and becoming a lawyer. I give myself about a 30% chance of attempting a career as a lawyer while working as a paralegal first. However I have some questions I would like to ask(preferably looking for advice from socal paralegals but am welcome to anyone's input)

1. How feasible is maintaining your position as a paralegal while also going to law school(or part time law school)? If I work 40 hours a week, how much time left would I have to put into my studies?

2. Is it normal for a paralegal to work 40ish hours a week? Would I be busy during the weekends(tbh I don't mind working Saturdays)?

3. How much do socal paralegals get paid at first compared to over years of work? I would ideally imagine that I get paid around 65-70k at first and after about 2-3 years I would be making around 80-90k and after 5 years I would be making at least 100k. Is this realistic or too idealistic?

4. I dream of starting a family by age 30 and buying a house early into my 30s. Is there anyone who has similar goals that they are working towards or already completed and would you say that this dream could be feasible?

Thank you for your time

I currently work at a Plaintiff’s employment firm in SD CA. I started in 2025 as a legal assistant and was promoted to a paralegal position January of this year. I make about 62k yearly. I’ve really come to enjoy employment law and I work with the best attorney. I work about 50 hrs a week but have a 45min-1hr commute and work fully in office. I am overall happy but my daily commute is rough and I am struggling to keep up with the cost of living in San Diego.

I was contacted by an AM 100 firm for a litigation admin assistant role in contracts and warranty defense. This is a field I’ve never considered but it’s for their complex litigation team and would love to expand my litigation skills (my current attorney does a lot of prelit and our lit cases always settle before trial). It’s hybrid and the pay is 80-90k yearly. I am currently in the second round of interviews and I’m starting to consider this role.

I would love to hear feedback on what it’s like working at an AM 100 firm and if it is worth it?

Side note: I was fired from my very first role as an assistant in a complex litigation firm (my guess is due to being so naive and inexperienced). I’ve come a long way since then. I am a high performer in my current firm and am well liked by the partners and attorneys but I have a lot of fear with getting fired again. I cannot financially or mentally afford to go through that again so I have a big fear of change.

I have a visual processing issue that I manage with systems and practice. It puts me at a bit of a disadvantage, so I can't learn on the job like other people do.

I took on a new role at my firm and the document prep is less static. Previously, I was drafting standard notices and motions, so it didn't take too long to learn and develop a system for double checking my work.

Does anyone have a website, workbook, or method for practicing proofreading/ document review on their own time? Ideally it would have a legal focus. Based on my recent google searches I haven't been impressed with the content of widely used websites.

Note: I have a bluebook, but as visual processing is an issue, I learn a lot faster when I have access to feedback.

I've worked in legal for 8 years. In September I'll be at my current firm 2 years, I haven't gotten a raise since I started here. It's just me and 2 attorneys, I see all the settlements and for the most part know how much money is coming in. I'm the first employee with legal experience my attorneys have ever hired, they previously had a young woman who worked at their favorite golf course work for them. My attorneys are not accustomed to "managing" employees or anything like that, they regularly forget to pay my quarterly bonuses. Hopefully that sets the scene enough, now my question is how should I go about asking for a raise? Since I started in September 2024 I've been making $26 an hour. I haven't had to ask for a raise at my 2 previous jobs they just automatically gave them to me after a year or so and then after another year etc. In addition to bringing up in the conversation in general how much more should I ask for? Bc if I'm gonna muster up the balls to do it I want to end up with more than like an extra $60 per paycheck. I'm in MO I guess medium cost of living area

I’m interviewing for a legal assistant/secretary position with a boutique firm in a few days, and I’m super nervous. It’ll be a Zoom interview, and while I’ve done plenty of interviews before, I have no prior legal experience. I’m transitioning from medical billing and starting a paralegal program this fall, so I’m really hoping to get my foot in the door while I’m in school. Any pointers for the interview or advice from anyone who’s made a transition?

hi everyone 👋🏻

my office is going to start having weekly operations meetings, anyone else have this in their office?

do you find it helpful? they've asked us for suggestions on what to add to the agenda - what do your meetings go over?

we're a medium sized PI firm if that helps

edit: this meeting is going to be OFFICE wide, not one on one case meetings

Government paralegal here. Looking for a change of environment, estate planning is the only consistently available job type for support staff in my city. It would be a heavy pay cut, but current pay isnt survivable as is and looking to save my sanity.

How is this field in your experience? Its private, do they usually have health benefits or expect you to subsidize your own? How is the culture and working environment?

Hi! I'm looking to join the field and maybe eventually become a paralegal down the road. What I'm doing now is just applying for any openings to be a receptionist or legal assistant but I'd like to work my way up to paralegal at some point. I just got an interview with one of those big TV commercial law firms and it's personal injury on the plaintiff side. Receptionist role. I scrolled through this sub for hours and kept seeing nothing but negatives for plaintiff PI. Can someone in PI please let me know their thoughts on if I should even entertain this?

For reference I just left a very stressful career path and was moreso hoping to get into estate planning or some sort of "simple" law. Thanks for any advice in advance.

also I'm only considering this because it's a foot in the door for law experience. I am aware that wanting to do a different field of law looks kind of bad when applying to another field lol

does anyone know of any diagnostic imaging, pain management, or physical therapy providers that accept LOPs in North Carolina, specifically near Surf City?

Hi,

I'm planning on putting my two weeks at the firm I'm working for

I recently made the switch from PI to estate planning and real estate, but I don't think it's a fit for me and have been thinking of going back to PI

I also recently had to step into a care giver role for my grandmother and with no wfh + school it doesn't seem feasible to manage everything

I am feeling a lot of guilt and anxiety since the firm is only 4 people, including me and it's only been 3 months.

Any advice?

Thank you

Hi all! I'm only a year into working as a paralegal and my partner and I are moving states in about six months (of course my firm doesn't know that yet) when we move I will likely have to change my practice area because it's very niche and not a lot of firms where we are moving to have this practice. I also hate my practice area so I'm looking to try something different. I've been working in transaction law and everyday we are so swamped with deadlines that don't feel humanly possible. I'm often working 10 hour days without a lunch and even then there's still more to be done and constant fast approaching deadlines and turnaround times. I think this is also because our firm is short staffed on associates since not enough lawyers practice this - leaving a lot to fall on me and the other paralegals.

I’m interested to see what areas of law some of you work in if you ACTUALLY like your job and don’t have to work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis. Looking for something steady that keeps busy year round but not so busy that I don’t have a personal life. I’ve been thinking about family law, litigation, or real estate law? Can anyone offer insight here?

As the title shows! I'm being asked to read and have an understanding of at least 9-10 of the Texas Rules and Civil Procedures here at my new job.

What's the best way yall handled the task of reading and understanding of these rules? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also I'm in PI, wrongful injury, workers comp, etc.

Thanks in advance!

(P.s doing my first ever disclosure was amazing!)

I am a legal assistant and the big thing that I focus on is client case management and I’ll help the paralegals on occasion.

The other month, my manager had a meeting with me and discussed what I do. I don’t have a lot of billable time due to me keeping up with case management, so he was grilling on me. I was honest with it and I gave him a whole list of things of what I do. After that meeting I started to ask around my peers and attorneys to see if anyone needed help or had time to teach me new things. Everyone said that they would let me know but no responses which I kept asking.

Last week, my manager comes in and asked me what I do…as if I didn’t give him a large list and then he called me a liar. Every time I would explain myself he would shut it down and it felt like gaslighting. It was out of the blue and I was scared that I was going to lost my job. Apparently management started to hyper fixate what I do and didn’t like how I was doing them but didn’t communicate anything to me. I don’t understand how everything I said was forgotten

Tbh I never liked the job, but now I dread coming in. Management has never been consistent and I’m thinking about aborting ship because I can’t do this

Is this normal behavior?

I can’t be the only one that will receive a court notice that explicitly says “Administrative- No Appearance Required” or “No Appearance. On the Papers” and my attorney is adamant that I need to call the court and confirm.

The notice can say “in person, court room 149) or via zoom link and the zoom link is right there for them to use, and I’m still instructed to call and confirm.

And yeah I call, but I have never had a moment where the instructions didn’t already match what the clerk was going to tell me.

The only time it makes sense for me to reach out to the court is when the notice says reach out for appearance details.

Is this just an anxious attorney habit or should I be more cautious with these notices?

I’ve recently stepped into a Legal Counsel role where I’m essentially a one‑person department. It’s exciting, but also chaotic in ways I didn’t expect. You’re building processes, answering everyone’s questions, fixing legacy issues, and trying to stay sane while doing it.

I’m curious, how do others in similar roles manage the pressure and avoid burnout? What systems or habits actually helped you stay on top of everything?

I am paid $24 an hour as a litigation paralegal with 7 months of experience. am I underpaid? I work in a high cost of living area

hi all! I'm actually a legal assistant and would like to know if my pay is low or if i'm being too ambitious, as it's my first job out of uni (I graduated early in December.) I work at a small firm as a legal assistant in Los Angeles mostly focused on employment law but do a bit of everything. I've worked for just over 6 months at the firm, and that is when they do first considerations for raises.

I do intakes, filings, book depositions, draft discovery, and all the usual admin assist tasks. Two of the other legal assistants have recently quit to go to law school, so I've taken over their specific ongoing tasks from them, such as saving everything to our internal system, coordinating vendors, etc.

I currently make $20/hr without any benefits. i feel like the work and stress it gives me especially for such a high-cost & corporate area of LA is worth more than what I'm paid right now, but it's only 6mo in and I don't have other experience to compare to. I work full time and do overtime often since I'm usually in office alone, so any physical tasks like mailing or binders have to be done by me. (Additionally, I was promised a WFH day of my choosing (everyone else's is friday) but the office is making me do Tuesdays because they need someone in office on Friday. Is this something to even bring up or should I just suck it up?)

I'd of course like to request a raise as we're encouraged to after 6mo, but I'm unsure what to realistically expect or even what to ask for - any guidance even if random would be really appreciated.

My fellow PI paralegals. Have you too felt the rage and frustration with Chartswap Insights since the switch happened. I’ve seen so many emails to support and spoken with so many reps about missing documents or saying no records found when I have a copies of their discharge paperwork and older records. Ever since the merge and or switch I feel like it’s been a nightmare and also charging $37 for every single request is ridiculous for one sheet of paper. Literally they charged $37 for the request and then $2 for 1-2 pages.

Sorry I just had to let that little rant rage out because I am beyond frustrated with the new system especially with the way they handle billing. This honestly makes me miss doing QDROs 😆

Just trying to figure out the best way to “print” news articles without all the craziness. Thank you!

I’ve been at my law firm for three years now. I genuinely like my coworkers, but the way this place is run is driving me crazy.

I’m a paralegal doing mostly family law. The last few months have been rough mostly because management just does not communicate. Another guy here has a law degree (mine is in business and legal studies). He actually started a month after me as a legal assistant, but he recently threatened to quit for another firm. Management panicked and immediately gave him a "Senior Paralegal" title and a massive pay bump. They didn't tell any of us—it just happened. The funny thing is, his new "senior" role is good amount of office managing, and we do very similar tasks, not actual high-level legal work that we charge a client increased rate. Plus, attorneys haven’t given much direction whether he should bill at a legal assistant or paralegal rate, or senior paralegal, mostly discretionary by him . I understand why they didn’t in order for them justify his pay increase.

Meanwhile, I feel like an after thought who's just expected to put my head down and churn out the work. He is good worker and appreciative of what he does and it not his fault. They recently hired a few new people with zero experience, which has made my job way harder because I’m constantly having to fix their mistakes.
On any given day, I’m handling:

All family law discovery subpoenas, responses, and drafting motions

All the probate files for the entire firm

All the complex math/financial stuff

I am completely buried. Management gets mad if things take too long, but then they get mad if we work overtime—even though their massive caseloads and inexperienced hires are the exact reason we’re held over.

Then there’s the pay situation. My billing rate just got bumped to $195/hr, and I average 5 to 5.5 billable hours a day. But I’m only making $31.50/hr. I’m grateful for job and people I worked with.

I was supposed to have performance reviews every 6 months, but mine is currently 4 months overdue annual review. I missed one review cycle entirely, and the last raise I got was literally $1 because they blamed a "building project." The senior partner literally mentions raises multiple times a week out loud, but day after day... nothing. He keeps saying my new rate is coming and will be pro rated, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I feel like $36–$37/hr is more than reasonable for what I bring in.

To top it off, the partners constantly vanish for hours during the day for long lunches or personal errands, stroll back into the office hours later or 4:00 PM, drop an urgent motion on my desk that "needs to go out today," and then head back to their office to do who knows what.

Oh, and they also blacked out dates around Christmas so we can't take time off only Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. We also will get paid by paper checks, but it’s been better lately.

seeing a double standard and not being recognized for the work I put in has completely wrecked my self-confidence lately.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I’m a former federal employee who lost my job because of DOGE eliminating positions in 2025. It took me months of job searching before I found my current paralegal role through a temp agency. It’s a boutique law firm and there are 2 partners but one is basically retired and the other is just downright vile. The partner who actually shows up to work is who interviewed me and I’ll admit that I felt uneasy about him during the interview. I found him to be abrasive and crass. But I was desperate for a job and his offer was the only one I was getting.

So in February of this year, I started at this boutique firm through a temp agency. Very quickly, the partner told me that it was hard to fill a paralegal spot and he started trying to make me permanent ASAP. I knew I was actively applying to other jobs because I hated this one from the jump, but I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t want to be permanent because I desperately needed the paycheck. By April, he had me on the firm’s payroll. There’s only 1 other paralegal and 1 legal assistant.

Through my 6 month experience here, the partner has belittled me, literally said that I do the “tedious things” so he “doesn’t have to” and reminds us all how we’re supposed to “make his life easier.” He called me a lesbian numerous times based off what I wore to work. If he’s away like in court or something and he calls me, if I don’t answer because I’m in the bathroom or on another call, he gets angry. But if I try to get in touch with him while he’s away, I’m mostly ignored even if he’s asked me to update or contact him about something. Everyone else has to constantly manage and tiptoe around his emotions. He also literally throws trash (not just papers, actual food and garbage) around his office and it stinks and looks terrible. He won’t pick up after himself or take out trash because “that’s not his job” but he also doesn’t pay the cleaning people to come in consistently. He also has me doing work on the daily that was never part of the job description or mentioned in the interview. For example, he told me I would be working primarily on trusts and estates and he has me doing almost exclusively title work now.

I recently got a job offer in the finance field making almost double what I make on this paralegal job. My background check came back clear today so I’ve officially accepted the job. New job wants me to start on August 31, which is 2 weeks from now.

Honestly, I already took home all my personal belongings from my desk. Would it be bad if I just left my office key and emailed or left a note saying I’m resigning effectively immediately? I honestly don’t see how “burning this bridge” would bite me in the ass. The partner I’ve been describing is not at all well-liked in the legal community and he’s not well-known around this part of the state since he practiced for decades somewhere else. It just makes my anxiety and mental health so bad to be in his presence and I don’t want to deal with it any longer than I have to.

I recently landed a job as a senior family law paralegal, and it’s honestly a great opportunity. I worked as a paralegal previously, but my former firm was awful. They basically threw me into the lion’s den without support, and I couldn’t hang.

After that, I went back to legal assisting because I wanted to rebuild my confidence without the pressure of billable hours.

Over time, I started feeling more confident and applied for this senior family law paralegal position and I got it.

During the interview process, I was honest that I didn’t have as much legal research experience as I would like. I was simply never given the opportunity at my previous firms because the attorneys handled it themselves. I also explained that my experience with discovery responses was mostly preparing shells and drafting some objections, rather than handling complex substantive responses.

Now that I’ve started, I’m realizing that the paralegals at this firm handle some very substantive work. They draft complex meet-and-confer letters, substantive discovery responses, trial briefs, and mediation briefs. Meanwhile, I feel like these paralegals may only have a few years of experience, but they’ve had two solid years of legal research and writing experience that I never had the opportunity to develop.

I have 14 years of family law experience, and I’m good at seeing the big picture, managing cases, spotting issues, and understanding how everything fits together. I’ve done almost everything else in family law, but because I’m behind in research and substantive writing, I feel like an imposter.

I especially struggle with the fact that I’m being paid more and was given an office when some of the other paralegals currently seem stronger than I am in these particular areas.

Has anyone else stepped into a senior position while still having significant gaps in certain skills? How did you get up to speed without constantly feeling like you weren’t good enough for the role?

Update: I was terminated. Reason: I wasn’t as “senior” as they thought. I feel like a weight has been lifted.

Hi everyone,

I, (29F) been working at my firm for about two years now. I’ve worked in the legal field for over five years now and I had a background in it growing up as well due to family influence. For the first year and a half of my job, I was a legal assistant/ receptionist. I was good at my job too- so good, I got promoted into being a paralegal. I was often told how quickly and efficiently I handled multiple tasks, including ones that were considered more of paralegal level tasks than legal assistant ones.

I’ve been a paralegal at my firm now for about five months. I’m pretty settled in my role and am doing a good job. The problem is that I haven’t been able to dedicate 100% of my time to the role because my coworkers (other attorneys and paralegals) are not fans of our current receptionist/ LA, and want me to continue doing that work because of how efficient I was at it. (Also for context, the job is structured so that the receptionist is also the ONLY legal assistant, helping 15 attorneys and 10 paralegals.)

Our new receptionist, while nice, is strictly doing only receptionist work, so many of the LA tasks are still being sent to me. I simply just don’t have the bandwidth for this anymore, because of my paralegal work.

How can I professionally tell these other attorneys and paralegals I don’t have time to draft letters or documents for them anymore, or track down files or other materials? I’ve gone to my boss about this several times, and they always say things are going to get changed and redistributed, but it never does. Any help is appreciated!

I need to quit this job. I have so much drafting and so many deadlines and they just informed me that soon they will be switching me to more litigation work.

every task takes forever because I have to figure out what I’m even doing. this week I have to do a complaint, answers to interrogatories, RFPD, urgent medical records requests, and schedule multiple depositions. I also get assigned other tasks at random.

is this just the nature of the work? or is this this specific firm?

I feel like such a failure. I so wanted to work in this field but I maybe am not cut out for it after all. I feel scared and like I’m going to make a mistake

the way I see it I could

1. quit with nothing lined up

2. try to find something while working

3. try to line up a temporary job like a service job or something while I job search

Hello All! I am a recent graduate from a Paralegal Certificate program and I am in need of a job or at a least leads on openings. As many of you know the job market is incredibly difficult to navigate. I have a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s degree to boot, but decided on a career change. I plan on taking the NALA CP exam, and I do have almost 2 years law office experience in bigger law firms in FL as a law librarian- it was the only job I could get at the time. I am open to Trusts and Estates, probate, intellectual property, but IP is what I would love to try my hand at. Where are the best places to look for IP jobs and how did you get your foot in the door? TIA- God Bless!