Great starting role for an immigration law career
Pros
- Hires new college/law school graduates with no experience, great role to enter immigration industry - Many full-time/temp position openings - Experienced, helpful, and quality senior staff and attorneys, easy to develop informal mentor relationships - Relaxed office culture (casual dress code, year round staff events), limited office politics, friendly and professional coworkers - 401K profit sharing program, not stingy with overtime pay, excellent materinty leave, generous vacation benefits, remote access available for senior staff - Extraordinary Professional Practices group that tracks worldwide trends in immigration law
Cons
- Relies heavily on revolving door of new college graduates - High case volume, even within immigration law - Long hours, 50+ hour weeks and occasional weekend work common (however, work is with OT pay and never required) - Inflexibility of organization makes overwork common, even when resources are available - Limited training, no formal mentorship program (problematic when considered in conjunction with the revolving door of inexperienced staff) - Poor career prospects, salary growth is incremental and based exclusively on seniority rather than performance - No bonuses/incentives for high level performance - Paralegal salary meets industry average for general/entry-level paralegals, but is below industry average for immigration paralegals - Salaries do not reflect high workloads Summary Fragomen is the industry leader in immigration law and a great place with many resources available to start an immigration law career for both attorneys and paralegals; however, long term career prospects are weak, and low salaries do not reflect the high workloads.