Good Place to Start but Not to Stay
Pros
This is a good stable job out of college. You'll definitely get to see how large corporate law firms function. Some pros are: (1) Colleagues - Most Fragomites are great. My team and I got along very well. We supported each other and built strong working relationships especially during periods of crunch/deadline. (2) Plenty of work to go around - This is good and bad obviously. You are always on your toes and there's never a dull moment. You have enough work for 60+ hours a week. (3) Attorneys - This is a hit or miss depending on the team you're on. I've heard some horror stories/experiences but I was on a team with, for the most part, understanding and supportive attorneys so this is a pro for me. (4) Holiday Spirit - There are firm building activities during the holidays in an effort to bring teams together. They have costume contests in Halloween, Xmas parties and "Secret Snowman."
Cons
(1) Growth is slow and based on seniority - The guidelines for promotions are strictly based on years of service and not on merit. Even if you are great at your job, you need to put in the years to be promoted. (2) Distribution of workload is not the best - There is always that ONE teammate in everyone's team that doesn't seem to be as busy as you are and have a lighter workload for whatever reason. In my team, we had a Assistant Paralegal who didn't care as much and spent most of her days on her phone/Facebook using company wifi. Instead of putting her on a PIP, management's first response was to distributing more work to those who had better work ethic to offset her slower processing times. It eventually got ridiculous that senior attorneys (on top of the senior paralegals who strategized the distribution) stopped ignoring it and finally let her go. But the team had to put up with it for 2 years. (3) Older technology - The firm was using LotusNotes. They were planning to roll out new software but the launch time has been postponed a few times that after my two-year tenure, we were still using LotusNotes which isn't the best equipment to use for such a large volume of cases in the firm.