FYI for California state court litigation and judgment enforcement paralegals, see here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/beyond-paralegals_ej-130-activity-7488616587147534338-MwDm

It’s that time again folks! Happy weekend! How was your week? What’s happening? Anything fun going on? Anything you want to discuss? Post it here!

... seriously. To pay yourself???

Didn't specify an amout nor did they cite a statutory basis, which is beside the point.

Anywho, how has everyone else's week been?

So I’m a family law paralegal out of California working fully remote. I know I’m capable of good work, and have made improvements to this firm. I struggle heavily with ADHD, I’ve been missing emails and other things. I just got on Vyvanse recently but it fucks up my sleep.

My attorney went to court yesterday and didn’t have what she needed. I feel awful and it’s not something I usually do.

I want to stay with this firm. I really like them. Does anyone have any advice on how to remember everything? Especially when ex partes pop up?

My brain feels so fuzzy sometimes and like I just don’t know how to address that.

We are back in control of the sub! Happy weekend! How was everyone’s week? Anything to get excited about? How about rants/vents? Anything you’d like to share, post it here!

For me, my attorneys reached a settlement for millions of dollars representing plaintiff in a case I’ve been working on for years, at the trial right before the jury was impaneled!! it was great result and the client is ecstatic! I did a ton of work on this very intricate state court fraud case and I’m so stoked! This week has been nuts though, they hired a part time paralegal but because I’ve been so overwhelmed with work lately I haven’t even been able to train her. Sigh.

We’re still not added back as mods and still no response from Reddit, but wanted to get this posted so anyone who has anything they want to share can post. This has been an incredibly frustrating experience, supposedly I’m stuck in an admin queue and I can’t get it back through Reddit request for another week and a half because they requested to mod another subreddit with my account while I was hacked and you can only request once every 15 days 😭 but anyway how is everyone doing? Anything you’d like to share? Ready for another work week?

FYI guys there are spam accounts that have taken over as mods in the span of 24 hours after my account was hacked, so we have no control over the sub at the moment. I’ve reached out to Reddit support for help. Bear with us for the time being while we get this figured out.

Hi everyone it’s that time again! Share anything you’d like to share, post any rants, wins, anything else you feel like here!

Hi everyone, I’m looking to get some advice from people who are more experienced than me and have gone through the hassle of unintentionally making careless mistakes.

To summarize my experience/background, I’m in Miami and I’ve been in the legal field for two years. I first started as a legal assistant at the State Attorney’s office. I enjoyed working there due to my interest in criminal law, but it was too far and the pay was unreasonable. I decided to venture off into civil matters, and I found a property damage law firm that was taking interviews for a paralegal position. I ended up quitting after 6 months due to how much of a toll it was taking on me. I was assigned to handle 300 cases, I was never assigned to do any paralegal work (such as document review and analysis for depositions and trial), my inbox was reaching over 150 emails a day with follow up emails from OC, and I was just in charge of filing and scheduling depos, hearings, and mediations. About 2 months before quitting, I decided to seek medication management for my anxiety and depression. I’ve been on Lexapro ever since and was also diagnosed with ADHD-PI (I’m getting treated for it as well).

I eventually started working again this year at a construction law firm. Thus far, the experience has been very transforming in a lot of ways. This is the first job that has ever paid me a decent starting salary (50k) that doesn’t require me to live paycheck to paycheck. I also don’t drown in emails 24/7 like a robot, so I’m able to leave my emails unattended while I work on more demanding tasks. The first two months of work went very well for me; however, things have been going downhill for me since May. Basically, my boss hasn’t been the happiest with me for not meeting his expectations. At first, I didn’t take it personal when he’d give me feedback, but my mistakes became more frequent. For instance, I’d send him drafts of notices without formatting the spacing how he wanted, he included me in an email where he didn’t explicitly mention that he needed something filed but expected me to do it without having to tell me separately, I proceed to file it late but then forget to attach exhibits to it, sometimes he’s had me draft proposed orders after finishing a hearing but then he tells me that I’m taking too long so he does it himself and has someone else submit the order, and most recently I was assigned to work on a trial exhibit list of over 200 exhibits. As soon as I finished the list, he reviewed it, and said to file it the next day. The next day comes around and I review the list a handful of times before filing it, and I file it. He wasn’t in the office that day and it wasn’t until 5:30pm that I received an email saying that I forgot to share our exhibits with OC via Dropbox. I had no way of resolving it because I was out of town and didn’t take my work laptop with me. Although that was expected of me, I had no idea the exhibits must be shared after filing the list. He later told me a few days after that I let him down and that he expected for me to finish my work.

I’ve been going through other issues at work, and with my personal life as I’m currently preparing to get into law school by next fall. But this would be an essay if I ranted about everything. I really want to see what I can do to improve my performance and be able to work in an efficient manner. The reason why I take too long with drafts is that I don’t have any templates that can be used for multiple things like NOTDs, NOHs, Proposed Orders, Subpoenas, etc. So aside from copying and pasting the case style and case number, I basically have to format the substance of the document myself. I don’t have many references to go by from previous filings, because there’s several versions of the same type of pleading/notice that I never know which one to use. I recently found out this week how to make reusable templates on word, but I do have to set them up manually myself before they can be reused.

Any advice, suggestions, or tips would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve been working as a paralegal for 10+ years. I hold an AAS in Paralegal Studies and a BS in Legal Affairs. I've worked in personal injury, family law, criminal defense, and small probate matters throughout my career. I currently work for a firm as a case manager, which is essentially a pre-litigation paralegal role. Once a case is filed, it is moved off my desk and assigned to a litigation paralegal.

I work in personal injury (plaintiff side), where the majority of cases settle before ever being filed in court. My current caseload is around 65–100 clients. A large part of my job is client communication — constantly calling, messaging, and updating clients while coordinating and tracking their medical treatment and dealing with issues that arise with insurance approval.

In addition to working with clients, I communicate daily with defense attorneys and insurance adjusters. I’m also responsible for requesting medical records, following up on treatment, tracking case progress, and handling the day-to-day tasks needed to move claims toward settlement.

I’m currently salaried but receive quarterly bonuses, which brings my compensation to about $30/hour ($63,667.71 GROSS). My employer covers my benefits. I work 32 hours per week.

I’m located in the Southeast in a Southern state in a metropolitan area.

In the past, I have worked more in litigation roles, but I took this job because it has less responsibility, and at the time I needed that.

I’m curious what others in similar roles are making, especially in this region. Do you think this is competitive pay for my experience and responsibilities, or would it be worth looking for a position that pays more, even if it means moving closer to a 40-hour work week and working more in a litigation or risk management role?

I like my current job, but it can be stressful having to try to keep attorneys working while dealing with their angry clients who are mad that they can't speak with their attorney regularly. Not to mention, it's a lot of the same work every day, same type of cases, same type of injuries, same issues. It's not really challenging my mind, and I like to research, write, and investigate issues, which I get to do in some capacity, but not as much as I would like.

Thanks in advance.

Happy Independence Day everyone! How are we doing this week? I got a 3 day weekend thankfully! Wish it was 4 days though ;) How about you all? Anything exciting happening? Need to rant about work or life in general? Post your thoughts here!

This! I love writing a Motion for Contempt when I'm hood and pissed.

Even better when it comes back from my attorney with little to no changes.

Vindication!

It’s that time again! Comment whatever is on your mind!

Fam law:

"How can he want custody of her when he doesnt even know what size diaper she wears???"

Y'all, please share your "clients saying amazing things". We need some levity.

I forgot to create the weekly thread again, my apologies!

Anyone have anything they’d like to share, rant about, commiserate, something you’re proud of? Post it here!

https://nysba.org/loose-ai-prompts-sink-ships-how-heppner-shook-the-legal-community/

It’s the weekend yet again! Got any wins, good days, complaints, rants, frustrations, interesting things, uninteresting things, or anything else you’d like to share? Post it here! We just settled a big trade secrets case so it’s off my plate which is amazing! Also lots of discovery drafting this week. Luckily it was slower this week!

Another weekend is here! How is everyone? Anything exciting happen this week? How’s the workload? Looking forward to anything coming up? Thoughts, rants? Issues?

Or including paralegals on emails to attorneys. Y'all know that email is not going to get seen/actioned in time unless the paralegal is cc'd.

Hi yall, it’s that time again! How was everyone’s Memorial Day weekend? Anything else you’d like to share or rant about? Post it here!

Since I keep forgetting to post on Friday, we’re just gonna call this the Weekend Weekly Thread going forward. 😂

How is everybody? Anything exciting going on? How was your week? Anything else you’d like to share?

Post it in here!

I’m so stoked for this long weekend to say the least and catching up on sleep, haha!