Job Responsibilities
My major job responsibilities included doing client intake evaluations by phone,
setting
up new client files, checking the balances of our client's medical accounts and
subrogation claims after receiving settlement offers, putting together
settlement
packages for submission to the liability insurance providers, and other assorted
odd
jobs as they arose. The bulk of my time was spent verifying balances, putting
together
settlement packages and doing phone intakes.
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Job Requirements
No continuing education was provided with my job, only on-the-job training for
the specific tasks I was required to perform.
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Uppers
It really did give me an inside look into both the negotiation and litigation
aspects of the legal profession, which is something I wanted prior to committing
to law school. I learned a lot about civil procedure, for instance, without even
realizing it.
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Downers
No matter how you dress it up, it's basically paper-pushing work, which gets
very dull
after awhile. Plus, since my employer knew that I would be moving on to law
school
after about a year and a half, there was no incentive to train me to do more
things after
about the year mark because I'd just be leaving and it would be a waste of time.
Made
the job that much more boring. Also, I really felt over-educated for the
position, but
that's as much my fault for settling for a low-level job as it is the employer's
for not
challenging me more.
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Lifestyle
The great part about not having that much responsibility in an office is just
that--the office won't grind to a halt if you're not there. I left my work at
the office at the end of the day and forgot about it until the next morning. The
company had a lot of employee incentives (they took a trip every two years, fully
subsidized for employees; there was a yearly employee picnic with a raffle and
$100 gift cards for everyone; also a nice holiday party, and an
employee-of-the-month program) which made the culture more friendly. Dress code
was basically business casual, which I thought was great. However, the support
staff was primarily female and the attorneys were primarily male, which bothered
me quite a bit (though it may just be representational of the field).
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Compensation
I earned $10/hr starting pay for a 40/hr workweek; I was promoted to $11/hr
after my
first 8 months. Benefits included full insurance coverage, 5 hours of personal
time a
month and 2 weeks of vacation a year after the first year. There was also a
401(k) plan
with employer-matching up to 5%.
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Advice to Jobseekers
Paralegaling is a great way to see how a law office works; however, you can only
advance
so far without a law degree. If you really want to make a substantive
difference in the
legal profession, suck it up and go to law school, because the rewards are
infinitely
greater.
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