• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Anyone work for a law firm?

P

paulxcook

Diamond Member
I'm interviewing for a full-time position with Baker and Daniels, a law firm that has offices in Indiana (my state), Washington DC, and China, of all places. It's a job doing basic tech support like answering calls, assisting in rollouts of new software, some hands-on stuff, etc.

This would be my first "real" job, as I don't even graduate college until August. However, it pays significantly more than my current job as a tech support phone monkey at my university.

I imagine working in a law firm might be rather demanding. Has anyone here has a similar job? If so, can you give me any tips for the interview and, assuming they hire me, how to adjust to such an environment?

The whole idea of "salary negotiation" is foreign to me, so while I think I'll do alright, I admit I'm a bit nervous and could use some pointers.
 
Heh, I knew I'd get a few replies about that one. What an idiot, why would you flush your career down the toilet in order to get in the last word?

Luckily I won't be practicing law, just helping those who do format their email and Word docs.
 
Since it is a law firm and they do over-achieve, know what the work schedule is. Are you expected to be available 24/7 and expected to put in 60 hours a week+? Can't help with salary stuff as I have been in pure IT for 19 years.
 
They say in the job description that the work is Mon-Fri, 9-6. On days that I have to travel to another office the hours might be a bit different.

The salary we're talking about is definitely not worth 60 or even 50 hours a week, so thanks, I'll keep that in mind when I'm asking questions.
 
I worked for a gov't law office as the assistant sys admin while in college. Be patient, be very very patient. Lawyers are typically proud of their intelligence, and yet so many of them don't know the first thing about computers.

A lot of the key lawyers are going to be older (like in their mid 60s) and if they can log onto their computer it will be a good day for them.

Others are used to their secretaries doing every last small detail for them, and will expect the same for you.

There will be one or two who think they know more about computers than you, and one day while working on their laptop you'll find out they were organizing their files and moved all the .dlls into its own folder and wonder why it won't boot (no joke, this happened to me)

And finally there will be someone fresh outta law school who somehow has passed the bar exam but you don't believe they possess the intelligence to listen and write something down at the same time. You will learn their phone number and stop answering the calls except on Thursday, probably 20 minutes before you have a mandatory meeting.

And then there are the secretaries/paralegals who actually understand the basics of how to use a computer, but don't typically have the ego problem (unless they are the secretary of a partner). Make use of these resources to head off as many direct calls from the lawyers as possible, they know how what the lawyers really want and can fix the easy stuff themselves (which a lot turns out to be an issue with legal document formats).


Ok, so those were my expereince working with a legal office. It was actually a good experience for me. Just realize that dealing with printers is going to be one of your main issues (we chewed through a room stacked to the ceiling with paper in 2 days, so lots of printer jams/toner/network/maintenance issues)


EDIT: I worked there for 3 1/2 years.
 
Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks a bunch BlueFlamme.

I work on a semi-regular basis with doctors (both academic phd types and physicians at the university hospitals), and I assume their attitudes are kind of the same way. However, there's always the buffer of talking to them on the phone rather than in-person.

This would be very good for my resume, so I hope it works out.
 
Be patient, be very very patient. Lawyers are typically proud of their intelligence, and yet so many of them don't know the first thing about computers.
*******
Agreed, be humble. If they say something like " I just don't understand this system." You can respond that it is alright, they'll learn it and that you don't know much about the law.

This worked along time ago when I was helping a judge. I just wanted him to realize it was not his specialty, but he could learn enough to operate his system.

Maybe it sounds odd, but it did seem to put him at ease.
 
Considering our legal department... One of the things I hated in the siloed organization that we are is how folks approached backups. Legal has very specific needs and wants backups of everything. What I disliked was that many of the groups insisted on making the legal assists into IT folks that knew a backup schedule, would do tape management, etc. Our workstation team finally made a big win on the XP migration in that we got the rest of the groups to agree on folder redirection for My Documents. This way, the 'staff' could save their stuff in My Docs (laptops set to sync on connection) and the IT staff would make sure the backups were done on the server level (you want tape managment and off-site services to be a hero - remember to use encryption on the backups as that is a new professional method of stealing data, re-routing backups through social engineering). If anyone using the set felt that had stuff that was 'personnel' or did not deserve to be backed up, create a c:\My Local Files folder or such and tell them to have at it, but you cannot assure that anything can be recovered there. Also, you will have some space hogs either justified or not, so you may need to set quotas and manage those.

Or this may not really apply, but is food for thought. done rambling.
 
My interview is tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous, but not too bad, not yet. I should be in bed, though.

Any final words of wisdom?
 
So the Angus Young look is in now? Dag, I need to read up on interview strategy.

I will post back to let you guys know how badly I've destroyed my career 😀.
 
If anyone's interested, I'm back from the interview and I think I nailed it. The director is going on vacation starting tomorrow so I won't hear anything for at least a week, but it went really well.
 
Update, for some reason.

They said they weren't interested. Some bull**** about how they didn't think I'd stay there very long, how I'd use it as a stepping stone job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top