Nightmare work environment - Assistant Paralegal Fragomen Employee Review

There are so many to list. First, let’s start with the actual work environment. The New midtown office, while very updated, has been poorly designed for the needs of employees. The paralegals are given a small work table to work on that doesn’t allow you to fit papers or properly organize yourself. There is no privacy - in fact, even senior partners share offices. This is very distracting as people are constantly walking past you as you are trying to concentrate on work. From what I have seen, the quality of experience that you will have here will largely depend on what team you are placed on. It seems that some teams do a decent job of delegating work among paralegals so that no one is staying too late. However, the team I was one, most people stayed well past 8pm every night. It wasn’t unheard of or unusual for people to be in the office past 10 pm. Also, take note that this is a corporate immigration law firm and the clients are all businesses. As such, the cases you will handle will not vary much; however, you will be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of the work you will be assigned. The paralegals here do ALL the work. The attorneys just oversee and sign off and also speak to HR reps. You will see the same types of cases on a daily basis, it is just that there will be large volume and enormous pressure to complete everything quickly. Take note that immigration law is highly technical, and even small mistakes can have major consequences. You, as an entry level assistant paralegal, will be held responsible if anything were to go wrong. I gave this place my all - regularly worked nearly 60 hours. What I got was disrespect and condescension from attorneys. The job caused me to have an emotional and mental breakdown. The money, while decent for a recent college grad, is not worth the amount of emotional stress that you will face. Good luck.