OP here.
Anonymous User wrote:
Yes. This whole post is crazy. Sometimes they don't give you tasks in the order of when they'll need them because work comes in based on the clients needs and not based on your schedule. It's not about you.
Yeah, I realize that. Not really in the way you said it for our type of law, but there are gonna be times when people above me need me to do something as soon as possible and there's no way there could've been prior warning. I get it.
And yes, you are going to have to figure out to prioritize stuff yourself. It's not always going to be straightforward; you'll need this "skill" if you ever get a job as a lawyer so you might as well learn it now.
If I'm given 3 things to do and not told what is the most important or told how to know which is the most important, how am I supposed to know what to do first? I'm just looking for more direction here. I don't care what job you're talking about, learning priorities is part of the training aspect. I think a related problem is people assigning me tasks on our software while I'm in training all day observing or helping my trainer do their stuff...then I end up staying way later than everyone else to finish my own work.
If you want to know more about the stuff that you're doing, you will have to be proactive and ask. When you've worked there for a while and done a good job for people, some of the nicer ones will try to talk to you and you can ask them about it. Learning to be proactive is also a skill that will help you get better work as a lawyer so it would behoove you to learn it now.
I do ask.
I agree with the poster above who said that this whole post seems to reek of entitlement. This job will be what YOU make of it -- it has the potential to really, really suck (I've been a paralegal, I know) or it can suck at times but you can end up learning a lot which can help you down the road.
As a sidenote, I'm a rising 2L with multiple SA offers at competitive firms that I'm trying to decide between, and yes the paralegal experience did give me a boost in the job search.
The only thing I think I'm entitled to is some training so I can do the job. I guess I'm getting that, but it's been slow going.
But anyway, I went to work today with a different attitude. I just thought "well I'm lucky to have been hired and everyone has to start somewhere" and the day went fairly smoothly. I was there 11 hours but it was a smooth 11 hours.