How much will a termination from before law school hurt my chances at lateraling Forum

[Anonymous User]

First off, this isn't another one of those "should I disclose" threads. I'm going to disclose it. The question is how do I explain it and how much will it ding me?

It was my first job out of college. I was a paralegal at a boutique firm. It's a long story, but their official records say I was terminated for performance issues. My side of it, which I would never tell a prospective employer, is that I was assigned way more work than my peers (I was billing 3x the next highest guy) and fired when I couldn't keep up with my absurdly bloated workload. I was working 50+ hours a week on $33k/y.

Since then I've had 3 other jobs, including attorney job since graduating law school. I want to believe they won't give a fuck, just as they didn't care wen I disclosed my termination to my current employer.

[hugerez]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

[Anonymous User]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

It will never come up in the interview. It's on the application form.

[hugerez]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

It will never come up in the interview. It's on the application form.

it asks you to list all pre-law jobs and reason for not working there? and this is a requirement with *?

[Anonymous User]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

It will never come up in the interview. It's on the application form.

it asks you to list all pre-law jobs and reason for not working there? and this is a requirement with *?

It asks for my complete job history, whether I was ever fired from a job and why. No asterisk.

[hugerez]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

It will never come up in the interview. It's on the application form.

it asks you to list all pre-law jobs and reason for not working there? and this is a requirement with *?

It asks for my complete job history, whether I was ever fired from a job and why. No asterisk.

if it's optional and can be skipped then do so. i've never been asked that question ever and i've applied to more places than i can remember (and been offered without all that info volunteered).

[albanach]

why would a legal employer care about a lateral applicant's pre-law job that far back? Image this conversation... "4 jobs ago before law school, tell me about your work and why did you stop working there? That's never gonna come up.

It will never come up in the interview. It's on the application form.

it asks you to list all pre-law jobs and reason for not working there? and this is a requirement with *?

It asks for my complete job history, whether I was ever fired from a job and why. No asterisk.

So answer it. You're a lawyer, surely you can answer a question like that without being misleading, but still presenting yourself in the best possible light?

[CanadianWolf]

Unfortunately, your side doesn't make sense. Why would a firm fire their most productive paralegal simply for not producing at three times the rate of the next highest producer.

In my opinion, it might be best to state that the departure was due to a personality clash.

Sometimes folks--good, hardworking, intelligent people--just don't get along.