Hey, Andien

[muck_a_luck]

*sniggers*

Yes! Am bionic paralegal! Very, very frightening! Unfortunately, my boss only does what he is told when he is paying attention! :)

Comments

[andien.livejournal.com]

There is no benefit in being a partner believe me! Well apart from the holiday entitlement. I hate the queue at my door to sign cheques and bills at the end of every day...And as for partners meetings, it's enough to make you lose the will to live!

What sort of work does your boss do?

Me - commercial litigation and property litigation. Libel trial coming up in a couple of weeks, ho very hum.

Solo practice

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

I work for a typical solo practitioner, who I describe as a divorce lawyer, when pressed. The files break out to about one third estate planning, one half divorce/support issues, and the rest a variety of things, including Chapter 7 (personal) bankruptcy, landlord/tenant issues, colletions (both sides), and employment discrimination. Money-wise and time-wise, about 70% of his business is litigation (because I do the grunt work on the majority of the estate planning documents).

Before that, I was a business immigration specialist. But then the bottom fell out of H-1B demand and I got laid off *twice,* which was very, very upsetting.

From the paralegal end, the H-1B work was probably more intellectually demanding in and of itself, but I really enjoy the variety of what I do for Olivier now - from front line on phones to buying office supplies to client billing to being the paralegal who knows everything about every client. A lot of it is more clerical/secretarial, but nuch more interesting than filling out form after form for the Immigration Service.

Meanwhile, I would beg to differ about there being, ahem, "no benefit" to being a partner. *sly grin* I know y'all work for it, but I'm guessing a partner in a successful commercial litigation and property litigation firm doesn't have any trouble paying for the all-day yoga seminars, you know? Might have trouble finding time to go to them, but I've developed a bit of a grasping, greedy financial mind-set after the two layoffs (see above).

Re: Solo practice

[andien.livejournal.com]

I had one law firm (very old fashioned and chauvanist!) make me redundant when I was pregnant - they did live to regret that manouvre!

Litigators in UK do earn less than our US counterparts as contingent fees aren't allowed - we can charge only at hourly rate and aren't allowed a share of the winnings. But to fess up I earn a very respectable £46,000 a year which at almost $2 to the £ looks fairly sexy I suppose. Most I've ever been offered was £85,000 but I knew if I took that job the chargable hours target was such that I would never see my husband or child ever again! So I work for a small ish partnership in a country town and the salary is accordingly.

British Wheel of Yoga seminars - v. cheap btw, tend to be held in local church hall, take your own sandwiches and cost about £20 for the day!

Re: Solo practice

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

British Wheel of Yoga seminars

Hmmmm. I wonder if there's anything like that around here? Shall investigate.