Pros
Some of the work was interesting, and some colleagues were genuinely lovely people. Employee perks weren’t bad either.
Cons
Chaotic beyond description. The most toxic legal work environment I have ever seen, where paralegals were divided up and goaded on to compete for actual legal tasks. The solicitors generally treated paralegals awfully. Rude and outright disrespectful behaviour came up more times that I care to coun. There was also a huge divide between the client facing and legal-work focused teams, with the actually lawyers barely knowing what was going on with their own clients. The firm threw copious amounts of money out for socials, mainly for the upper-hierarchy legal teams, but those at the lower end didn’t see much. Many paralegals lost their jobs due to cuts for “business reasons”, despite many having been informally assured their jobs were secure. There is also no overtime pay, at least when I was there. The contract was carefully drafted to squeeze paralegals for time and not remunerate. Many of my colleagues spent extra hours unpaid in the hopes of getting better work only to find themselves thrown out with everyone else. It didn’t take me long to jump ship myself after that. I was far from the only one, the place has a bit of a rotating door from the paralegal to partner level.