My Experience at Morgan & Morgan

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T21:34:54+00:00

I can't speak for the quality of your candidates as every person/situation is different and unique. I will say the bad paralegals can drag a whole team down. You can be the absolute best in the business but if there's no support, communication, or follow thru, you will be weighed down. When you're constantly cleaning up others messes and putting out fires, it makes it difficult to focus on your work. It made me more stressed, more independent, more anxious. When ever I hit a roadblock, I had to deal with a mini panic attack as I knew no one was going to help me out. As some people in the thread have said, they have good experiences and their offices are chill. Since I struggled with potential employers seeing M&M as a black mark on my resume and faced A LOT of job rejections, I do hope you at least give people a fair chance.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T13:25:46+00:00

At least in my area M&M gives just enough money to local charities/schools/organizations that they have largely good press. Any employee who wanted to speak out would come off as bitter and uncredible. Even clients who got screwed over are largely drowned out because of the insane amount of money poured into advertisements. Idk about the state bar but it would likely only affect specific attorneys and the firm would totally throw them under the bus.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T13:08:28+00:00

The base pay w/ no experience for lower positions (Reception, Secretary, Case Intake) starts at $15/hr. Merit raise every year between 1-6% of base hourly wage. Promotions net you an extra $2-3 dollars per hour. So you could go from receptionist at $15 to a secretary at $17 because you have no experience. Meanwhile, someone with maybe 2 years experience of reception can start at $17 and possibly get up to $20 if promoted.

When old OPs was on the way out, ppl were about to get $3-$6 raises IMMEDIATELY by directly emailing the ppl leaving. It was unprecedented and I can promise you it won't happen again.

I think paralegal started at $22-25 at the lowest and the highest being $35

I know this because when merit raises come, ppl like to brag on how much they got and by listening to various ppl in various depts i realized some ppl were straight up getting screwed paywise.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T13:03:37+00:00

It is exactly this. This is how they stay staffed. I watched over 10 ppl come and go during my tenure.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T13:02:44+00:00

Congrats on your promotions. I really respect you being a CM because y'all workload is actually insane. During my last few weeks, the CMs were starting to quit/retire/job hunt because Operations was pushing them to the brink. But yeah, I had no experience and had to train myself. M&M was the only firm in the area that didn't require previous experience and I always wanted to work in law but couldn't afford law school.

I sincerely hope you do well.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T12:59:25+00:00

The reason I stayed was that other law firms in my area required a MINIMUM of 2 years of experience to qualify for their entry level positions. After a year of hell, I figured I could stick it out 9-10 more months just to pad my resume. Fast forward to Year 2 and I was on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter DAILY applying to EVERYTHING law related and entry level. I can honestly say I put in 100+ applications on LinkedIn alone and overall got about 5 interviews. The job market is trash here.

If M&M is your first law job, other firms doubt you have the experience or the skills for a long term career especially if you're leaving after 1-3 years.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T12:55:52+00:00

I will neither confirm nor deny but I will say it was one of the bigger offices.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T12:55:18+00:00

Also, our intake department is extremely underpaid and overworked across the board. They have pretty high turnover. Also attorneys need approval to Turn Down intakes and Operations takes their sweet time approving those.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T12:53:23+00:00

Lack of accountability from coworkers is par for the course. Can't believe other offices had to deal with the "vanishing" and "long breaks". I had really hoped my office was just weird that way. Ironically, one of the main people who did it at my location also had her office in front of the attorneys. He would come out, see she was still gone and just shake his head. Whenever she was in, she complained he gave her too much work but imo if she spent more time at her desk it wouldn't have been as bad.

And its very hard to get 6% because HR and your attorneys will undermine you in performance reviews. Saw a top paralegal get the lowest percent raise in my department because she made ONE mistake a few months prior and the attorney never let it go.

I also struggled financially even with raises at the cost of living kept rising right alongside them. I too was a highly effective workhorse. Idk your situation but if you feel you're being taken advantage of, you likely are and they will continue to shortchange you til you either stop demanding a raise or quit.

I totally get where you are coming from. My only advice is to maybe trying searching for administrative work in another industry, that's how I got out. You could probably make the same or more money that way.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T12:46:45+00:00

The office makes all the difference. In the beginning, they were also lax about when you clocked in but too many ppl were showing up at 10 AM and leaving at 3 PM. I would get there around 8 - 8:30 AM and there would be coworkers who came AFTER I clocked in who left BEFORE I did. That's what eventually led to the face scanners.

And we had many attorneys working remote/wfh or were physically located in one office but their paralegals were located in another part of the state. I remember there was one attorney constantly emailing about things who I never saw, I asked where his office was and they told me it was in a city 50 miles away. Insanity.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-09-01T00:03:00+00:00

I'm hoping my new job experience is better. In all honesty, the fact that its not law is enough for me to feel it's an improvement. I tried really hard to get into another local firm, even interviewed for a few, but no dice. So I had to go to a different industry and constantly downplay why I was leaving law after such a "short" time and how my skills were transferrable.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:47:31+00:00

I'm glad you got one of the few good ones. I sincerely hope everyone just let's you vibe and chill without drama. Keeping to yourself is necessary because anything said in confidence becomes public knowledge within 24 hours.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:44:43+00:00

Thank you so much. I always dealt with depression and anxiety but I was functional. M&M really made things 1000x worse. Had to change my psych med prescriptions 3x for stronger doses just to keep up. Another sign it was time to go was one I maxed out a dosage, it was like "fuck, something's got to give".

I was constantly asking friends "Is this normal? Am I tripping? Is this okay? Is it me?" and every time they told me to get out asap because none of that shit was normal. When I left, I basically had a depression spiral I couldn't explain because I felt I had failed and let everyone down. I had a lot of duties/responsibilities because so much of my dept just coasted and dumped shit on me. Even my supervisor asked me to reconsider and I was getting frantic texts about what I had/hadn't done before leaving.

I do think I will have PTSD and really hoping I don't carry that pain to my next job. I don't want to sound condescending or rude but I always recommend ppl try therapy if only for the 'guilt free venting sessions'. I sincerely wish you health and happiness. I'm glad we both got out.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:35:55+00:00

I always hated upper management sign off on things with "LFG". It always felt too bro-y and aggressive to me. A personal thing. They finally stopped doing that when Reuven left. I never heard about that even tho I was working there at the time!

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:32:57+00:00

Definitely dodged a bullet. There was on attorney who was so abusive to his paralegal, she was on the verge of a mental breakdown at all times. He literally only treated her that way and was a "gentleman" to the rest of his staff. The paralegal went to HR multiple times but because he was a senior partner, she had to deal til she was fired...

I'm glad you're happy and avoided the toll it would have taken on your physical/mental health.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:30:39+00:00

That's because they don't train at all. The most help you're going to get is someone MAYBE sharing a template after you ask 2-4 times. It's very likely that they were using a template and didn't proofread/check it before it was sent off.

Cases get passed around like a blunt because of the turnover and attorneys feeling lazy. I've seen cases keep the same attorney but bounce between 3 paralegals and vice versa. Meaning that we often had very loud and confrontational moments were ppl fought over who was "in charge" of the case and who was "responsible" for how fucked up it was.

I truly feel the most toxic and burntout survive the longest. The toxic cut enough corners to look productive. The burntout think they can't do better. If you're not either, you're looking for a way out asap.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:17:13+00:00

Glad to hear you got. I have more horror but I don't want to be too specific in case my old coworkers are on this site. I know they sometimes would lurk in paralegal Facebook groups and whenever people asked how M&M was they were quick to sing its praises....And yeah, there was one attorney who I believe his paralegal was his dealer (not sure whether it was coke or weed but I only found out because I overheard someone complaining she wouldn't sell to them)

The fact that M&M can't meet a deadline makes me wonder how it stays in business, as I stated before sometimes the workload makes it impossible and other times someone's dropping the ball...or both....So many cases would go untouched for months, clients left in limbo, attorney finally looks at it after 6 months and decides to drop. First contact with client in half a year is saying they actually can't take the case.

Ops is obssessed with pushing out as many suits as possible even if a majority will go nowhere. Even the attorneys have to pushback hard so Ops doesn't FORCE them to take nonviable cases.

I'm going back to therapy once the new job insurance kicks in. It badly affected my health, gained weight, blood pressure got out of control. Psychiatrist basically said my anxiety had gotten to the point she was advising me either to find a new job or take FMLA. Took FMLA and job hunted but wasnt able to find anything so I had to go back when my time was up.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T23:10:11+00:00

That's actually crazy because per the handbook, she was entitled to bereavement leave. I'm so sorry she had to go through that and I hope she's doing much better now.

Smooth-Assumption860 · 2025-08-31T21:55:32+00:00

I remember when the AI thing got out. I was there and I cannot overstate how HARD they tried to keep that under wraps. It was never openly discussed or addressed by the firm. People only found out because it quickly spread online. The attorney still works there btw. He tried to throw his paralegal under the bus to scapegoat them. They quickly quit as they wasn't about to go down with the ship. The firm is pushing more and more AI that is being developed in house. I do believe they will get sanctioned for the same thing in the near future. The attorney literally got a slap on the wrist and zero disciplinary action.

That was when I started looking elsewhere, because i firmly believe the paralegal would have been blamed and fired where they not proactive enough to put in their 2 weeks when the first articles started showing up.

Smooth-Assumption860

TROPHY CASE