Pros
The social side of things is pretty good with the team regularly planning events. You will learn a lot really quickly as you are thrown in the deep end with a case load in the hundreds with little hand-holding. Offers valuable experience into the legal realm if you are fresh out of University. Comps & Bens package is pretty good but holiday is not as flexible as other firms.
Cons
The management team is laughable, most of which aren't actually legally trained and you end up with a situation of over-qualified paralegals being managed by someone who has never studied law before. There is little to no support for employees going through difficult personal circumstances, once it becomes an inconvenience for them the niceties wear off. The paralegals are given caseloads which should ideally be split between 3 of 4 people but the management team are obsessed with being the highest earning team within the Firm so there is not enough staff. There is no support when working with difficult people or in high-stress situations, it is very much a 'watch your back' mentality within the team. Whilst everyone in the office is an adult we are treated like school children and what we do is monitored from when we get in until when we leave for the day. The training that new employee's receive is sparse, they are expected to pick up the role quickly even if they've got no experience in it prior to this job. This has lead to mistakes being made, which you are then belittled for by the line manager. The turn-over in this place is like something I've never seen, a member of staff must leave every 6-8 weeks which is impressive considering you are locked into a 3 month notice period. You will be told in your interview that Blake Morgan pride themselves of the development of their employees, this is untrue. Unless you have worked there a multiple number of years you will be told they won't support your Training Contract application because to put it bluntly, they haven't got all the work they want out of you yet. This is bizarre to me as they continue to hire law graduates when they must expect that they are eventually hoping for career progression.
