A great team of people brought down by poor management and operations - Anonymous employee Bay Immigration Law Employee Review

What once used to be a terrific company that put the people first, its excessive growth – coupled with the lack of investment in SOPs, training, and case management resources – has made it clear that employees have fallen outside of the scope of the firm’s priorities. Despite having nearly tripled in size over the last two years, the company still functions as a small-sized firm/startup. There is no centralized case management system; paralegals are expected to work out of several smaller disparate systems and manually enact operational tasks that should be automated or streamlined at this stage of company growth. This impedes efficiency and makes case handoff and cross-team functionality non-existent. The company lacks training protocols for incoming talent – which is intentional. Management believes its trial-by-fire approach of onboarding is the only way for people to grapple with the work. What it does is create more pressure for middle management as they’re forced to contend with below standard work product, extensive rewrites, and several revision cycles. It also prolongs case timelines and creates issues with the individual's ability to meet deadlines for other cases since they are required to implement extensive revisions. Upper management claims to be doing something and makes promises about action being taken, but they’ve been stating as much for over a year with no marked improvements to onboarding. There is no hierarchy of communication, and the way things are communicated are unclear and without reason. Directives come from different individuals and routinely contradict one another. When this is raised, employees are reprimanded for “misinterpreting” what was said, and management will refuse to take accountability for the confusion. During case assignments, upper management also does not communicate details pertinent to case development and will claim something to be urgent when there is nothing to suggest as much. This can create problems with timelines as cases with real urgencies are not highlighted sooner. The work culture prioritizes optics and brand recognition because the firm still relies on referrals for most of its business, so even when issues occur that are completely out of the firm’s control, blame will still be pushed onto the employee with the closest proximity to the case. Upper management frequently interjects on case timelines and exerts pressure to file petitions as fast as possible because of pushy clients. This can create bottlenecks with other, actual urgent cases where a client’s legal status may be in jeopardy or close to expiring, so paralegals end up working longer hours to finish both. Long hours are a constant, and while leadership will insist they don't want people working overtime, they aren't proactively doing anything to mitigate it, nor do they discourage such behavior when it actually occurs. If these longer hours are mentioned to management, they will frame it as an output issue. All of this is exacerbated by how exceedingly few attorneys there are. The company hasn’t hired a single licensed professional in over a year for its O-1/EB-1 operations despite it witnessing the most substantive growth out of any other department. Attorneys are spread too thin and are simply incapable of reviewing the level of case product sent their way, resulting in additional responsibilities – ones outside the scope of case managers and paralegals - falling squarely on the shoulders of middle management and paralegals to address. These issues have resulted in several attorneys, case managers, and senior paralegals exiting the firm or, worse, unfairly let go, which creates even more endemic problems relating to their business strategy of hiring individuals without any training. Couple this with how the firm has structured itself to rely on senior talent and individual employees to carry most of the load in case development, it is clear this firm is on a downward trajectory. However, management does not seem interested in fixing this problem, as when issues are highlighted, they characterize such actions and complaints as individuals not wanting to work at the firm.