Pros
The job itself was amazing and I loved it so much, I felt like I was actually making a difference. When you stay overnight you get a good budget for your dinner. Every week I was meeting different people and working on slightly different cases, though these were 99% family court cases.
Cons
Where do I start… I read reviews about the job and company before I applied, thinking they were written by bitter ex-employees but wow I should’ve listened… it’s such a shame because this is the only company that offers this kind of role. Management are really quite awful. They took ages to reply to emails and requests, and are so so so strict. They’re oblivious to what their longer term employees are up to day-to-day, but if you get caught out for anything they come down on you like a bag of bricks and make an example of you. You really are thrown in the deep end. After a week of training you’re straight into court! After a WEEK!! No shadowing or anything, which completely baffled me. I get it’s good to start sooner rather than later but I really think new employees should take part in some form of shadowing. Peoples salary’s are so random?? Some people got paid loads more, some a lot less, despite having the same qualifications and starting at the same time. You don’t get paid for overtime, they ‘bank’ your hours, then a couple weeks down the line they’ll give you loads of blank days where you’re still expected to work but they take those banked hours off you! Literally any other job would count and pay these overtime hours at the end of each week and then pay you accordingly for your hard work. Not here. And the overnight stays compensation was really poor. Then the training days… you have to go to Birmingham on a SATURDAY!!! They pay your travel, but you don’t get paid for the hours you’re there, again these hours are banked. But they can afford to spend a fortune on fancy hotels and food, which every one I went to had disgusting food. The presentations are really interesting, but definitely don’t require everyone coming in person, and the fact that they are mandatory is ridiculous. There was SO much to do, and not enough hours in the day. You’re contracted from 6am to 10pm and if feels like if you aren’t working during those hours you’re a terrible person. I was prepared for long hours, but I felt absolutely drained everyday and had literally NO social life. Any sort of work/life balance is non existent, and there’s no support for this whatsoever. There is no positive feedback, you could have the best day ever and someone will email you saying you’ve done something badly, or you need to try harder, or do more. No reward or motivation system in place whatsoever, then wonder why all their employees are so burnt out. Every move you make it micromanaged, and your managers tend to go behind your back and snitch on you. So much gossip and drama behind the scenes, higher up employees act like a high school clique and there’s was so much bullying that goes on behind the scenes, with literally no support.