Work here while you look for a better job if you must - Litigation Assistant Lyon Law Employee Review

I am not even sure where to start, so I will anchor this review to my own working timeline at Lyon Law. Before I spill the T on Lyon Law, I want to emphasize in all caps, DO NOT WORK HERE IF YOU CAN AVOID IT!!! Geoff does not train anyone. If you're lucky, there might be an assistant who has managed to be there long enough who can help you figure out what you actually need to do. If not, you will really only have the procedures handbook which honestly doesn't really make sense unless you have been there minimum 3 months since it is full of random abbreviations, blank sections with "tbd" written in them, and constant changes made by Geoff in an asinine effort to establish some sensical procedure. If you are looking for a job that will actually help you along in this professional development, skip this one. Geoff really doesn't care about you beyond your ability to do the tasks and continue the lining of his pockets. Ultimately, you are left with a woefully undertrained (and often understaffed) office. Geoff himself is a nightmare. He is a very manipulative boss who will be superficially nice to you when he needs you (e.g. when everyone quits because this place is extremely hostile and they found jobs that actually treat them well) and will make you feel like you might be part of a team, but don't be fooled! As soon as he hires enough people and increases the total employee population to at least 10, you will have less value than all the dollar menu parfaits he consumes. He may be a good lawyer (but I am in serious doubt of that) but he is a terrible manager. His instructions are always incomplete and wrong, so he is constantly changing them at the literal last minute. This caused so much wasted time where we had to re-do major, time consuming tasks 3-4 times. He also doesn't communicate case updates with anyone else, so you're constantly guessing what is actually happening in the case and you will most likely get your updates from Defense. Also, if you raise any of these concerns with Geoff (even if you include a suggestion as he compulsively requests of people), he will flat out ignore you and ice you out. As an assistant there will most likely be a time where you will either have no attorney or an attorney so incompetent you will wonder who is being let in to top 20 law schools. During these periods, Geoff pretty much has you acting as an attorney to a point that is probably not illegal, but definitely toes the line. He will try to get you to stay super late to write motions (don't do it) or work on MSJs and field all communications between the office and defense/clients. In my time at Lyon Law, I only spoke to 2 other legal assistants but all of the defense attorneys on my cases knew me by name, which says a lot about the professionalism of this office. Geoff refuses to talk to his clients or defense and more often than not they will probably begin hounding you for whatever answer they seek. No matter how many times you remind Geoff, he will manage to avoid them to the point where clients wonder if he has dropped their case and threaten to find alternative representation. Speaking of clients, Geoff genuinely does not care about any of them. As someone who clearly has empathy issues, Geoff will only laugh or smile when talking about the messed up things that happen to the clients. It is extremely disturbing and makes me upset to know that people who have gone through significant workplace trauma are being represented someone who deeply couldn't care an ounce about them. If you are the type of person who is about meeting deadlines, skip this place. You can send Geoff whatever documents are due weeks in advance and remind him for weeks to review and he will manage to let the deadline slip past. If you have worked in a law firm, you should know that court deadlines are important and missing them can seriously compromise a client's case so it is extremely stressful and concerning that this is a common occurrence in this office. This place has such a high turnover because it is a hostile environment. Coming to work in the morning was the lowest point of my day and it was 99% because I had to work for someone like Geoff. During my year at Lyon Law, I saw 14 people leave/get fired within the first 6 months of my employment. Geoff's hiring practices do not make sense and are predatory. He only wants to hire people who are from top universities and have high GPAs, while his firm does absolutely nothing to attract those types. Also, he tells his secretary to find people who don't live at home and have an air of desperation with regards to employment so he can trap them into staying for a long time. It says a lot that that instead of focusing on creating a working environment that people want to be in and building loyalty in a positive way, Geoff just preys on recent grads looking to not be homeless in this city. Also, I found out that Geoff would make employees write positive reviews on these websites for a law school recommendation. One employee he wrote a recommendation for was surprised to later find out that he uploaded a blank letter and later rescinded it in the middle of the application cycle, compromising their entire application to school. That is the type of person you are potentially signing up to work for. If you are a person of color or a woman, be prepared to work extremely hard with no recognition and being audited after one mistake. If you are a white man, Geoff probably won't say anything to you regarding hours or work performance unless someone else actively complains. For all of the above and more is why this place also has a terrible reputation in the Los Angeles legal community. I became actively embarrassed to tell people where I worked because when I said "Lyon Law", they immediately made a face and would say, "I am familiar with Geoff Lyon." I had to stay at this job for financial/timing reasons and absolutely hated that I had to be there for as long as I did. Luckily I have other lawyer mentors, or I probably would have been completely turned off from the legal field. Personally, I am treating this entire experience like a bad dream and will probably pretend that it never happened with respects to my work history for future employers.