Pros
Many many wonderful and dedicated coworkers, attorneys and staff alike, who are incredibly generous with their time for both clients and colleagues. There are so many incredible colleagues who are kind and compassionate human beings, and who were drawn to and who are guided by the mission to serve the most vulnerable in our communities. Pay and benefits are actually quite good for legal aid/nonprofit, at least so long as you are an attorney. Multiple office locations around the state, decent mobility for internal transfers. Strong technology resources. Strong professional development resources available including group membership to PLI, ability to tap into free CLE for legal aid.
Cons
Toxic "hall monitor" management more focused on micromanagement rather than supporting people and helping them do their best work to serve our clients. Hiring and training of managers is awful - attorneys who were strong individual contributors have a VERY different skill set that often is not well-suited for management, but are most often the ones who get "promoted" into management. Some managers completely fail to use the resources available to them such as "best practices" guides. Policies and procedures are enforced inconsistently depending on who your manager is, as well as who you are. DEI is weaponized and is mostly used protect the org from employment practices liability, but there is little or no authentic commitment from senior management to be an anti-racist org, resulting in managers allowing their implicit (and explicit) biases to impact hiring decisions. Non-attorney staff pay is not great and the inequities caused by this are stark. Little real upward mobility unless you want to become management and to tolerate the toxic management culture. All of this results in insanely high turnover - attorneys last on average 3 years and then leave NJP. Low-income clients need and deserve highly experienced attorneys, not a constantly revolving door because of NJP's inept management.