paralegal

assistant

immigration paralegal

senior paralegal

associate attorney

Berry Appleman & Leiden

BAL actually does a good job on certain aspects of being an employer. Well, really, just two. First, my coworkers were amazing and continue to this day to be my closest friends. When I was working for BAL, I found that whenever I was having a horrible day, my coworkers were quick to come to my cube to comfort me and share very kind and needed words. What makes these coworkers so sympathetic to each other? It’s because we were all on the same struggle bus and felt the bumps, both as little as an unhappy review to as big as a termination threat. We were familiar with each other’s struggles. 

Second, BAL actually has a good PTO program. Managers were easy to work with in terms of time off. Not a lot of red tape to get anything approved.

Ah, so this is where I go off. Y’all ready?

Lack of inspiration — I honestly think the most prominent weakness of BAL stems from this. Business immigration itself is a lot of difficult, monotonous work. I wish BAL was able to combat that by being an inspirational employer to work for. Sadly, they’ve only made the practice even more uninspiring. How do they do this? See below:

Pay — for the kind of work expected out of their employees, BAL severely underpays them. Not much to say here, obviously. Want to make more money in an inherently underpaid industry like business immigration? Then BAL is not for you, boo. Unless, of course, you’re coming in as a partner or some other high-level employee whose pay makes zero sense given the little money PLs, AAs, and IAs receive. 

Punitive measures — BAL dishes out punitive measures to drive their employees into producing more work, even though they are already suffering from unethical caseloads. This is a terrible practice and only adds to the mental trauma faced by BAL’s employees daily. Such measures include stiffly-worded emails and phone calls with HR. I feel like the last thing overworked employees need is a threatening energy from their managers.

Workload — I get it. More cases = more money. But the quality of cases produced at BAL is probably not ideal given how thinly spread their staff can be. It will not take a new employee to realize s/he has entered an immigration sweatshop. In addition to this, an employee will regularly encounter attorneys/managers who breathe down their necks and impose crippling micromanagement upon their staff. 

Management — It surprised me to learn that there were that many partners at BAL. It felt like there were too many cooks in this dysfunctional kitchen. In addition to that, leadership has also exhibitedsome unsavory behavior during my time. A prime example is the all hands meeting from early this year. The Managing Partner, the firm’s CEO, based out of Dallas became visibly upset on live broadcast (which is already distressing for us underlings to see) over the dismal survey results that revealed how unhappy BAL employees are with their employer. Instead of maturely and professionally addressing us, the Managing Partner erupted and suggested that if we’re really that unhappy, we should just leave. Not only that, he stated that he and leadership would even assist disgruntled employees with their exit. I found that incident to be extremely inappropriate and lacked the kind of leadership the firm needed. 

Furthermore, the recent and abrupt personnel population decrease due to sudden lay offs across multiple offices should tell you a lot about leadership’s ability to plan, or lack thereof. People were onboarded onto the firm, only to be told their roles were to dissolve a couple of weeks after they had just completed training.


Advise to management:

There are too many of you and you have  consistently failed to feel out what it’s like to be a non-attorney/non-manager at your firm. You should also quit the politics and attempts to get ahead of each other. Nothing about that shows “One BAL.” 


I suggest that the next time you all go on your retreat to some Mexican resort, you all do some self-reflection and see what makes BAL a fish that is rotting from the head.

BAL is an example of a company where the top leadership are disconnected from the reality of everyday life at the company.

The managing partner is visionary and wants the experience to be on the same level as Google. Problem is, his idea of cultural experience is based on concepts like "do we have gaming rooms and a nice cafeteria area", or the occasional event at work.

These are great things to have, but you need to start with what actually impacts the employee experience: management. And management at BAL is horrible. 

I guess I can't really blame the managers. Over the years that I worked there, heavier and heavier caseloads were placed upon them. Most managers/lawyers work late into the night, taking work home with them. Most paralegals or assistants have impossible workloads as well. Constrained to stay within standard hours (as all overtime had to be approved beforehand by higher-level leaders), it was a regular thing for the workers to report far fewer hours than they actually worked.

Some of the lawyers/managers are smart, capable, and recognize the value of their employees. Then there are the others: petty, vindictive, hostile, demeaning. Burnout is commonplace. 

From what I've heard, it wasn't always this way. It sounds like it was a lot of fun there back in the old days. Now, it's a case mill - churning out immigration cases for very large corporations that expect the miraculous in truly ridiculous turnaround times.

It's sad in a way, because I always felt that the managing partner really believed in the culture and that it was what made BAL special. But his vision of what life at BAL was really like was incredibly disconnected from what the case preparers actually experienced.

A lot of people got their start there. Turnover was extremely high. After a few years there, there were fewer and fewer faces you once knew. After a few years, I had to get out. I was highly stressed, and my life started to spiral downward. 

It has great financial success, and if you are looking for a way to break into the immigration field, it'll give you that experience. Hopefully, it can change and be what it once was. I had a lot of friends there, and the people is what made it special.

Let me just say that BAL is not terrible. I have experienced worse firms. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Why? Well for starters, the pay is a joke. You will definitely not be paid for the all the work that you do. The caseloads are extremely heavy. The company does not believe in telling their clients no and because of that, the employees are left with loads of cases. Also, don’t expect very much training from the company either. BAL has many clients that have their own specific protocols. You’ll mostly figure that out from your coworkers because apparently BAL expects their employees to be trainers as well. The case loads will start off pretty light but before you know it, you’ll be overwhelmed with cases.  The attorneys are overwhelmed as well and clueless most of the time. Unless they are senior attorneys, don’t expect too much from them either. Overtime is also a very bad word at BAL. They will see you work after hours but will not acknowledge it unless you ask for it. They’ll allow you to work on Saturdays if that’s how you want to start your weekend. I will say one positive thing. If you are interested in Immigration, this is a great place to start. You’ll learn very quickly about the industry.

I have seen the changes the company has tried to make such as providing the necessary training and assistance for new hires and that's where it normally stops. The management team is more involved when they want to. The claim made is many resources are there to help you. Not to mention, the resources are other hired employees who are new and do not understand the full process of that case which leads to an increase in mistakes and a waste of time when you are trying to meet deadlines and find yourself re-drafting petitions. This should not be the excuse to give specific immigration assistants and paralegals twice as many cases since it usually leads to staying overtime on a consistent basis and everyone else goes home on time. It becomes an issue when "work-life balance" is emphasized. Another lie emphasized is lowering the case-load for everyone, however, this has been "promised" ever since I began working here and it has not changed. Also, the more you complete and the harder you work, the more they give you.

The unfavorable and negative reviews about BAL are true.  The training seems to consist of expecting new employees ask questions when they are confused.  With training system, it is extremely hard to gain confidence in your skills and job performance.  The management makes a big deal out of mistakes without recognizing that you were never properly trained to avoid it. 
It is also true that immigration assistants and paralegals are overworked and cannot keep up with expectations in a standard 8-hour work day.  This leads to many reporting far fewer hours than they actually worked as overtime is typically not allowed. 
The attorneys and team managers are frequently not on the same page.  Team managers will give directions that are then contradicted by the attorneys.  The attorneys behave like it is the immigration assistant/paralegal's fault for making a mistake based on the team manager's incorrect directions.  There is a high turnover rate among employees.  
The only advantage to working at BAL is that they will accept new graduates without professional work experience.  

Survey  - BAL wants to know how employees feel about working here. However they do not take well to constructive criticism. Instead of addressing concerns to make it a better environment.  Firm partner in the all hands meeting said there’s the door if your unhappy working here . 

Simply put overworked, underpaid. Turnover seems to be high so work gets dumped on the next person once someone quits.  Managers stress you out with the 24 sla. Basically responding to emails within 24 hour of receipt. Keep in mind depending on your workload it’s nearly impossible to do it. 

They preach about how they want you to succeed and be challenged but when you take that up to management they retaliate by criticizing your work ethics . 

Its hard trying to take sick and holiday days off, even tho you accumulate time to be able to take it.

People that last here long are...
Waiting forever for that promotion that never came 
Learned how to work the system  by putting in the ot, riding the clock, and do the bare minimal 
Using it as a stepping stone for the next best thing

I joined BAL to learn about immigration law. After about 2 weeks I realized that I was no longer learning about the law, but only about the specific expectations and unrealistic desires of the companies who employ the firm to handle their immigration needs. The clients are unreasonable and expectations are poorly set, leading to their treatment of the professionals at BAL as vindictive, abusive and unappreciative. The people I work with at BAL, including my direct supervisors, are absolutely fantastic. However, the overall management of the firm seems to be based on the idea that every one is dispensable, can be overworked until burnt out and underpaid because they are expected to eventually move on. The expectation set by the firm regarding case load, client interaction and deadlines are incredibly unrealistic and the compensation based on those expectations a joke. While your direct supervisors will gladly listen and help with the load, they are just as overworked and subject to the same ludicrous expectations.

Really the only positive take away from my time with BAL is that there is a strong bond amongst the mere minions (read paralegals and below).  The over all culture appears laid back but is cut throat and driven by poorly trained management more focused on weekly numbers than bettering themselves and their team as a whole to succeed and produce quality work.  In the event that you do not elect to or need to come in on weekends expect to be judged poorly and have everything down to your breathing style critiqued.  Human Resources is a joke at best, but as soon as you place your trust in them expect them to turn on you and side with I’ll trained mid level management.

Lastly be weary if they are hiring around the beginning of the year...it is for CAP season and about 40% of you won’t make it past June.

This immigration law firm is disguised as a sweatshop. Senior Associates will work you into the ground and give you backlash when you can't complete a week's worth of work in a day. The ability to achieve overtime is nice until you find yourself working 9-10 hours days every week. Senior level associates will speak to you like a dog while surrounding management and HR sit back and do nothing. Some associates are nicer than others but I wouldn't take my chances with this firm. Lastly, there are not enough people for the amount of work; you will find yourself taking on 50-70 cases, with clients that have identical requests and deadlines. 

Save your time and seek a firm that values leadership and the wellbeing of their employees.

On a typical day, I would check emails for visas that needed to be processed into a file, required the attention for review and signatures, or close out files on clients/customers. Filing was required to maintain organization and cleaniness of file room. Mail and packages were sorted and delivered to the proper personnel. Maintaing global department calendar was a high priority in essence of meetings, travel, and or "Out of Office" absence. I worked with a wonderful team and was guided and trained properly and gave great attention to detail to make department productive at all times. The hardest part was multi-tasking, but embraced all projects and assignments with a great opportunity to show that accomplishments can be acheived by the end of the day.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Paralegal 9 salaries reported	$63,311 per year
Assistant 31 salaries reported	$53,977 per year
Immigration paralegal 35 salaries reported	$69,780 per year
Senior paralegal 3 salaries reported	$77,833 per year
Associate attorney 17 salaries reported	$145,365 per year

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