software engineer

patent agent

associate

paralegal

legal assistant

Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey recognized the need for life work balance, and their treatment of paralegals was superior to other firms.  Dorsey recognized that patent paralegals and litigation paralegals work and bill at a different pace and thus, the billable hour requirements for paralegals across the firm was based on a sliding scale based on many factors, such as how many different case files a paralegal may be expected to handle each day.

Dorsey also allowed me to work from home when the need arose.  There are times when a worker may be too ill to travel to and from the office, nor should they if they are sick and can risk infecting the entire dept. with an illness.  On such occasions when I was too ill to come to into work, but could still be productive from my home office, I was allowed to work from home thereby still being able to be a productive member of my team.  

Allowing a paralegal to work from home also helped me as a parent as there were times when I needed to attend a school function with my child, but it would take me hours to get to and from work to do this, I could attend the function  and then return home to work a full day of billable time for the firm.  

This is the work life balance that I enjoyed at Dorsey.  I would still be working for Dorsey if they had not closed their SF office.

First of all, you will be quoted a salary but you will not in fact receive it.  They will break it down to "per hour".  You receive the quoted salary only if you work 8 hrs a day.  Then, when you are hired, you are told you cannot work 8 hours and you must take a full hour lunch.  Management will not allow or pay when you do overtime.  Therefore, you get paid for 7 hours of work which results in a lowered salary.  You do not get an end of the year bonus.  If you do get a bonus you only get $50 for the first 10 years of working at the firm and $100 for longer.  Not a friendly atmosphere, the Partners aren't too nice, they seem to get off on keeping everyone on edge and afraid of loosing their job.  Promotion for Associates doesn't happen much.  No diversity.  The workload is extreme. Staff- you can't do overtime because you won't get paid but you do it anyway because if you do not finish the work load you will be reprimanded.  It's like constantly being between a rock and a hard place.  No perks, average benefits.  The managing partner that runs everything is past retirement age and won't retire, therefore, the firm is very very old fashion and in the dark ages. If you need supplies like pens or post-its, you only get one or two.  Their ethics are weird, never worked at a firm like this one.

Mornings/Whole day consists of recieving mail, sorting them and redistributing them through out the entire office.On busy days, there will be heavy volumes of print and scanning projects delivered to Office Services.Completion of projects depends on the volume and the degree of difficulty to perform them. It may only take an hour or two at times, but can also occupy your time for the whole day. After the mail is delivered, inventory is reviewed for supplies. Also, there will be client conferences that will need to be set up as well. Management has downsized staff and has the extra work load redistributed and added to existing job functions and roles for the remaining employees. What used to be a 4 man crew in the firm's mailroom has come down to 1. This makes it really hard to do your regular task because of time constraints with other various projects or set ups needed to be done, specially if there is an urgency for them to be done right away. Aside from those obstacles, majority of the people in the firm are very pleasant to work with and are a good source of relief and laughter.

I would receive the billing partner's edits on their pre-bills for me to edit and prepare an invoice to send to the client. There were always a person each month who would not get their pre-bills to me before the deadline, this was difficult to finalize the invoices before the Manager of the Billing Department closed the previous month to open the next month. This was always a difficult day and with high stress for all. There were also a few billing partner's who would turn their pre-bills around within a 24 hour time frame, once the new pre-bills were printed. The most enjoyable part of the job were the billing partners and clients, who knew what they needed and paid their invoices in full each month.

Worked in the small word processing center of this law firm, primarily as a weekend coverage operator. My entry into the company was as a temp to perm position. Occasionally I would be called up for weekday coverage when there was a need. As the firm was small to midsize interface with the firm's partners was ongoing. As the sole weekend operator I was given authorization to call in other temp support if the extra coverage was needed. The firm was generous to employees with a year-end bonus and sumptuous Christmas party!

Good terms with Regional Director to have job security and ease at work is a plus. Most of the employees are laid back and easy to work with.  Atmosphere is work hard, maybe you will get noticed. They are very tight on their office supplies budget and employee appreciation perks. No bonuses or incentives.  Medical benefits are not the best in town.  Vacation is below average. Enormous amount of procedures and forms.  Business office seems to change billing procedures which puts a huge dent on productivity.  There is party activity that the staff donate a sufficient amount of their time towards.  I don't know if that is taken into account as their job duties.

New faces becomes new problems.  Dorsey at one time was family.  It was to keep the employees happy and they all kept productive.  Over the years I watched Dorsey go through so many changes that It forgot about the employees.  We went for years without a raises or even a thank you.  The recent hires and changes made life at Dorsey stressful and uncomfortable.  Being taken from my position and put into the receptionist roll made it even worse.  I was not happy to be were I was.

The summer before my senior year of high school, I was awarded through a program, Project SELF, a paid internship at a law firm. During this time of my life, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to study and college applications right around the corner I was doing programs from left to right. But my experience at Dorsey & Whitney was what decided exactly what I not only wanted to study but wanted as a career. Everyone at the office was very nice and I learned a lot from each one of the lawyer/mentors. It was an experience that I will never forget and I am so grateful for.

Stress in this job is very high here.  Dorsey does not value employees, and is known for laying off long term and older employees. Attorneys routinely work in excess of 50 hours a week.  Support staff are viewed as chattel.  Very little work-life balance and taking earned time off is viewed as a negative.  Compensation is on the high end of the scale, but throwing money at employees is not enough to compensate for the misery.  Horrible culture here.  

D&W was a pleasant place to work, but advancement within the structure was limited due to the dividing line between Support Staff and Attorneys. 

The environment was good, though the technology at the time was lacking and just catching up to modern-day law practices. 

Working with attorneys varied based on personality types. Some were very demanding (almost diva-esque) as can be expected by high profile maverick attorneys. Others were normal, pleasant people who worked well with others.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 12 salaries reported	$83,500 per year
Patent agent 3 salaries reported	$115,000 per year
Associate 4 salaries reported	$180,000 per year
Paralegal 3 salaries reported	$66,833 per year
Legal assistant 6 salaries reported	$34.03 per hour

Working at Dorsey & Whitney: Company Overview and Reviews

Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney Ratings

Popular jobs at Dorsey & Whitney

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected