receptionist/assistant

receptionist/administrative assistant

legal assistant

summer associate

secretary

Husch Blackwell

There is no career advancement options as long as you are staff and not an attorney.

Compensation is merely only average.

Most of the time you'll be asked to do overtime and it is approved - now this can be seen as a good thing but it also should give a hint about the workload.

Speaking of workload, it is very unfairly distributed. Experienced employees have much fewer work compared to new employees - meaning they dump all the complicated and hard work onto the new employees. I had 120+ lawyers assigned to me whereas the experienced billers had about 30. When sent a feedback about this their response is “this is what we are expecting from you” and they say the invoice amount generated is the same, which isn't true and this is a very shallow logic ignoring the other complications.

Managers and supervisors for the billing department are basically insatiable disasters. They are also unfortunately incredibly condescending and have no idea how to approach or talk with an adult professionally - and will annoyingly yell team members (literally shout at you) as if you're their little kids. This will give you an idea about the company culture - upper management yells at mid level management which then yells at the staff.

The office is incredibly outdated but they are working to improve that in a year.

There is constant micromanaging which means that you will have to report any action constantly and you are being monitored of your actions as well. Management focuses more on nitpicking than actually getting any job done. For example if you have a problem, they will focus on yelling at you and finding out how you are the only problem instead of approaching constructively to solve a problem. They will dedicate their entire work life reminding you of even the smallest problem.

Training is a mess. They have people with different styles training new employees which ends up with different methods of getting the same job done. The manual they provide is outdated and doesn't contain enough information. Once this surfaces they will yell at you for not following the procedure even though that is literally how you are trained to get something done.

E-mail traffic is horrible. You'll sometimes receive without exaggeration hundreds of e-mails a day most of which are requests and you are responsible of reading and tracking every single line of them.

There is no such thing as team work. There is no team. Everyone is forced to work isolated and collaborative work is discouraged. You are not supposed to help your co worker without reporting it to the managers or supervisors.

Communication is weak. It is easier to communicate with the attorneys than it is with management. There is open door policy but without the supervision of management you are not supposed to communicate with other departments and if you do you get yelled at.

Just avoid this firm at all costs. There is ridiculously nothing good about working here.

The firm does very little to help associates maintain a steady workflow. Partners will view requests for work as evidence of a bad reputation and empty promises of work will be repeated for months on end. Your success at the firm depends upon your ability to find a partner in your group that cares about you. There is no feedback and nothing (truly nothing), will be communicated directly. You’ll find yourself confronted with verbal statements that conflict against written feedback. Do not expect the firm to hold individuals who behave this way accountable. You’ll be promised help, often, and reassurances will initially be forthcoming. Then, you’ll wake up and find yourself on a PIP or worse justified by conversations you were never a part of. Your experience will depend entirely on those in charge of your workflow. The managing directors are not attorneys and often manipulated by their partners as a result. The firm loves to discuss the vast amount of resources they offer to resolve disputes, but heaven help you if you use those resources and offend your supervisor’s sensibilities. Don’t be fooled, this is still a large firm, regardless of the “uncommon” branding, and they will treat you like trash if it suits them. Like most corporations, their commitment to DEI ends the very moment it either makes them uncomfortable or forces a reevaluation of management’s priorities.


They talk a lot about fairness, whether you actually see it or not is entirely luck.

Pros include some hybrid options, some unique benefits along with standard offerings, generous leave policy and efforts made to improve parental leave. Generally good company culture, though this is heavily dependent on who you work with/for. 

Cons: Management is a pain point. The structure of the legal admin department means you report to a manager, but receive all actual work from attorneys who do not determine your review, pay, or workload. Managers are often not in the same physical office as the admins, which strains relationships. It's very difficult to get promoted and there is no clear path for advancement. Flexible work options are incongruous between admin teams, breeding negativity and resentment.

A typical work day at Husch Blackwell is managing calendars, processing expenses, entering time weekly, coordinating client meetings and handling clients needs and executing small and large projects for upcoming cases. 

I've learned to advance my skills in MS Word, Excel, Power point, outlook, Adobe PDF and also your professional mannerism will take you very far.

N/A

We all work as a team 

I will say that my goal while working at this firm is to get the job done to ensure the attorneys, clients and guest are happy with our services.

I enjoy working the staff and getting together for office events and outings.

Attorneys are mean and belittling.  You are blamed for every mistake an attorney makes.  Attorneys do not take responsibility for anything.  You are questioned about taking time off for doctor’s appointments or having to leave during the day.  You are asked by management to send an email to team when taking a bathroom break.  Do not complain about anything or you will be set up on 1:1 meetings with manager for the remainder of your employment.  Attorney will talk to you about his dating life and then reprimand you for talking.  Horrible place to work with mean attorneys.  Just don’t! 

A lot of back stabbing.   People try to befriend you and if they do whatever you say whether good or not,  it will be used against you.   If you are a favorite you will do fine until you make a mistake.  You're assigned to teams but you are on your own.  .good luck getting help .   The attorneys that you are assigned to expect you to work overtime but on the other hand HR is on you because of the overtime.   What is good for one is not good for the next person.   Again if you are not a favorite you will not be treated fairly or equally....Poor management 

Husch Blackwell has its benefits; the pay is good for staff members and there are nice perks like free meals and other events. There are also some very nice people who are dedicated to their jobs. On the other hand, it's also structured poorly and places too much emphasis on being a lawyer. Staff members are always treated like second-class citizens, no matter how much experience hey have.

Horribly over managed by out of state management completely out of touch with reality,  keep your mouth shut and your head down and don't expect any appreciation or understanding. Expect to do a plethora of tasks not generally expected of a litigation assistant, including working in courts all over the country. Expect to be placated with disingenuous buzz words. And expect attorneys to treat you with 0 respect. Other than that is lovely ...

Not unusual for law offices, but you will not be treated as a full person with thoughts and feelings but the attorneys if you aren't one, and even sometimes if you are. Culture, at least among support staff, is cliche-y and mean; women in their 50s behaving like middle schoolers. Not a welcoming environment or a collaborative one. They lean into the "we're a family" rhetoric, which is definitely a red flag 

Job was great until I made a monumental error and transferred to Billing. Management in that department is awful. Did not support the staff. Too many responsibilities that were not Billing related. Tasked with trying to obtain information from unresponsive attorneys instead of going to the source. During my short tenure in this department, two other employees left the firm.  Stay out of Billing and you'll be fine.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Receptionist/assistant 9 salaries reported	$18.50 per hour
Receptionist/administrative assistant 8 salaries reported	$18.50 per hour
Legal assistant 1 salary reported	$75,500 per year
Summer associate 1 salary reported	$2,880 per week
Secretary 1 salary reported	$27.42 per hour

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