paralegal

immigration paralegal

attorney

associate

associate attorney

Ogletree Deakins

A very poorly run Helpdesk with no sense of being part of a real team.

First, you need to take calls that go into the queue, that is #1 priority. But you also need to respond to email ticket incident in your assigned 1 hour window. This varies, but it is highly likely you can obtain 15+ different incident tickets within a 30 minute window or 30+ in a 60 minute window.

You need to respond to each one personally via email and set expectations for the requestor. How could you do that for all 15 and actually work on some of the tickets? You can't. The most you can do in this situation is say that you will get back to them eventually.

Once you are back taking calls, you won't be able to contact your "email tickets" until you have a minute or two to read what their issue is, type fast, and send something out. 

But you can also have another caller waiting for you in the queue. You only have 30 seconds between calls before the next one is automatically forwarded to you. This causes a ton of stress and frustration since you need to stop replying to an urgent/important request you're trying to send out and take a call, regardless if the phone call is important issue or not.

There is seldom a day where you will find yourself ample time to effectively/efficiently respond to all of your emails.

Workload: ABSOLUTELY INSANE. THE biggest source of stress, frustration, and depression. You will always have more to do for one person at all times. When 1 or 2 analysts call out, good luck, you will be stuck with even a bigger workload with no support from leadership. You won't be allowed to get off the phones and just work on tickets.

Management: The HD is poorly run, with no staff meetings, no effort to train analysts with new software the firm is using, or even regular manager meetings. There is no time to read emails that give you an update on the latest of IT or even attend company meetings like everyone else does. Management/Leadership does not check-in with you to ask "what do you need?" Or hold meetings where the team covers a particular topic or a "how to" meeting. That's actually never happened from what I can recall.

Culture: Poor at best. It's a very "robotic" job function in Helpdesk, where you log-in, take calls all day, make some effort to respond to email tickets, and clock out. There's almost no variety involved at all, like dedicating 30 minutes for a real training on existing/new software being used in the firm or taking part of projects. The HD analysts are not properly updated on any upcoming projects that may impact support tickets. Any update that can cause a more calls will be sent to you via email or chat message. Read them when you can is the mentality I suppose.

IT Leadership has known the workload to be an issue for months but has done nothing about it. The Director does not care about the HD analyst staff. The sense of feeling ignored and not valued is definitely there.


I worked in the Atlanta office for nearly one year before I moved and began working full-time as an off-site, remote employee. For most of the time, I had excellent administrative support until the last 6-8 months. The Senior Partner leading the team was divisive and ran off employees and attorneys; he created a very dysfunctional environment. I worked independently and enjoyed my work and the customers; however, the  HR department was inept for the most part. They allowed extremely bad behavior and though they ended up firing that managing partner, they let him berate and harass others for far too long. I was most happy when I worked remotely, as I was not exposed to the day-to-day dysfunction. My supervising attorney did not review cases; he simply signed his name, which caused a lot of stress, as he was prone to blaming others for his mistakes. He moved a great assistant to another team and hired another person who was as dysfunctional as he was, which made our jobs untenable. I only learned my supervising attorney had left the firm when another partner in the Denver office called to ask me how I was doing now that my supervisor was out. I was speechless, as no one bothered to tell me, No matter the environment at work, over the years I have absolutely loved the work I have been assigned. I was also fortunate that there were several female attorneys (who all moved on) who were excellent to work with and I felt fully supported and appreciated by those other attorneys. While it has been a long while since I worked with this firm, my hope is that the immigration department has vastly improved and people are happy.

I gained decent work experience through this office and got the most out of my time there in terms of upgrading my resume and skills. They train you with no previous experience which is great, however, the training program itself is not helpful and I really only learned the most through hands-on experience and a LOT of trial and error. Pay was fine considering no previous experience. Benefits are great (to be expected for a big corporation). I appreciate the work-life balance culture they have (at least for paralegals/hourly wages, not sure about attorneys or other roles) since they do not expect you to continue working outside of your standard  workday unless specifically granted overtime.


The office environment and culture is incredibly condescending. The amount of condescending emails and teams messages I received from my superiors were extremely demotivating and discouraging.  I had a very difficult time working with my attorneys and receiving any help from them in order to help THEIR cases move forward. The management did not seem to care much about dealing with this and do not seem to encourage teamwork or collaboration - which is ironic because they are requiring everyone to be in-office at least 3 times a day (or full-time for some other roles) in the name of teamwork and collaboration. They also seem to be used to having a very high turnover and therefore do not make any effort in terms of employee retention. As a paralegal, there are no career growth opportunities. You can go from paralegal I, to paralegal II, to paralegal III, and that's about it.

Working as an immigration paralegal at Ogletree Deakins can prove to be a valuable work experience, with room to learn and grow if provided adequate training and mentoring. However, management and supervising attorneys could stand to be more personable, friendly, and helpful. The overall work culture at Ogletree Deakins is not one of trust but one of distrust. You have to watch your back because not all employees act in good faith toward other employees. Among various teams and paralegals, yes, trust is built and good collaboration is apparent, but the majority of supervising attorneys do little, if anything, to foster a work environment that builds upon openness and trust. Supervising attorneys should of course demonstrate professionalism, but that does not mean a robotic and friendless disposition, which unfortunately seems to be the norm with most supervising attorneys. 

Normal workday entails you showing up to work and getting bombarded by phone calls and emailed in tickets. Lawyers will yell at you when technology doesn't work and the concept of a team while working as a HelpDesk technician for Ogletree eluded the management staff and co-workers.

Its a dog each dog work environment and you will be thrown under the bus at a minutes notice.

Workload: Insane You will own all issues and tickets that come in.
Work place culture : Toxic think totem Pole and your at the bottom the only way to get up is to step on fellow co-workers heads and even that isn't a great advancement within the company.

Management: Aware of the issues with the company when onboarding giant clients and companies and not staffing correctly.

I have a record of 4 newly hired staff quiting before their training was completed and they saw the full scope of the work.

Helpdesk team is made up of 10 people including supervisors and managers 

However supervisors do not take phone calls or Emails so they just yell at staff to do more work.

Advise DO NOT Accept a job here for any ridiculous amount of money.

If it is Too good to be true it usually is

I worked as a paralegal in the immigration group in Atlanta. If you are thinking of joining this group RUN! Or you can go in and get as much experience as you can since they have lots of work for you and still RUN! 

I started with the firm hoping I will learn, grow, and stay with the firm. Unfortunately, the supervising attorneys and supervisors care less about professional development of staff or retaining staff. Most of the supervising attorneys are very rude and treat paralegals like animals (yelling or talking down at you) while the other half of supervising attorneys are passive aggressive. There’s a high turn around largely because (1) there’s no training but they expect you to know it all from day one;  (2) they make you know and feel from day one you are replaceable and nothing you do is appreciated; and (3) the environment is very cold and hostile attorneys hardly say hello to support staff and are generally unfriendly. They have their favorites though who can do nothing wrong in their eyes. These favorites get promoted while qualified staff stay in the same position for years. Beware because you may loose your self confidence after the constant belittling and generally hostile work environment. 

Nothing about working at OD stands out. Experiences of reviewers depend completely on position and office location. As support staff in the Atlanta office, nothing impresses me much about working here. Job is boring and repetitive, no sense of professional advancement, feel as though my skills are wasted. There’s no sense of culture and people tend to keep to themselves. Pay isn’t great but isn’t terrible, health insurance is pretty reasonable, other benefits such as PTO and parental leave are seriously lacking. There are some nice perks but nothing that other companies don’t provide. They’re not very flexible regarding working remotely and expect you to come to the office even if there’s no need to and your job can be done 100% remotely. The only reasons I’ve stayed this long are because the work/life balance for my position is good and I like most of the people I work with. 

At my office, the management was uncaring and the leadership was nearly non-existent.  My office administrator, to be perfectly frank, had a weak understanding of how to motivate employees and was so lazy, his abilities to do so almost wouldn't have mattered.  Most of his motivational talks to me were so obviously a manipulation tactic that they were much more of an insult than a motivational talk.  Outside of that, he had a nasty habit of making derogatory jokes about me in front of me, not showing up to the office for extended periods of time so all correspondence had to be through email, and instructing me to take on new tasks and forgetting about them, so he would not tell me to stop doing them after it was no longer necessary.  (P.S. I've included a false location because I was the only office assistant in my office and anonymity would otherwise be impossible, and, furthermore, wouldn't want the risk of any soft retaliation.)

As a docketing specialist I spent my entire day looking at my computer screen, answering emails and creating court dates and other deadlines for attorneys.  There were not a lot of opportunities for growth, other than learning deadlines for other states.  Management tried to make it a "fun" office by providing monthly free lunches, but otherwise it was a very stiff, unfriendly office, despite the fact there were only 9 attorneys and 6 staff members.  Nobody ever chatted - extremely introverted office.  Hardest part of the job was the fact that I only received 2 weeks vacation (came from 6 weeks vacation) and the pay was significantly lower.  Was not allowed to work remotely, despite never needing to be physically in the office.  Most enjoyable part was the fact it was a new, attractive office setting. 

The autonomy of each local office makes Ogletree feel more like a network of boutiques than one large firm.  Because of this, someone's experience at one office isn't necessarily indicative of the environment at another office, or of the culture of the firm as a whole.  

Firm leadership demonstrates support of the LGBT community, and although the hours can sometimes be long (though this might just be at the office where I worked), there is overall a reasonable work/life balance.  There is sometimes drama among the staff, but that is a possibility at any workplace of comparable size.  Given the number and nature of questions I received from associates, I had the impression that little is offered in the way of mentorship for "baby lawyers."

During the pandemic, the firm seemed to go out of its way to retain staff and to avoid cutting salaries below the associate level.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Paralegal 3 salaries reported	$56,833 per year
Immigration paralegal 4 salaries reported	$47,631 per year
Attorney 2 salaries reported	$227,500 per year
Associate 4 salaries reported	$196,250 per year
Associate attorney 3 salaries reported	$158,333 per year

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