associate

legal assistant

laborer

business development specialist

business development manager

Ropes & Gray LLP

Ropes & Gray is a leading global law firm with offices in Boston, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.

Built on a foundation of over 140 years of dedication to forging strong client relationships, we represent interests across a broad spectrum of industries in corporate law and litigation matters. In addition, we offer counsel on labor and employment issues, tax and benefits, creditors' rights, and private client services. Our clients range in size from large to small companies and include financial institutions, government agencies, hospitals and health care organizations, colleges and universities, and families and individuals.

More than 1,000 lawyers and professionals strive to provide the highest-quality legal advice available. Our firm combines superior talent with a supportive environment where nothing gets in the way of solving our clients' problems.

Client by client, we have built a reputation for high-quality work, a positive outlook, and the highest standards of service and ethics. Year after year, we continue to attract excellent clients, challenging assignments — and outstanding lawyers. All this translates to a team of legal counsel solely focused on providing the best advice possible for our clients without compromise.

While the company is diverse and well respected, the number of "duties" that is required to be a billing coordinator is a bit much to take on.  A typical day deals with mulitple and time consuming rejections from various email vendors.  At times there will be a number of training courses that are, while helpful, are often not very convenient because of the heavy billing schedule that needs to be met, especially during a "target" month. The managers and supervisors try their best to be helpful and are hand-on in trying to make the billing smooth, but there are simply not enough people or we keep losing billers to keep up with the work flow.  That is probably the hardest thing to do.  The people at R&G are friendly and do work hard to see that things get done in the most prompt and accurate fashion.  They respect each other, as well as work that needs to be sent to their clients. The company often has gatherings and are always open to hearing from their employees suggestions on how to better the firm.

My work involves client service for a large client load.  I oversee all insurance trusts ensuring that premiums are paid in a timely fashion and that beneficiaries are informed of any monetary gifts made to the trusts.  I also handle individuals' revocable trusts where I process receipts to and disbursements from the trusts.  I am responsible for maintaining the Insurance Review System (Insurance IQ) and complete multiple and varied tasks and projects on a daily basis as requested by the trustees.

Management is hands-off, in that personnel are given expectations then are allowed to complete their jobs without being micromanaged.

Co-workers are pleasant and truly willing to work as a team.

The most difficult part of my job (and this goes for all of the trust administrators) is that we are often given tasks with little to no direction.

The most enjoyable part of my job is working with competent people to are friendly and respectful.

This is an awful place to work if you're not an attorney. It's top heavy with management that are constantly coming up with ways to justify their position, so they nitpick and try to break you down and make you feel worthless. Make no mistake, you are just a number to them, no matter what your capabilities are. They're a firm based out of Boston that is trying to compete with the world class firms based in NYC and they're never going to get there with the consistently baffling management decisions they make. There's a reason most of the executives last less than a year. Good, hard-working, dedicated people have been let go for such random reasons, always trying to squeeze out as much as they can for as little as they can with what's left of their skeletal staff. Just a terrible place to work and the morale of almost everyone clearly reflects that.

This place is by and large the absolute worst place I’ve ever worked. Management is terrible. Advancement is based on favoritism by management and not on merit or work ethic. Speaking of work ethic, it’s not valued in any way by the management, and is actually a detriment if you want to continue a job here. If working yourself to the bone only for someone else to take credit for your hard work and be berated by management for working too many hours and getting them in trouble with HR sounds like fun to you, by all means apply. I can’t express just how awfully things have gone since I began my career here. I keep being told that I’m valued and that my role is important only to be screwed by management time and time again. If you’re offered a job here, run fast and far. You’d be more respected in the fast food industry.

Assisted attorneys with all aspects relating to the Prosecution of Patent applications for Engineering, Biotech, Electrical and Medical.
Prepared Provisional and Utility Applications, Office Action and Restriction Responses.
Obtained inventor’s signatures on Formal Documents (Declaration, Power of Attorney and Assignment).  
Composed Transmittal Letters, Petitions, Issue Fee Transmittals and Information Disclosure Statements.
Maintained and monitored docketing deadlines relating to the prosecution of an application.
Contacted PTO to follow up on the status of applications and/or to resolve problems.
Reported all communication relating to the prosecution of an application to the client.
Coordinated meetings and travel arrangements

They really walk the walk at Ropes & Gray; they believe in diversity and equal opportunity for all and their policies and benefit programs strongly support their beliefs.  A very professional atmosphere yet not too buttoned-up as one would suspect.  My colleagues were hard working dedicated people who really cared about the firm and the work.  The surroundings were just stunning (the building, view and décor) and it just made you realize you were working for the top law firm in Boston and one of the very best in the country.  I was proud to work there.

Thats the theme of the town hall meetings at Ropes. If you work on the staff side of this place you might as well be part of the furniture for all the respect you'll get. They support mediocrity and favor brown nosing, so unless you're willing and able to do some serious butt kissing, don't bother. Also, they'll suck you in by promising promotions that they will never give you. Unless you're a partner here, you are not treated well at all. The benefits are great, and the pay isn't bad, but they completely screw you as soon as you show them you have any type of integrity or work ethic. If you have any type of ambition at all, go somewhere else.

I would receive all of the company's cash from checks that were either mailed directly to me or sent to Banks lockbox. I would then post all the checks and cash into the company's Elite system and make sure they all balanced out for accurate accounting purposes. I learned the corporate life and how people work, how management can be your best friend or your worst enemy. The hardest part of the job was during year end close where I had to post every check received, there were so many because everyone is trying to pay before the new year for tax reasons. The most enjoyable part of the job was seeing how much cash this Law Firm made.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The money and schedule - hybrid. Great location Boston.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Billing management. Training plan needs improvement. Management is all over the place from tyrant style to leaving employees feel like they’re alone and not part of a department. No help to assist with job goals. Peers are the only helpful ones but then talk behind your back.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Billing department is not a healthy environment.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Stressful to meet targets and 3E does not work properly.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Associate 8 salaries reported	$305,875 per year
Legal assistant 12 salaries reported	$88,946 per year
Laborer 25 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour
Business development specialist 4 salaries reported	$79,500 per year
Business development manager 6 salaries reported	$194,208 per year

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