Do Legal Secretaries and Paralegals Have Thankless Jobs???
If a new report on legal secretaries is an accurate reading of their concerns, many have demanding and thankless jobs. Sponsored by the Association for Legal Professionals, the report is based on a poll of 1,000 legal secretaries.
The findings reveal that legal secretaries are more inclined to say they want a day off or more help in the office than flowers from a doting boss. In fact, many say they rarely get time off and are often loaded down with too much work. They're telling us that some lawyers are out of touch with their support staff, said Deborah Weinstein, an attorney and president of the Weinstein Firm in Pennsylvania, who designed the survey. The Tulsa-based assocation said 63 percent of the legal secretaries polled described themselves as overwhelmed with their current workloads and 53 percent said the lawyers they work for rarely consider their workloads or schedules before giving them additional work.
And, although Administrative Professionals Day was April 27, many legal secretaries weren't expecting to get much from the boss. Of those polled, 40 percent said the attorneys they work for would probably do nothing to show appreciation for the work the secretaries do. Thirty-four percent said they expected to be treated to lunch and 8 percent said they would probably get flowers.
On the other hand, 32 percent said they'd rather have a day off, and 21 percent said they'd prefer a gift certificate.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
