If You're Gonna Sell Your Soul, At Least Get Paid Well For It - Anonymous employee Jackson Lewis Employee Review

1.0
28 Sept 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The marketing/business development and communications teams are genuinely great to work for/with. The benefits were also decent.

Cons

I want to start off by saying that my friends and family were genuinely embarrassed that I worked here because of the firm's horrible anti-union and anti-worker reputation. Both of which it's earned and very much deserves. Jackson Lewis also clearly has a hierarchy with attorneys at the top and business support personnel at the bottom, or maybe middle with legal secretaries at the very bottom. In a way, I understand this as I never directly brought money to the firm, but at the same time I was constantly expected to bend over backwards for lawyers who refused to do even the bare minimum to make my job easier, which was incredibly frustrating. It felt like I was there to serve the attorneys, which may be by design, but is also increasingly frustrating, For an AmLaw 200 firm that is apparently seeing profit growth year over year, it's astonishing how little support I was given to do my job. It constantly felt like I never had the proper tools or systems I needed to complete what was asked of me. I can't say I hated every moment of working at Jackson Lewis. As I mentioned above, the business support staff were genuinely great to work with, but if you're going to sellout your fellow workers to work for an anti-union law firm, you should at least be compensated well for it. You'd be better served to go work for a competitor firm because you'll certainly be better compensated.

Explore other reviews about Jackson Lewis

5.0
4 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Plenty of resources, great attorneys and staff, focused on development and growth

Cons

Billable hours that are cut need to be made up.

1.0
9 Feb 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Remote work was the standard while I was there.

Cons

The culture toward non-attorney staff is deeply problematic. Non-attorneys are treated as expendable, overworked, and routinely disrespected by attorneys and management. Expectations are extreme and often unrealistic, with little regard for workload, boundaries, or basic professional courtesy. Training and onboarding are virtually nonexistent. Staff are expected to perform complex work with no meaningful guidance or institutional support, then blamed or punished when inevitable issues arise. Rather than coaching or problem-solving, management relies on a punitive, hostile approach. In my case, my management lacked the knowledge and experience required to perform or even fully understand the work they were overseeing, yet imposed rigid and unrealistic expectations on staff. This created an environment where employees were set up to fail and then disciplined for it. Questions or requests for clarification were not welcomed and were often treated as shortcomings rather than reasonable attempts to do the job correctly. The overwork is severe, particularly for non-attorney staff, with long hours treated as a baseline expectation rather than an exception. There is little acknowledgment of burnout, no meaningful support systems, and no genuine effort to improve conditions. Attorneys, by and large, do not view non-attorney staff as colleagues, but as tools to absorb pressure and blame. Overall This may be a tolerable environment for attorneys, but for non-attorney staff it is an unhealthy and demoralizing workplace. I would strongly caution anyone considering a non-attorney staff role here to think carefully before accepting an offer.

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