PT-LawMom

So… I got a little freaked out while meeting with my law school’s career department last week. My counselor basically said, “Your job is going to screw you in terms of future employment opportunities,” which I think is pretty extreme but I get her point (although now, thinking about it, plenty of full-timers never work and get jobs, but I think she thinks never working is much better than working as a “lowly secretary” — shows what she knows!). She wanted me to start looking for something else in the next year or so. Chapin spazzed out (it would be hard to find another job that pays what I make now) and said I should wait until the last year of my four-year journey. I agreed with him… and then panicked on Friday. Sent a well-crafted, detailed memo to my HR director (who hired me) requesting that, should a paralegal position come open in one of two areas of practice in which I am interested, she seriously consider me for the job. I was confident about the decision to send the memo on Friday but now I’m a little worried. I doubt they would fire me for asking, but I was hired for this particular desk because of a special set of skills and, in the past, they’ve had a hard time filling the position. Hopefully they will take the request at face value and understand that I just want the chance to gain some practical skills sometime in the next few years. I made it clear that I want to stay with the firm and simply asked for consideration down the line if a position opens and/or the chance to pitch in during an extra-busy time for one of those departments. Please pray that this request doesn’t backfire on me. I sure can’t afford to lose my job!!

P.S. I do actually have paralegal experience. I have a paralegal certificate and worked as a contract paralegal for several months before landing a position with a judge, followed by a great position as a legal secretary. My last job (the great position) consisted of many more paralegal-type activities, such as research, cite-checking and document coding. I also do contract cite-checking/proofreading work for a local company. My current job is much more secretarial in nature.