legal assistant

legal support assistant

lawyer

litigation lawyer

billing coordinator

Fasken

Overall compared to all of Calgary's big firms I've worked at, Fasken is the best due to only hiring a majority of people under 40. This makes the firm able to grow, learn new technology and open to new ways on being efficient. People are genuine and friendly. 
However, still the same issues as a big firm i.e. long hours, work over personal life, networking and lip service gets lawyers and staff up the corporate ladder, hard work means no promotion just a pat on the back. HR gossip and compensation also bad. Gossip is typical for any office but HR/Management has no issues sharing EVERYTHING with other management and staff. I'm talking other people's health, salaries, office romance, who and how they plan on firing someone, etc. If you're a big firm, act like it and start conducting yourselves professionally.
As for pros, aside from real estate all departments have excellent people. Rotten eggs don't last long here. They will stand up for you. Benefits are 10/10, vacation, unlimited sick time, and lots of fun social events. Great mentors and colleagues no big egos for the people not on the partner track. No micromanaging here they are very trusting and it pays off. That being said this is the first firm I've worked at where they AVOID doing work in-house. A majority of things are farmed out. They would rather send to their other offices or pay other firms and agents to do the work. From legal to administrative it is wild how much money they spend in fees vs. doing things in-house that would mean faster turnaround and making money for the firm but talking to all levels of management they were very against it. They would rather be drinking and networking which is on brand for a younger demographic like this firm and I'm not opposed to it. Their parties are fun. 
Stay away from real estate and accounting here. (Unhinged department and a majority of people don't  make it past three weeks in accounting for the last few years)

The supervisor for legal assistants does not support the assistants and is more interested in advancing her own career. She frequently speaks poorly about the assistants and uses them as examples of what not to do. The lawyers on the litigation floor are arrogant. The assistants on the litigation floor are milicious and will stop at nothing to throw you under the bus for a mistake they made. You cannot trust anyone from HR/management down to the person who sits next to you. If you have an issue with a coworker or the lawyers you assist, you are better off keeping it to yourself or you run the risk of being fired. A practice I’ve seen time and time again as this firm has a high turnover rate. 

I did enjoy a few things about this firm such as the events and committee meeting lunches, the snacks if you’re working overtime, and the gym membership reimbursement. I realized that other Bay St. firms offer this too so it would not be worth considering employment at Fasken. 

There are far better firms on Bay St. with higher salaries in which management is really looking out for your best interest and not just the lawyers.

As a seasoned legal secretary (read old school) I have to say I enjoy my job at Fasken.  The HR Team are understanding and supportive and the lawyers (mostly) are an awesome, down to earth bunch.  I have worked in several law firms (over 30 years) and have to say Fasken is up there in my opinion.  I don't really understand the negative reviews to be honest.  Its an extremely respectful workplace.  The days of one-on-one assistants have gone the way of the do-do and law firms are running like businesses hence working for 3-4 lawyers is now the norm (The firm has to do this to remain competitive.)  There are still floaters available to help with the workload which I know two of the seven sister's haven't had in close to 7 years.  

Fasken seems to attract good people and I have made friends here which I will keep for life.  The most enjoyable part of the job are the lawyers and employees who are great to work with and hard work is noticed and appreciated.

Overall for a large law firm this is a good environment. Lots of training and skills acquisition opportunities- they really invest in their staff. Many people have been working with the firm for years, and the office I was in has a great, supportive environment among support staff. The attorneys with most practice groups are reasonable, decent people. However, where there are difficult personalities, the firm does not seem to be able to deal with, manage, or resolve problems. If you’re with a good group it’s an excellent place to work. If you’re in a practice group where there are one or two people with issues, you will probably end up moving on to a new firm as management and hr take a head in the sand approach. 

Fasken employers do not pay market wages, they make it almost impossible to make a living wage, paying staff that have 5 years of experience as entry level. They will hire new staff at 20x the wage rather than give the staff they have employed an increase. Certain departments are abrasive (especially the head of billing and records management) and they do not provide any support to staff including training that they implement. HR is abrasive and unsupportive when you come to them with problems and they often do not get resolved. Each new system process or application they implement makes your job 50x harder, longer and more inefficient. 

Exhausting Interview process with a phone call, video call, a personality test, and two more group video interviews. Then a while longer I received a job offer. 

The only good thing about working here is getting paid and that the lawyers are friendly. 

But I have had low end retail jobs that have better HR, management and internal organization than this corporate law firm. 

Everything from the training to moving forward from the probation period was a mess. I was constantly being misled by my manager regarding my work, goals and expectations. 

In my experience the HR is also very one sided looking out for management and not the other employees.

Can work as a team,unity.eager to learn and improve my skills,Can work well independently and with any team member at work.  I learned about sorting mails and scanning,we assign in different department.enjoyable part  of my job, when everybody are in good mood job well done smoothly and happily no tension to each others. hardest part of job, when i start to the new category its to challenging for me,but i accomplish at the of the day. About co workers lot of things like when you forgot the willing to share their ability how works done smoothly. management; how deal with co-workers,they teach very eagerly with patient, no harm make it job well done.

A day in the life of a Billings Clerk was printing out the wip report for lawyers to view which clients are to be billed; processed many transfers and writeoffs where indicated by lawyers; proofread the descriptions; processed the bills to submit to clients for payment. The hardest part of job was the staying late to ensure all bills were submitted. The most enjoyable part of the job was even though times were stressful, the other coworkers tried to involve a little laughter which made it a bit of a fun environment.

If you are a non-legal staff and want a good work-life balance, then Fasken is a great place to work. The tasks and goals are well defined by the team leads. Proactiveness might not be very well rewarded as the teams are still too siloed. But, it's getting better! The company is on a great track of innovation. Culture varies from team to team. Not too many things/events happening for non-legal staff.

When I interviewed for the position with this firm, I was told that the group of people I would be working with was very family oriented and many of them had small children at home. I was led to believe that the group was very understanding of work/life balance. I soon discovered upon integrating into the group that this was not the case. 
Management was not supportive when I ran into issues with a few members of the group and the people I worked with directly made it very difficult to feel welcome.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Legal assistant 21 salaries reported	$59,929 per year
Legal support assistant 5 salaries reported	$56,200 per year
Lawyer 1 salary reported	$140,000 per year
Litigation lawyer 9 salaries reported	$166,000 per year
Billing coordinator 3 salaries reported	$57,500 per year

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