No room for growth or upward mobility. Legal assistants are not appropriately compensated and are often notified at the very last minute if their contract is being extended. Management are largely absent in providing support and are hypocritical in their approaches to how they assist you. They talk an awful lot about changing their ways to provide you with the help you need to succeed but are too busy to actually follow through on that promise.
What seems like a welcoming and comfortable place to work at first quickly turns into a toxic work environment which is rampant with narcissism and gaslighting. Since many of the lawyers are narcissists they will rarely admit if they are at fault and will put all the blame onto you if something goes wrong. Many lawyers hoard work for themselves that they could easily pass along to their assistants because they set unrealistic expectations for how the work should be completed, and accuse the assistants/support staff for not meeting their standards or missing the mark. Appropriate instructions are often not provided for how to complete work. No matter what you do for them, the lawyers always believe that their way of completing the task is far superior to your efforts. There are also very few lawyers who will actually go out of their way to thank you for any work you have completed for them.
Legal assistants, law clerks, and other support staff are kept in the dark regarding key decisions in their sections. Overall not an inclusive workplace with many cliques forming. The lawyers are especially one big clique and they only look out for each other. Very few lawyers will come to the defense of their support staff and make very little effort to show that they value their work or even appreciate them as human beings.
Some lawyers approach their support staff in an extremely hostile and aggressive way when asking questions about a task or delegating work. Certain lawyers also do not effectively communicate instructions on tasks or assignments they would like completed and will get very angry with their support staff if the final product does not meet their expectations. They will not approach you in a calm and collected manner but will instead lash out. Overall quite unprofessional, condescending, and abusive behaviour.
There is a huge emphasis on the company's core values and culture during the first week of Goodman's indoctrination boot camp also known as "training", but you will quickly learn that these so-called "values" are not actually a reality and are all a huge sham. The CEO is an egomaniac and a narcissist who loves to brag about his friendship with Larry Tanenbaum more than he promotes the "values" that this company supposedly prides itself on.
My advice to any legal assistants or law clerks considering a job at Goodmans: search elsewhere. You will be better off applying to firms like Osler, Tory's or Blakes where staff are treated more fairly and appreciated for their work.