Over the last two weeks, a company spokesman Reed Smith has confirmed that 12 paralegals have left the financial group of Reed Smith in Pittsburgh to move to one of their clients, Federated Investors. It appears that Federated, which has worked with Reed Smith for over 10 years, wanted to bring the work that the firm had been doing for them, back in-house again.
Reed Smith has confirmed that despite the exodus their financial group is still performing well and even expanding and that they are optimistic about the expected results at the end of the year.
Human Resource experts have said that paralegals are currently very much sought after in the market place, especially those with experience in certain areas, not only financial but also litigation.
However, due to the continuous desire for cost cutting, the role of the paralegals has broadened and increased, and nowadays they are often carrying out high quality work which was formerly performed by junior associates. In the past, the role of a paralegal was sometimes considered to be more of a secretarial position, but that is no longer the case.
Looking at Pittsburgh specifically, there appears to be a lack of highly qualified paralegals in the city and those paralegals that are well-qualified and experienced, and who are seeking employment, should really have no problem finding what they want.
There has also been one further change at Reed Smith with the departure of their long serving chief marketing officer who has taken up the same role at Choate Hall and Stewart in Boston. He stated that the reason for leaving was to simply start over, as it was time to look for a new opportunity. The firm is now actively looking for a replacement for him.
