counsel

legal assistant

lawyer

paralegal

human resources specialist

Department of Justice Canada

Great place to work with if you are under a project, you can learn a lot as management and business team is very demanding. However the lack of freedom to obtain hardware, and the lack of support for innovation and advancement will hinder your performance. Secondly, if you don't have French you will be stuck at IT-02 forever, and the pay sucks. The people are great to work with, managers are supportive because they don't want to lose people. If you want a relaxed job that is routine, stress free, its a good place for you. The whole department invests heavily into it's lawyers, which makes sense, however management is old school so they do not focus on the benefit of providing their lawyers with the best technological tools to enhance their work, nor invest into the IT team to advance, nor push IT managers to invest and nuture in-house talent. Now even if they did want to provide that, they are limited by Treasury Board forcing them to only use Microsoft products, they aren't cheap, and so you won't get support, nor are you allowed to build your own infrastructure, nor will SSC give you any servers. You can see where this is going, just keep the lights on, don't bother change the lightbulb to LED ones.

Working for the federal government has changed considerably compared to when I first started working there.  I joined the team as a Legal Assistant on contract then became permanent after 3 yrs (this 3 yr policy is no longer in effect). Later on I applied for and obtained a paralegal position.  With the electoral change in country leadership, there's always some change in office policies that are filtered down from Ottawa.  

As a legal assistant, you're responsible for assisting 3-5 counsel. As a paralegal you take on work from any counsel as well as being assigned on specific case files. Legal work is completed in the Superior, Federal and Supreme Courts.  A good working knowledge of the rules and regs for each court is required. Please note that all of this is also dependent on the specific department where you're working.

There are always opportunities to learn various subject matter to improve yourself and help you advance in your career. These can be online or in-person. 

A pretty good place to work. Work itself is enjoyable but can get boring. Benefits are standard and excellent pension plan of course. If you are ambitious you can get lots of good experience working here. You can get exposure to many various areas of law. Management is not bad and generally listens to concerns, however the system here is very formal which can cause some issues - eg inability to hire more people. Great work/life balance, compressed work week and working from home. Can be stressful as we have few assistants and too many lawyers. Salary is capped after working many years with no bonuses but on the plus side your pay is predictable. There is possibility of job advancement as an assistant but it is a very rare opportunity and highly competitive. A lot of junior assistants don't get properly trained and there's a lot of older senior assistants that have clocked out mentally so it can be hard to get help sometimes. People are quite friendly with few toxic coworkers, sadly bad/toxic coworkers are heavily protected by the union. 

There was never a typical day at the Sheriffs Office.  As Manager of Judgment Enforcement, there were 7 support staff and four Deputy Sheriffs under my section.  Responsibilities included enforcing money judgments, which was creditor driven, as well as service of the criminal and civil process and jury administration. Also, responsible for executing court orders.  A very fast paced and stressful environment at times.

One of the most difficult tasks as Manager of Judgment Enforcement, was dealing with debtors who were being evicted from rental properties or debtors who were losing their homes. 

As Manager, I was also responsible for the administration of the Jury Program and enjoyed that part of the Court process.

8-4 work day. Hours were good, we were allowed to bank 30 minutes each day to use as a day off every three weeks

Pay was average, benefits were good. Pension was included which is a nice benefit. Job security was there but there is no room for advancement, such is the case with most government positions. 

Work was highly confidential. I had to learn their internal software system. This was a new software for me and was interesting to work with and learn. I picked this up easily as I do with most applications.

The best part of the job was the great team of people. The worst part was some of the items I had to process and file and the high level of stress a lot of the staff carried.

a very busy work environment.  a typical day consists of requests from Justice employees (via telephone, email or in person) for leave credits, leave types, etc. preparing staffing actions, processing payroll, helping co-workers with inquiries (team lead).
meeting regularly with management to ensure policies and procedures are followed correctly.
hardest part of job would be our year end, which is march 31, involving setting up checklists, doing file audits, providing year end balances to all 450 employees.
most enjoyable part would be getting together with co-workers for staff bbq's.

The scope and nature of the work is second to none. You are surrounded with fantastic, bright, hardworking colleagues and co-workers. The Regional Director of my Section was incredibly supportive at all times. A fantastic supervisor. The benefits, vacation and sick leave, and pension with the Federal Government rival any provided in the private sector. While the pay in the Federal Government will never be equal to that in the private sector, this is offset by the benefits and public service pension.

I enjoyed working with Department of Justice for the most part.  Good in-house training was a good; salary/'benefits were good.  No overtime unless pre-authorized, other than that hours were good, people were good and salary was good.  

There is no CEO with Department of Justice so I could  rate this portion of the review.

Work/life balance is good because work stays at work and the hours are the typical Monday-Friday 8:30-4:30. It doesn't pay students very well compared to private companies and there aren't any real benefits, but any government job is pretty secure although I don't think there's a ton of room for advancement. My boss was really really nice and relaxed but the environment is just boring and everyone kinda just makes small talk but I was younger than everyone else and wasn't there for as long.

The best group of people I have ever worked with. Their standards are exacting and as such the team is made up of highly qualified, intelligent and kind people. They offer great education, friendly and inclusive atmosphere and interesting and challenging work. Ironically, however, despite offering great training and educational opportunities, these are largely personal and offer little to no room for advancement.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Counsel 4 salaries reported	$131,500 per year
Legal assistant 5 salaries reported	$62,978 per year
Lawyer 4 salaries reported	$139,135 per year
Paralegal 3 salaries reported	$69,833 per year
Human resources specialist 2 salaries reported	$65,323 per year

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