Complaint Review: Professional Career Development Institute - Norcross Georgia

I have worked in the legal field for over 20 years.  Here's some advice regarding being a paralegal.

1.  It the paralegal school is not ABA-approved, don't waste your money. Usually such courses demand that you have a bachelor's to get in.  

2.  Whatever profession, contact possible employers and find out they hire from the school you are contemplating.  Check ads and see if you really know how to handle the software, and for any non-attorney legal work you must be able to do what a legal secretary does as well:  type fast and accurately, know a legal forms program,a time keeping program, maybe know WordPerfect and/or Word on an ADVANCED level, know local and state court rules and court calendaring, transcribe, know how to efile, and increasingly you must know Spanish or Mandarin.  Know a case management software package. Many positions are not willing to train on the software.  You need to find out.

3.  Often, at least here in L.A., legal secretaries make more money and have to take less garbage than the poor paralegal. 

3.  Move to a city where you have a real chance at such a job.  If it is another state, you have to be up on those rules.  

Good luck!

I am the Assistant Director of Admissions for (((REDACTED BY ROR))) University. I work for the online devesion and I have heard many stories just like the ones here. Matter of fact the reason I was on this site is because a student got ripped off by the same company and I was doing some research trying to help her. I'm really sorry to hear about all of your stories. There are alot of schools out there that are offering to let you go to school online and making you promises that they have no way of keeping. However there are also schools out there that will allow you to earn your degree taking the courses on line. If you noticed I said schools that will allow you earn your degree online. Those are some key words. South Univeristy is a tradinal campus in Savannah, GA. We have been around since 1899 so as you see we have over 100 years of education behind us. We started offering some of our degree programs online about 5 years ago. South Univeristy realized the need for adults to earn their degree while working full time to support their family. It would a student anywhere between 6 to 8 yrs to earn a bachelor degree unless they are able to quit their jobs and go to school full time. Then they would earn a bachelor degree in 4 years. 69% of the employeers require a degree. Less then 21% of the American Adults have one. Its getting harder and harder to find a job that doesn't require you to have that degree. It doesn't matter how many years of experience you have in that field if you don't have that degree the job will go to someone who does. This is why South University started offering some of thier degre programs online and why there are thousands of online schools out there now. When you are talking to any school regardless if it is a ground campus or online there are some very important questions you should be asking. I will list some of them for you. I hope that it helps. 1. What accreditation does the school hold should ALWAYS be the first question you ask. **The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality. Here you will find lists of regional and national accrediting agencies recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as reliable authorities concerning the quality of education or training offered by the institutions of higher education or higher education programs they accredit.** Ed.gov There are two types of accreditation you should look for: Regional and National Schools that hold a Regional Accredition are more widely acknowledged by employeers and other colleges. If you are a student that wants to transfer your credits and you earned them from a school that holds a Regional Accreditation you will have a lot easier time then if they came from a school that hold a National Accreditation. It is ALWAYS up to the school that is receiving the credits to determine what comes in. If you ever have a school tell you that the credits you earn through them will all be transferred, RUN!!! No school can make you that promise. On the same note, if you have a school that is telling you that they will accept all of your credits, RUN!!! We will not tell our students anything about TOC until we have a copy of thier transcripts and have had those reviewed. If a school does not hold either a Regional or National Accreditation then you will be getting ripped off. It has to be accreditied for it to be recognized. 2. If you are looking at going into any legal studies or paralegal studies program regardless if it is a ground campus or online you want to ask if it is ABA approved. Again if it is not then you are being ripped off. Our online paralegal studies is ABA approved however there are four classes that have to be taken at a ground campus. This is ABA ordered. 3. Ask about your instructors. Ask what type of degree the instructors hold and if they are required to have worked in the field they are teaching. 4. If going into an online program ask them to walk you into a classroom so that you can see how it works. 5. No school can promise you job placement!!!! If they do then RUN. You maybe a great student but really bad at interviews so how can they promise you a job. Yes some schools find thier students a job however 98% of them are not in the field they went to school for. 6. Ask what it takes to be accepted as a student into their school. If all you have to do is write a one paragraph essay on why you want to go to school RUN!! That should be a clue as to what kind of school it is. Our students have to have a high school deploma or GED and 20 semester college credits with a GPA 2.0 or higher or they will have to take the college placement test. We will not put a student into a class that they are not ready to be in. This is only setting that student up to fail. 7. You do not have to have an associates degree before earning your bachelor degree. I don't recommend an associates degree, except for the paralegal studies program, to anyone unless you are just finishing high school. You will only get the general ed courses with an associates degree. You get the same gerenal ed courses taking the bachelor degree program along with what you will really need to know in the work force. The reason schools put you into the associates degree first is because they know this and they will get double the amount of tiution from you. It will also take you twice as long to earn your degree. Why waste the time and money? 8. If you are going online you want to ask them about any fees that are not being disclosed to you. There are alot of hidden fees they dont tell you about until you are in class. Be careful of this. 9. Ask them if there are set times and dates that you are required to be logged into your classroom. Also ask if they require group (team) work. What that means is that you and your group all have to be online at the same time completing your assignment. If one person from your group doesn't do their share of the work then the whole group will lose points. I don't think I want my grades to depend on someone else. Do you? I'm sure there are many more questions that you should be asking when you are talking to any school that I can't think of right off the top of my head. I hope this helps any student that wants to go back to school. Please don't let one school keep you from doing something that you want and need. I also suggest that you contact the Attorney General's Office and file a complaint against this school. sorry, allowing you to give a competitors name would instigate others to just file against their competition, to only come back later to suggest their company, ..plus, if you post a competitors name more than likely they will show up on search engines as a Rip-off! - - your comments on this policy are welcome. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report. In this case we removed an alleged competitor's name Sincerly, Dawnia Young

To anyone who is considering entering the paralegal field: I can only speak from experience in the state of Florida, but it is very difficult to enter the paralegal field. I attended a private university (not a state school) for one year, in the paralegal program. While in school, I sent out many resumes, to law firms in my area. I never got a response. I had sent my resume to an employment agency which specializes in legal support staff placement. The recruiter was kind enough to call me, and tell me how the process works. You must start out in an entry-level position in a law firm, such as a receptionist or runner. These positions pay $8-10 an hour. After a year or so, you can apply for a legal secretary/admin assistant position. If you're lucky, you will be accepted. These pay $11-12 an hour. After another year (or two) you can apply for a paralegal position. It takes at least 3 years of law firm experience to get a paralegal position. They operate on "billable time" which means everything you do is billed to the client. They do not have time to train someone to be a paralegal, they need someone who can "hit the ground running", jump right in, and do the job. They will NOT hire someone who has no experience. Most law firms will not even hire you as a file clerk unless you have some law firm experience. I also think that my training at this private university is a detriment, as no one seems to take that school seriously. My advice is to take the program at a community college or state university. Make sure the program is ABA (American Bar Association) approved. You can go to the ABA website and obtain a list of ABA-approved programs in your state. I hope this helps.

Sky, you seem to have your head in the clouds. Perhaps that 100 grand a year is coming to you from selling illegal substances. I don't know of too many people that don't make mistakes when writing e mail. As for the girl who wants to be a Paralegal, if you have completed the course and passed all the classes, find out which institutions in your locality that the attorneys have respect for and go back to school and take the course there. If you passed it before then you should graduate quickly and then perhaps you can continue to pursue your chosen career, but beware, if your area is small or unemployment is high you may need to make a decision to move, even across the country. That is what I would do.

It is my sincere hope that your post is a joke. Prior to beginning to criticize others it is important to be certain of your own skills or position. Let's review: similair - similar accredation - accreditation (2 misspellings) decisons - decisions California and September are properly spelled with upper case letters. Several of your paragraphs are run-on sentences. Grammatical errors are throughout your post. The most interesting point in your post was your statement, "when I got my bachelors in internal business" (I assume you meant International Business), which was followed at the end of your post by "STARTING his first college in september. PEACE." I am curious how you obtained your business degree without starting undergraduate studies. Lastly, if you ever want to be taken seriously in business or any career except fast food you may want to remove "PEACE" from your vocabulary as a greeting or closing statement.

I'm going to shed some light on this situation: You made 8 spelling errors and 3 grammatical mistakes in your listing. Being a paralegal requires excellent English skills as well as typing skills. A paralegal's job is an extremely important one, as they are direct resources to attornies of law for legal cases concerning the freedom of individuals. For anyone who actually wishes to take this kind of responsibility into their own hands, they should understand that studying for such a thing should not be done at home, but in a real work environment as an intern of the field of law. Also, speaking of practices not hiring you based on this, I fully agree with them even having used similair services such as this to graduate high school myself, and I was actually home school my entire life. But when I got my bachelors in internal business, I didn't buy it from an online university and expect to be taken seriously for that alone, now did I? Also, I don't think you've tried hard enough, or there is probably something just wrong with your appearance or character because I received job offers like crazy when I was 17 years old for high positions in management and development work in california just because of my personality and ethics. Could we be a little bit out of line here to have you be the exception to this university? If you want your money back, call the school and tell them that you couldn't get a job because the businesses didn't take their accredation seriously. They would be more than happy to supply you with a certified letter of accredation. Or better yet if you were smarter, you could have checked that kind of thing before starting and expecting anything. In all fairness to you personally, this problem exists universally and people who graduate MIT and Harvard, Yale or Brown, are not guaranteed to have options, just more chances and head starts. It's still up to us to make the right decisons. Signed, a 22 year old who makes 100k+ a year and will be STARTING his first college in september. Peace.

I'm going to shed some light on this situation: You made 8 spelling errors and 3 grammatical mistakes in your listing. Being a paralegal requires excellent English skills as well as typing skills. A paralegal's job is an extremely important one, as they are direct resources to attornies of law for legal cases concerning the freedom of individuals. For anyone who actually wishes to take this kind of responsibility into their own hands, they should understand that studying for such a thing should not be done at home, but in a real work environment as an intern of the field of law. Also, speaking of practices not hiring you based on this, I fully agree with them even having used similair services such as this to graduate high school myself, and I was actually home school my entire life. But when I got my bachelors in internal business, I didn't buy it from an online university and expect to be taken seriously for that alone, now did I? Also, I don't think you've tried hard enough, or there is probably something just wrong with your appearance or character because I received job offers like crazy when I was 17 years old for high positions in management and development work in california just because of my personality and ethics. Could we be a little bit out of line here to have you be the exception to this university? If you want your money back, call the school and tell them that you couldn't get a job because the businesses didn't take their accredation seriously. They would be more than happy to supply you with a certified letter of accredation. Or better yet if you were smarter, you could have checked that kind of thing before starting and expecting anything. In all fairness to you personally, this problem exists universally and people who graduate MIT and Harvard, Yale or Brown, are not guaranteed to have options, just more chances and head starts. It's still up to us to make the right decisons. Signed, a 22 year old who makes 100k+ a year and will be STARTING his first college in september. Peace.

I'm going to shed some light on this situation: You made 8 spelling errors and 3 grammatical mistakes in your listing. Being a paralegal requires excellent English skills as well as typing skills. A paralegal's job is an extremely important one, as they are direct resources to attornies of law for legal cases concerning the freedom of individuals. For anyone who actually wishes to take this kind of responsibility into their own hands, they should understand that studying for such a thing should not be done at home, but in a real work environment as an intern of the field of law. Also, speaking of practices not hiring you based on this, I fully agree with them even having used similair services such as this to graduate high school myself, and I was actually home school my entire life. But when I got my bachelors in internal business, I didn't buy it from an online university and expect to be taken seriously for that alone, now did I? Also, I don't think you've tried hard enough, or there is probably something just wrong with your appearance or character because I received job offers like crazy when I was 17 years old for high positions in management and development work in california just because of my personality and ethics. Could we be a little bit out of line here to have you be the exception to this university? If you want your money back, call the school and tell them that you couldn't get a job because the businesses didn't take their accredation seriously. They would be more than happy to supply you with a certified letter of accredation. Or better yet if you were smarter, you could have checked that kind of thing before starting and expecting anything. In all fairness to you personally, this problem exists universally and people who graduate MIT and Harvard, Yale or Brown, are not guaranteed to have options, just more chances and head starts. It's still up to us to make the right decisons. Signed, a 22 year old who makes 100k+ a year and will be STARTING his first college in september. Peace.