American Bar Association Reviews

Pros

- Due to a chaotic administrative structure, there are great opportunities to learn about development work from the ground up.
- Junior staff are given expanded responsibility versus other similar institutions.
- Good work atmosphere with friendly, committed people.
- ABA ROLI is one of the few institutions in the world that does international rule of law or legal capacity building programs.

Cons

- Insufficient focus on professional development of staff.
- Limited institutional efforts to share knowledge about programs, successes, etc.
- Institution is not administratively set up for international development work and does not have the planning capacity to effectively address this.

Advice to Senior Management

- More attention should be paid to how the institution is structured, rather than trying to address individual issues ad-hoc.

Pros

Once you're in, it appears to take truly egregious behavior (e.g., coupling in a supply closet) to lose your position. Conveniently located near Michigan Avenue: if your department head likes to shop, you will be largely self-supervised. Some of their programs actually contribute to the common good.

Cons

You work for an organization that directs via a style manual that the word lawyer be capitalized, as if it notes a minor deity, and actually publishes the phrase "non-lawyer" on a regular basis. Traditional membership was white, male, and disproportionately Southern: may be gaining a clue.

Advice to Senior Management

The fundamental dynamic of the organization is that of waves beating the rocks. The elected officers swear that they're going to clean house, trim fat, and create a lean and mean professional association. The staff maintain their barnacle-like grasp on their ostensible functions, and survive the season to welcome another president-elect. Carry on!

Pros

-- Very good benefits package
-- Extremely good on work/life balance
-- Generally nice people
-- Good offices in Chicago

Cons

-- Problems maintaining membership, not sure how long the organization can last
-- Series of layoffs in recent years
-- If you're highly motivated to succeed, you'll be one of the few folks there who is
-- Little trust by member/leaders in staff's ability to run the organization

Pros

The ABA is a good place to work for a short time (couple of years), especially at the entry level. It looks pretty good on a resume, for a lot of non-lawyers. They do a lot of interesting work that people don't know about (legal advocacy for special populations). Work load is cyclical - sometimes there is a lot, but most of the time the job is just 9-5. Very flexible with people's schedules (almost too much). The senior management has improved a lot in the past year or so. They are making a lot of efforts to improve morale among employees.

Cons

There is not a lot of room for growth. Most people at the ABA have either been there for a long time or are just staying a year or two. The ABA always puts the membership first, to the detriment of staff. Salaries are commiserate with most non-profits. The bureaucracy can be a bit frustrating, but that is improving. Not very much professional training offered.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to work towards better supporting your staff and company systems. Allow more movement within the company and a ways of promoting people. Offer more training opportunities.

Pros

It was a very unique experience

Cons

Short vacations, short lunches
Long drive

Pros

You get the opportunity to work on some interesting legal research and to help on all sorts of different matters.

Cons

It's run like a non profit which means organization is often unclear, you're expected to work lots of overtime with no pay, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

The ABA is a non profit but it's really an industry representative. It should run itself in that way and not as a non profit.

Pros

The ABA provided a very relaxed work atmosphere. There were some interesting projects to work on with flexible deadlines and a relatively low stress level. The facility is very nice and the benefits were adequate.

Cons

Being a non-profit, the ABA offers salaries that are significantly lower than the norm. This is especially true in IT.

Advice to Senior Management

Retaining top-performers should be a higher priority.