The Skadden "Yahoo" Tyrant

"Tom---your website has served and shed light on the deporable and inhumane treatment some law firms and their agents give contract attorneys. In that spirit, let it be known that there is an awful staff attorney running the Yahoo matter at Skadden. Attorneys, please be aware that if you do go to work at Skadden you will be exposed to a tyrant and someone who has no respect nor regards for the dignity of others.

According to sources there, the environment he has created is one of fear and mistrust. He has dismissed scores of reviewers and people are just very afraid to come to work.

So, in the spirit of preemption, warn others not to come and work with this individual and to risk being blacklisted in this difficult economy."

Sullivan & Cromwell - Just Like Working In A Sewer

"Tom,

Last weekend the bathrooms overflowed at Sullivan & Cromwell in the basement, level C1. Someone reported it but nobody paid attention. The smell was just like it is in an open sewer.

It will be nice to write a story about the horrors at that place, but most importantly to warn people of all the issues in there: basement offices without windows; a true monitoring system with the id card everywhere you move; moody and despotic case managers; very long hours and bait and switch games with the hours; lifers (people who have been at SC forever and resent newcomers); the cafeteria food; the beautiful plaza outside and the seaport....a mix bag of things."

Dizzy Spells And Spinning Rooms

One of the greatest fears of being an independent contractor is the fear of coming down with an unforeseen injury or illness. With my shit agency "health" plan offering a paltry $7,500 annual maximum benefit allotment ($1,500 annual limit for the surgeon/$250 limit for the anesthesiologist/and $250 daily limit for hospital room and board) getting sick is impossible. I, like many of those around me, undoubtedly cloak themselves under a "it won't happen to me" umbrella of denial. As luck would have it, last weekend the wind came up and tore off my umbrella.

Spherion Temp Agency - Pure Evil

Greed so boundless, it leaves me speechless. The stunt that this bloodsucking temp agency pulled was even too much for the Bush administration:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080705/ap_on_go_su_co/benefit_battles

Independence Day

What better way to celebrate America's independence from the British than by spending it in a windowless cubicle:

"Kasowitz is great!‏ If you enjoy working thru the 4th of July weekend. Woo-hoo!"

Speaking of the British,

"I hope this is a fucking joke. Craigslist NYC post below - It's an opportunity to work in one of the most expensive cities in the world earning less than 12 British pounds per hour.

First of all, I'm not sure why you'd get paid in Euros while working in the UK, which still uses the British Pound Sterling. Assuming that this is accurate, when the higher standard of living is factored in, your pay rate is ridiculously low. A Big Mac in the UK is roughly 2 British pounds, while in US dollars, it's roughly 3 bucks. Figure that your pay rate, based on your purchasing power, is no more than $18/hour.

Boo this man!

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/740143233.html

'Anyone have a place to crash in London? Temp Attorneys needed!

US barred temp attorneys needed for a 2-3 month project in LONDON- MUST be able to provide own accommodations!'


Compensation: 15.00 EUROS/hr"

"Satan" John's Law School

Bankrupt, unemployed, and homeless. That was the outcome for me after graduating from St. John’s. I graduated ranked in the middle of my class, just above the median. I passed the July bar exam and was subsequently admitted to the New York State bar. But for years I applied for work at every level - from custodian to store cashier to legal secretary to attorney - and found that my St. John’s degree made me as employable as an ex-felon. I was overqualified for most non-legal work, but considered under-qualified to be hired as an attorney. As a new graduate, I had neither the financial resources nor the expertise to establish my own practice; I could not afford the cost of blueback paper much less the cost of malpractice insurance. Unemployed for years and having incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, I found myself basically bankrupt and homeless. Under these circumstances, the only unexplored avenue was applying for public assistance i.e. food stamps, “workfare” cash payments, housing vouchers, Medicaid. Before law school, I had a clerical job that was uninspiring but paid $60,000 in annual salary with excellent benefits. Obviously, I strongly recommend against going to St. John’s under any circumstance. For the overwhelming majority of students, St. John’s will take your money and throw you underneath the bus. To those who do not believe they can fall as far as I did, read on:

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/students/index.php/topic,4011992.msg5131346.html#msg5131346

The Lexolution Chicken Coop

The LPO's have been busy outsourcing our jobs this summer. For those of us left remaining in this disintegrating job market, the lexolution temp agency ("Lex-Pollution") has taken advantage of this desperate situation by kicking their chicken coop torture chamber at 16 East 40th Street into high gear. Can anyone smell the scent of roasted temp chicken? Yum! Yum!

"People are being churned through this temp job left and right. I just arrived here yesterday and we already lost half a dozen people. They require us to work a minimum of 10 hours a day, including mandatory Saturdays. They walk up and down the aisles like Russian commandants and observe your every move. Papers are forbidden to touch your work space. I was in the bathroom and was accosted by a project manager. She claimed that "someone" had noticed that I was taking too long of a bathroom break! Debbie Sharpe {recruiter} will snap at you, if you in anyway indicate how stifling it is in here."

This Land Is Their Land

Snuck out of work early today to attend a Barbara Ehrenreich book signing. I thanked her for dropping a reference to our blog on page 21 of her new book.

The most moving part of the evening was when some lady stood up and claimed that her brother had passed away after he couldn't afford a common cancer treatment. Barbara reminded everyone that roughly 12,000 people die ever year from preventable illnesses simply due to a lack of adequate coverage. She went on to provide an enraging description of certain pet spas and high end canine health insurance. It sort of reminded me of how Leona Helmsley reportedly left a cool million to her poodle, but treated her employees like absolute shit throughout the years. It also reminded me of how a Kirkland temp pushed himself so hard this year that he keeled over and died of a massive heart attack. His job, which worked him like a horse for twelve hours a day, failed to provide him with even the most basic of coverage. Instead, the firm pawned him to some low end temp agency that offered him a practically non-existent "shit" plan.

Clutch Legal - Ranked #1 In Sending American Jobs Overseas

"Clutch in NYC is the WORST agency to deal with- they lie thru their teeth about projects that never start (Skadden, anyone?) and pretend that they actually care about the gutter-sucking loser TTT grads that staff these dead-end sweatshop gigs. Fuck clutch, fuck this entire industry!"

http://lawfuel.com/show-release.asp?ID=18397

Let The Pigs Play In The Mud, But Toilet Schools Clean Up Your Advertising!

Put aside for a moment the fact that law schools are popping up on every corner; that starving solos, in order to feed their families, are flooding the courts with ridiculous junk lawsuits http://overlawyered.com/; that heavily indebted temp labor pools are readily being crammed into cockroach ridden basements; that the availability of federally backed credit is funding the creation of a new subprime educational loan bubble; that the profiteers off many of these new junk law schools are oftentimes shady private equity firms with questionable past histories http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/02/18/daily46.html; that a past president of the ABA (the very organization which is responsible for accrediting many of these junk schools) is now sitting on a board which seeks to profit off the creation of one http://www.infilaw.com/policymembers.htm#archer; that tuition and graduate loan debts are skyrocketing; that many of the so called non-for-profit educational institutions are oftentimes staffed with lazy, good for nothing administration fatcats; the list could go on and on . . . .

Without question, as the legal profession continues to deteriorate, an entire sub-industry has been created that is profiting off the hopes and broken dreams of an entire generation. To add insult to injury, this is all being carried out under the cover of darkness. As yesterday's AP article demonstrates, many of these profiteering sheisters are getting away with fraud and downright dishonesty:

"Too many {law school post-graduation career} stats are self-reported. Henderson's research has found evidence of 'massive exaggeration' by law schools when they report what graduates are up to. 'If we really started unpacking these numbers,' Henderson said in an interview, 'we would see some really unattractive accounting how law schools classify their graduates. It would be borderline scandalous.'"

As Prof. Henderson noted, "it's time to send in the accountants." The statistical shennanigans that many of these schools have been engaged in simply needs to stop. Let's clean up these numbers, so that maybe in the coming years we can spare a few people from the misery of the white collar sweatshop.

New York Times/AP - Law Schools Growing, But Jobs Aren't

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-17-law-schools_N.htm

ABA Law School Tuition Gouging - 2008 Edition

1997 Tuition / '97 Tuition in '08 $'s / Actual 2008 Tuition

Albany: $18,905 / $25,493 / $38,900
Brooklyn: $20,640 / $27,832 / $42,350
Buffalo: $7,350 / $9,911 / $13,200
Cardozo: $19,780 / $26,673 / $39,470
CUNY: $4,840 / $6,526 / $8,900
Columbia: $25,128 / $33,884 / (Not Yet Released)
Cornell: $23,100 / $31,150 / $46,670
Fordham: $22,600 / $30,475 / $42,076
Hofstra: $21,182 / $28,563 / $39,640
NYLS: $20,770 / $28,008 / $43,600
NYU: $24,740 / $32,997 / $43,749
St. John's: $21,000 / $28,318 / $41,500
Syracuse: $21,136 / $28,501 / (Not Yet Released)
Touro: $19,150 / $25,823 / $36,490

Toilet Law Schools Popping Up Everywhere!

"I am a reporter from the Associated Press. I'm working on a piece about the accreditation of a bunch of new law schools by the ABA, and want to at least pose the question if this is really a good idea given the current lawyer surplus. I'm hoping to ask you a couple questions about contract lawyering, your blog, response, etc. Perhaps you could also suggest one or two other contract attorneys you know who might be willing to chat about their experiences -- and have an opinion about whether or not there a real ready too many law schools.

If you're amenable, please let me know how I can reach you."

How do you guys feel about this issue? What do you want to tell the world about the explosion of toilet law schools?

FRY THEM!

"Tom,

I am at the end of my rope. I had a good cry this morning.

Arrived at work yesterday. As you are probably aware, we are in the middle of a DC heat wave. Unfortunately, the building custodian neglected to turn on the A.C. in our unventilated closet this weekend. On top of the stifling heat, I was crammed into a seat next to this woman who doesn't believe in daily showering.

I could only bear the misery for about an hour. I got up and left behind all of my overtime for the week."

The Hudson Legal Zurich Project

Would you trust Hudson to ship you off to a foreign country? Better have enough money saved up for a "get out of jail free" return flight.

Tired Of Dead-End Coding? Interesting Job Growth Opportunities.

Tom,

I saw this ad yesterday on CL:

"AttorneyReply to: job-706688517@craigslist.org

General practice law office seeking smart, self motivated individual interested in working hard, learning and assisting in personal injury, litigation, real estate files. Temp to perm position. salary and incentive program. Bill more hours get paid more."

I pointed out to these morons that I made $25K a year in a firm BEFORE going to law school (duh, I obviously wasn't a lawyer) & that "bill more hours, get paid more" is the rule at ALL firms.

Since the idiot ACTUALLY wrote back, here's the e-mail address of the poster: johnmangelli1@hotmail.com

Feel free to encourage members to harass this guy!! Later.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Why sit in front of a computer and code all day? You can get paid nearly the same amount of money supervising the ordering of soda and sandwiches for Biglaw.

"Kitchen Supervisor - Law Firm - $60,000 (Midtown)

Exciting opportunity for qualified individual with 5 years experience in corporate environment.

Responsibilities include:
-Supervision of staff of 5 kitchen workers
-Management of the set-up of 25 Conference rooms.
-Distribution and verification of all e-mail requests for food and conference room bookings.
-Coordination of up to 60 annual in-house events

Compensation: to $60k"

Hiring Goofy To Conduct A Sensitive Internal Document Review Is A Bad Idea

Despite the presence of a clawback agreement, a federal magistrate judge has just ruled that one firm's e-discovery disclosure goof waives attorney-client privilege. Looks like doing document review on the cheap may not be such a great idea after all.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/e_discovery_disclosure_goof_waived_attorney_client_privilege_judge_rules

Enjoy the Slammer, Mel - Part II

Looks like tomorrow will be the big day that Mel will have to face the music. Last week, Mel's lawyers lashed out at the WSJ, claiming that the paper "belittled Mr. Weiss’s supporters," and failed to emphasize that "Mr. Weiss’s efforts improved access to justice for the poor." GIVE ME A BREAK! I am sure John Stossel could do a whole show negating the veracity of such a ridiculous assertion.

Aside from the broader issue of Mel pleading guilty to his involvement in an elaborate corrupt kickback scheme, I can only now reflect upon what a "mentor" Mel has been to the legions of debt-ridden law graduates that have been pumped out by toilet law schools every year. Despite earning millions off his poor victims, I fondly recall how Mel would hire Sleazy Temp Agency LLC to trick fresh faced recent grads into coming to work for him at a low rate with no benefits. Too bad Sleazy Agency LLC didn't disclose the fact that after having worked for Mel, you would soon find yourself blacklisted by every major American defense firm. Mel's firm also required temp staff to march around the office with giant "TEMP" ID's around their necks; ID's were bright yellow with giant "TEMP" letters written on them.

Interesting Mumbai Job Opportunity

"Document Review Superstar

International legal support company which performs document reviews and other back office legal work for large law firms seeks licensed attorney with a minimum of 2-3 years experience to act as in-house coordinating counsel. Position involves spending 2-3 months in India helping select and train experienced Indian lawyers who will be involved in doing document reviews and working on ongoing document reviews from India (emphasis added). Thereafter you will be return to NY or another major American city to supervise those projects remotely, with an office at our client law firm, interacting with lawyers at that law firm on their projects.

Minimum Requirements include: US Law license (any state), 2-3 years performing document reviews, 1-2 years experience supervising document reviews, experience in a variety of litigation settings and competence in more than one document management, litigation specific, software program.

Compensation includes competitive salary, health and life insurance, 15 days annual leave, as well as performance based consideration.
Please submit cover letter and resumes to: legal-jobs@hotmail.com

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/699487208.html"

The Skadden Sock Puppet

Tom,

This is the project at Skadden where half of the people are on hold and the rest (I haven't been called back yet) are working....it is a very bad feeling, as it creates ill will.

TUESDAY, 5/20

"As most of you know, you have been asked not to return tomorrow, Wednesday (May 21) given that they do not have enough data for tomorrow. That being said, they do not want to lose you and you should be back on Thursday morning or afternoon. I will give you a call tomorrow with this information. I appreciate your flexibility and truly apologize for this.

It is a pleasure to work with you and I know this is a huge inconvenience. I wish I could have control over it!!!

Please confirm that you received this."

THURSDAY, 5/22

"Hey! No word back from Skadden. The same thing stands. They want you back but they are just not ready for that. I truly apologize and I feel terrible for this. Believe me, I was a contract attorney myself. As soon as I have any news I'll let you know. If I do not call you tonight it means that you shouldn't go in tomorrow. I'll keep you posted though. You are still on the project, I know that is not that comforting, but this is all we have been told as of right now.

Hope to talk to you soon with better news. I should have an update later today. Worst case scenario, you'll have the weekend off, they will finally get their act together at that time and then it should all be ok after that. Best case scenario, they get back to me soon!!!"

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Will you be pawned once again by the Skadden sock puppet?

Skadden

Rumor has it that different agencies are paying different rates on the Skadden project. Be careful!

Aunt Sallie Mae

What keeps a generation of indentured servants docile in white collar cockroach infested sweatshops? Sallie Mae.

Every heavily indebted law school graduate knows what a mistake it would be to fuck around with Sallie Mae. Don't be deceived by her sweet sounding name. Miss just one payment, and she will literally come after you and destroy your life. As Elizabeth Warren recently noted, "Aunt Sallie Mae has collection powers that would make even a mafioso blush."

How did Aunt Sallie Mae become so powerful? Click on the following Credit Slips link to find out. It includes a link to some recently leaked documents detailing Aunt Sallie's official Washington lobbying strategy:

http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2007/06/student_loan_sc.html#more/

Hot or Not?

Free polls from Pollhost.com

Hot or Not?

1 - NOT 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 - HOT

Meet Counsel on Call's Chad Schmidt. He's just another sleazy recruiter who is trying to squeeze his way into the lucrative East Coast temp attorney market. How is he doing it? By throwing himself into the media, and smearing the reputations of the very same people that he is planning to employ:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/05/05/these_temp_lawyers_are_top_notch_a_new_firm_in_boston_promises/

As fellow blogger "Wicked Words" recently stated, "No wonder I'm expected to feel ashamed for not finding a decent job in a horrible economy. The guys who are supposed to help job searchers do nothing but put them down!" When these job candidates eventually do land a gig, these very same recruiters do nothing for them except fleece them out of half of their pay.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wicked's Open Letter to the Boston Globe

May 12, 2008

IT IS with a dull anger that I read your article, "These temp lawyers are top-notch, a new firm in Boston promises" (Business, May 5), which my grandmother handed to me as I was clicking on the classifieds in a fruitless effort to find an ad for a junior-level attorney.

You see, I have four years of an Ivy League education, followed by three years of law school, and admission to the bar. In a world where someone with a doctor of jurisprudence is automatically considered to be one of the top earners in the country, the Globe frittered away the opportunity to report on the underclass of lawyers who are mired in tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in debt and count on document review to pay the bills.

Instead, the story gleefully perpetuated a "stereotype" by noting that a contract attorney is a "fancy name for recent law school graduates who are desperate for work."

And it touts the services of a staffing firm that refuses to hire recent graduates who "couldn't get a job anywhere," without bothering to interview a single contract attorney.

This recent underemployed attorney also used to be a journalist. Maybe I should have remained one, as the Globe could certainly use a refresher in one of the cardinal rules of journalism: Always examine all potential angles.

The 13th Amendment Has Been Abolished

Time to go off topic. It's time to talk about the modern day American slave trade. Slavery in New York City is alive and well. Take a look around - you don't realize it, but many of the people that you share the sidewalks with in the morning are slaves right out of the 19th century.

Farmers in Fujian Province in southern China, for example, are willing to pay "recruiters" as much as $80,000 to be smuggled into the United States. The ultimate destination is most often New York City (specifically Chinatown, Flushing, and southern Brooklyn) with its large Chinese population. The smuggling organizations are complex operations that recruit directly in the Chinese villages, follow the immigrant through the whole emigration process, provide forged immigration documents, and provide for the initial cache of food and shelter.

Once here, the immigrant is trapped within the insular Chinese immigrant community, has little knowledge of English and American ways, and is saddled with debt that is virtually impossible to pay. The slave master then assigns the immigrant to horrific working condition in dangerous sweatshops, or relegates them to 80 hour work weeks in a variety of menial positions. Many of the immigrants are assigned to work within the drug trade. Young girls are oftentimes forced into mandatory prostitution. Those who break down and eventually want to return to China are threatened with extortion, bodily injury, and even death.

Deflate the Rate - Audrey Golden Associates

"Reply to: job-677485521@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-05-12, 11:35AM EDT

Large Manhattan-based Insurance defense Law Firm is seeking several attorneys for a 2+ month document review project involving insurance issues. The correct candidate should be computer literate. No prior doc review experience necessary. 40 hours work week. Pay is $23.00 per hour. Nice work environment."

Shitty Agency Health Insurance

Let's say your on your 13th hour of clicking away in the cockroach infested Paul Weiss basement, and you suddenly experience a sharp radiating pain and tightness in your inner chest. You know that document review increases your likelihood of deep vein thrombosis, and you are keenly aware of the fact that two of your colleagues recently passed away from massive coronaries. What do you? Do you go to the hospital?

Let's see. Worst case scenario, you at least have your trusty agency health insurance to fall back upon. The firms/agencies may be stealing away 80% of your salary, and the ABA may be allowing biglaw to treat you like a bunch of subhuman day laborer miscreants, but at least you have your health insurance and free Hudson pizza on Thursdays! Surely, those hundreds of dollars that get taken out of your paycheck every month must be good for something.

Let's examine a typical plan.

Robert Half Legal offers the Aetna Affordable Health Choices BenefitsPLUS Group Plan. Suppose, you need a simple stent and angioplasty, a single day procedure that generally runs in excess of $50,000. You breath a sigh of relief, until you actually read the terms of your shitty health plan. After a $200 deductible, Aetna will only cover $250 for a night at the hospital, $1,500 for surgeon fees, $250 for the anesthesiologist, and $1,000 for "other hospital services," whatever that means.

If you decide to go through with the procedure, you will essentially be responsible for the entire hospital bill, and you can count on being stuck for several more years in document review hell, in order to pay it all off. And, this isn't even all that serious. What if, god forbid, you contracted cancer, or needed open heart surgery? It's a horrible thing to consider, and enough to make someone want to go off to the bar, get inebriated, and just hope that one doesn't wind up like their colleagues who were carried out of the basement and placed in a mortuary.

Fired!

From Above the Law, here comes an account of a Paul Hastings associate having to experience firsthand the misery, phoniness, artificiality, disingenuousness, and uncertainty that contract attorneys deal with on a daily basis.

"From: [Redacted]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 10:14 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: My departure

The circumstances surrounding my departure from Paul Hastings have been deeply disappointing. It is one thing to ignore an email sent as a colleague is waiting to have her uterus scraped after a miscarriage, but it is wholly another level of heartlessness to lay her off six days after that. [Partner X] is the only one who expressed any sympathy after my miscarriage, and I am grateful to him for that.

A business is a business, but it takes very little to convey some level of humanity to carry out even the most difficult business decisions. We are human beings first before we are partners or associates. Had you simply explained that the department is unable to sustain the number of associates in the office, I would have completely understood. Had you explained that the office had been directed to reduce the number of associates and I was chosen because of my high billable rate and low billable hours, I would have appreciated such directness, even though the consequences of blindly raising billable rates to an unsustainable degree is plainly predictable. What I do not understand is the attempt to blame the associate for not bringing in the business that should have been brought in by each of you and to hide your personal failures by attempting to tarnish my excellent performance record and looking to undermine my sense of self esteem.

The last few months have been surreal, at best. Just last year, I had celebrated my engagement and marriage with many of you. In fact, during the engagement party, the head of the department took my then-fiancée aside to express to him what a great attorney I am and what a great future I faced. Indeed, less than a week before this year's bizarre performance review, I was again told by the same partner that my work is great and that the slow business in no way reflected on my performance. A week later, I was given a mediocre performance review and told that I should worry about whether I have a future at Paul Hastings. When I asked for specific examples of my alleged deficiencies, I received no response. When I asked for an explanation as to why I had been downgraded in so many performance categories when I received absolutely no criticism throughout the year and my prior year's review was stellar, I was told that my prior year's performance assessment may have been "over-inflated." What a startling response.

After my miscarriage, I had discussed my concern with several associates that Paul Hastings may use that opportunity to lay me off quickly before I have a chance to get pregnant again. Those associates thought it unfathomable that a firm would be so callous and assured me that Paul Hastings isn't that kind of a place. What a lesson this has been for them - and for me. I would not have anticipated that a partner would tell me one thing and completely renege on his words a week later. I would not have anticipated that a female partner (whom I had looked to as a role model) with children of her own would sit stone faced as I broke into tears just days after my miscarriage. Even a few words of sympathy or concern would have made a world of difference. What kind of people squander human relationships so easily?

If this response seems particularly emotional, perhaps an associate's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills -- and cowardice -- on your parts. If you should ever have the misfortune of suddenly losing something or someone precious to you, I hope you don't find similar heartlessness as I have.

As for your request for a release, non-disclosure, and non-disparagement agreement in return for three months' pay, I reject it. Unlike you, I am not just a paid mouthpiece with no independent judgment. I will decide how and to whom to communicate how you have treated me. I find it ironic that you would try to buy the right not to be disparaged after behaving as you have. Your actions speak volumes, and you don't need much help from me in damaging your reputation.

I attach the proposed release for any associate who may be interested in reviewing its details.

[Redacted]"

http://abovethelaw.com/2008/05/paul_hastings_farewell_email_a.php/

Hudson Legal: A Global $1.2 Billion Company Exploiting Workers Worldwide

Every wonder why you lack health insurance, why temp agencies are so profitable, and why you have to work a grueling 80 hours a week just to fill your gas tank? Maybe, it's because Hudson steals half your wages:

"Hudson Legal, a division of Hudson (NASDAQ: HHGP), a $1.2 billion global company, and the world’s largest legal staffing and litigation/eDiscovery outsourcing solutions company, is seeking a senior level sales executive who has demonstrated ability in sales, closing and client relationships, particularly in legal support services, and is ready to make more money than he/she ever dreamed possible! Individual will be responsible for selling to high-level decision makers in both corporate legal departments and law firms to utilize eDiscovery solutions offerings, including legal staffing, outsourced space and technology solutions, and management oversight of entire discovery review process. Successful candidate will have a background in either sophisticated legal staffing and outsourcing sales and/or litigation technology support services sales. Position offers a base salary plus generous commission plan, along with expense account and freedom to exercise an entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm. Only self-motivated, extremely personable and highly spirited individuals need apply."

http://jobsearch.us.hudson.com/getjob.asp?JobID=71418334

Quinn Emanuel's Flagship Year

The American Lawyer is reporting that Quinn Emanuel saw a 23% jump in profits per partner last year. I guess hiring Scott Krowitz's "Lex-Pollution" to run a dirty and overcrowded sweatshop, in which the NYC fire marshal had to be called in, was a good move on their part. Exploitation certainly pays.

http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/2007/08/roast-them.html

The Big Squeeze

Steven Greenhouse, in a new book entitled "The Big Squeeze," reflects upon the tough issues facing American workers. In the past 20 years, corporate profits have soared and worker productivity grew apace, while wages have stagnated. In the economic expansion that began in November 2001, corporate profits have doubled, but average wages have increased by only 2 percent. As Greenhouse notes, "this may be the first time in American history that the typical working household goes through an economic expansion without any increase in income whatsoever."

As a result of the changes in both the public and private sectors, American workers today face a variety of threats. Aggressive managers desperate to trim costs use tactics reminiscent of the sweatshops of a century ago: locking workers inside shop floors or not allowing them to take bathroom breaks, harassing workers who attempt to unionize, refusing to pay overtime for additional hours or, even more egregiously, altering workers' time sheets. Then, of course, there is the threat that many jobs will be outsourced to countries like India or China, where companies can pay lower wages. There are companies that replace salaried workers with temps or contractors to avoid paying benefits.

The legal profession is no exception. Note the explosion of the temporary staffing industry and our stagnating wages, in red:

Small Firm Hell: Bivona & Cohen

Not to be outdone by their biglaw cockroach infested basement counterparts, NYC small law has been busy inflicting their own brand of torture on the working masses.

First, we learned about the partner who threw a heavy bound legal volume across an office, bloodying an associate's head.

Then, we read about how an Rappaport & Hertz partner allegedly placed semen on an associate's phone. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1124269512308/

Now, to top it all off, we have a report that a Bivona & Cohen partner allegedly raped a secretary. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1209047608835/ The partner claims, however, that the secretary had merely given him a consensual "lap dance" in his office.

Other opinions of working at Bivona from the blogosphere:

"If you like being verbally abused, working endless hours, dealing with psychodramas, never working on the same file twice, being told that you are worthless and replaceable, being criticized for winning a summary judgment motion because it ends the billing on a file, and generally wishing every day that a huge asteroid would hit New York and end your misery in a cataclysmic holocaust, then this is the job for you."

"I recall one former associate who was really a kind-hearted and hard-working guy but who was painfully unassertive. JVF would just berate the poor guy and make his life living hell. Then there was another associate who was so terrified that he reportedly began vomiting blood out of fear. Yet another associate had such a bad experience that she left law altogether and moved to Hawaii. I just walked out one day when I'd had enough and didn't even have the next job lined up. About four weeks later I was working in my next ID dump."

http://www.jdunderground.com/thread.php?threadId=11614

Welcome to NYC small law, or as some would call it, low-paying animal kingdom.

White & Case

"Worked on a job at White & Case last week. Originally we were told in our interviews with the associate that it would be 2-3 weeks. Then on Monday, they came in and said that it needed to be done by Thursday. 4 days! We were given wrong directions, never shown how to properly code the system, and when someone accidentally went into the wrong documents, they didn't discover it until Friday. Total disaster!

The person who accidentally did the wrong docs, because of poor directions and incompetent feedback and planning on the part of the law firm, was told that she was not getting paid at all! On pay day, we were paid zilch, nothing! Payroll said none of our timesheets had been approved by W&C. Now supposedly they have, but we won't get paid until next week. I have been doing this for long enough and I have encountered a lot of underhanded things by agencies and firms, but never has a firm stooped this low."

David Gelfand: Worst Person of the Week

Last week, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy laid off several attorneys in its staff attorney program. These jobs were good, stable, middle-class positions that provided benefits. When asked about the firings by Above the Law's David Lat, Gelfand stonewalled:

http://abovethelaw.com/2008/04/correction_milbank_hearts_staf.php

Let's not be too hard on David Gelfand, however. Maybe he was busy? Perhaps, he was attending outsourcing conferences, learning how to ship these very same jobs overseas:

"Full Detailed Agenda Can Be Viewed at www.almevents.com/legaloutsource

Weakening U.S. dollar!
Changing Ways of Doing Business!
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Hear from industry experts and find out how your peers are maximizing the benefits of legal outsourcing!

Full Detailed Agenda Can Be Viewed at www.almevents.com/legaloutsource

Faculty Includes:
Chairperson:
Patrick Hatfield, Esq.
Partner and Co-Chair of Technology Practice
Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP

Bodhi Global Services Ltd.
Computer Associates
CPA
Deutsche Bank AG
Equifax, Inc.
Home Depot
Kaye Scholer LLP
LawDocsXpress
Legal Electronic Document Institute
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP
Outsourcing Today
Seyfarth, Shaw LLP
The Clutch Group
White & Case LLP ATTEND AND BENEFIT BY:

• Acquiring New Strategies on How Legal Outsourcing
Will Improve Productivity and Profitability
• Identifying the “Right” New Markets for Legal
Outsourcing
• Learning from Experts' Discussions on the Benefits
and Limitations of Legal Outsourcing
• Establishing and Utilizing Proper Communication
Channels Among Attorneys, Executives and Vendors
• Understanding the Mechanics of Negotiating
Legal Outsourcing Deals
• Gaining Insights into the Future of Legal Outsourcing
• Being Prepared for Upcoming Industry Changes

Thank you to our sponsors:

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Sometimes It's Necessary To Jump Ship

I wholeheartedly disagree with the following blog posting:

http://www.myattorneyblog.com/it-might-be-tempting-but-its-never-a-good-idea-to-jump-ship/

Sadly, for one's own economic survival, it's oftentimes necessary to jump off a sinking sweatshop. Two weeks ago, David King stood in front of the McCarter/Hudson project on a Friday afternoon claiming that there was more work to be done, and then turned around and axed everyone over the weekend via a cowardly email. To add insult to injury, in order to avoid having to hear from the angry masses, rumor has it that certain Hudson recruiters went off on vacation the following week. Are these the kind of people that you owe your loyalty to?

As someone so aptly put it,

"Unfortunately, loyalty in the contract attorney business means mostly loyalty to yourself. It’s your survival that you should care about because most of the agencies and firms could care less about you. I think most contract attorneys learn that very early on."

Many of the people that screwed Hudson over and left McCarter early are now comfortably working on other projects. Those who were loyal and stayed on are now scrambling for work in a recessionary job market. This is the nature of the beast.

Angry Judges: New York Judges Deliberate Bid To Organize

"Judges of New York, unite!

Frustrated over salaries that have been frozen for almost 10 years, a group of state Supreme Court justices are talking about starting their own union.

In an email dated April 7th that was obtained by The New York Post, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Wayne Saitta wrote to his colleagues that 'a few of us in Brooklyn have been trying to get together an organizing effort,' but to date it has not gone anywhere.

Judge William Erlbaum expressed his support. 'This is some shit we should not eat.'"

- Larry Celona, New York Post, 4/15/08

The Hudson Legal Propaganda Podcast

Upset about outsourcing, wage stagnation, shitty benefits, asshole bosses, crowded/cockroach infested basements, and 14 hour work days? Never mind that, according to a recent propaganda piece put out by the Hudson Legal Chicago office:

http://career-advice.monster.com/job-industry-profiles/legal/contract-temporary/Audio-The-Pluses-of-Legal-Contracti/home.aspx/

Help Train Your Foreign Replacements

"Now Quislex, one of the first and largest Indian LPOs, has teamed up with Strategic Legal Solutions, a pioneer in the U.S. temporary lawyer marketplace, to form SQ Global Solutions. With offices in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Los Angeles and Hyderabad, India, SQ Global has a unique international outsourcing network of attorneys. All of your high volume, labor intensive legal tasks can now be outsourced to our state of the art Hyderabad facility where we employ over 150 full time permanent attorneys. You can also combine our Indian resources with our nationwide candidate pool of highly credentialed and experienced U.S. temporary attorneys to create a unique onshore/offshore legal project team."

The Hudson Legal "Newark" Project: Bloody Friday

4/06/08-

"Dear Tom,

I was one of the recipients of the email axe from Hudson yesterday, and I guess I'm as pissed off as any of the rest of us who received the same message. They obviously didn't have the nerve to tell anyone in person. What wimps! The irony (for lack of a better word) is that, after a day without almost any assignments, David King stood in front of us on Friday and announced that the office was closing at 5 p.m. But he was quick to reassure us that that there's still lots of work ahead and that he'd see us all on Monday. The humane way of handling this situation would have been to end things then and there, and do the honorable thing by telling us the truth. At least that way we'd have had the opportunity to gather up our belongings and leave with some dignity. Now I'm put in the uncomfortable position of having to return to the office to retrieve my personal possessions when I no longer work there. I refuse to feel humiliated, but it sure will be uncomfortable.

Being treated this way is no way to thank those of us who worked extra hours and worked hard. Last time I checked, it doesn't cost extra money to treat people respectfully and professionally."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The axe has fallen, and the anger is palpable.

"Fucking scumbag thieves (Hudson) said this project would last 4 to 6 months and send a fucking email when axing everyone. Pussies can't even call people.

David King and Vlad (The impaler) claimed that there was plenty of work....

I should have jumped ship a month ago.

Now the market is going to be flooded with us loser coders.

Read that a few people have mentioned the Newark project. Well, hate to break it to you, but make sure you have your welcoming mat down, because about 200 + contract lawyers just got fired this weekend, and they are saying the project is winding up...

Remember there are 800 of us."

Place McCarter & English on the "Temporary Attorney Sweatshop" list?
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Sleazy Recruiter Of The Year -- Final Vote

The Sleazy Recruiter Of The Year Is.......
	Julie Dailey
	Scott Krowitz
	Allan Cohen
	Wanda Lin
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Black "List" Discovery Temp Agency

Blackletter Discovery placed a group of 35 attorneys on a job in San Francisco, based on the following terms:

1) It would last 3-4 months
2) There would be "plenty of overtime"
3) There would be suitable working conditions

Instead, here is what we got:

1) One week into the job, we were told that, oops, the job would be ending in two weeks. So, for those of you doing the math, the job went from 3-4 months to 3 weeks. We were also told that regardless of the changed circumstances we were required to finish the job and not look for other work.
2) Overtime was also cut off at the same time. Of course, when we asked the recruiter if we could look into other contract opportunities that included overtime, we were harshly scolded (i.e. if you do that, our firm will never hire you again, and we will tell every other firm that you don't follow through on your commitments).
3) There was no air conditioning, and no windows. Let me tell you, an enclosed space, with no ventilation gets extremely stuffy, smelly, and hot within h