Monday, January 08, 2007

Note To Agencies: Stop Passing Yourselves Off As Unbiased "Career Counselors" To Naive, Debt-Ridden Law Graduates

"Temporary legal work is a great opportunity for those who graduate from law school without a job offer," says Scott Krowitz, a partner in the temporary placement firm Lexolutions. "The work gives young lawyers exposure to the practice of law and creates new networking opportunities. And temp-to-perm (temporary to permanent) positions can lead to permanent jobs that might not have been available to these attorneys through the usual recruiting channels."

The concept of a seminar on career opportunities in coding is nothing short of a marketing sham designed to position Lexolution and its CEO, Scott Krowitz as somewhat of a career counselor invested in your success. That is a fabrication of the role that entities like Lexolution serve. Certainly you need to be on good terms with as many entities that might call you for a job. But I have seen way too many firms just stop dealing with particular candidates for irrational reasons and rewarding syncophants no matter how f'ing stupid and incompetent they are. Talent, skill, ability or goal oriented individuals are not the candidates that they want. Instead, they want subservient insecure fools who kiss the ass of these agency gatekeepers in order to continue to get a pay check. The more firms consider hiring directly without the agency, the more they might find an increase in the quality of candidate, and the more money will be available to reward said individual for his hard work. It is ridiculous that the agency cut off many candidates exceeds that candidates hourly rate. In many cases where the attorney is collected $35 per hour, the agency is billing for $75 per hour and the law firm is billing the client $150 or more.

Just a sage bit of advice to aspiring legal professionals,law students and/or potential document review attorneys. Recognize that owners of agencies like Lexolution (i) are NOT career advisors or counselors who have your long term professional development at heart, (ii) but are independent agencies, brokers or intermediaries who add a layer of cost between the legal professional and the law firm client and (iii)have no professional, entrepreneurial or economic incentive to help you evolve from this type of work into a different career path. In short, you must look at the likes of Scott Krowitz as someone you need to evolve past in the long term as for now, folks like him are "necessary evils" in the temp game. They are not your friends but rather are folks who are complicitors in your professional enslavement.

The UPDATE Blacklist is very real indeed. But they are not the only firm that has one, a good question to ask Scott Krowitz at Lexolution who also secretly has one as well. Regardless of how intelligent you are, how much experience you have and how good a job you have performed in the past, either of those firms will blacklist you if they perceive that you at all question their M.O. There are enough lawyers who will work in these temp jobs. They want SHEEP and not BULLS. The more you stand out, the worse it is for them and since more and more attorneys graduate each year, they would rather place passive people in these jobs who do not at all question or buck the system. Their are people that UPDATE places regularly who are actually horrific candidates but they do precisely what UPDATE tells them to. That is what many of these firms want. You are being paid to sit in a chair for as many hours as possible, code docs so that the agency can get their override and the law firms can jack their clients for work which at times is even questionable really needs to be done. Plain and simple.

-- fellow poster

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, they often hire opportunistuc passive aggressives who are are far more dangerous!

Anonymous said...

If you work as a contract attorney for more than a year, your legal career is over. The way people should view it , if you can get a low stress, moderate hours job, is a way to pay off your student loans and then eventually get into a field that is enjoyable. No lawyer, no sane person, could possibly like being a lawyer unless you were independently wealthy and doing pro bono only work. It's a miserable field, and you should feel lucky for not getting a "biglaw" job. Unless you want a heart attack by 40, and to be fat, and a miserable person.. The only drawback is the time and money you wasted in law school.

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