Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Legal Options Ad: $15-18 an hour

LEGAL OPTIONS AD: "They changed their email in the listing from resumes@legaloptions.com to the anonymous craigslist email. That's kinda weird."

Admitted Attorneys- Temporary Document Review Projects

Reply to: job-331960047@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-05-16, 9:29AM EDT

Admitted attorneys needed for document review projects at large firms in the city. Must be flexible for long hours, OT including weekends, and be admitted in one U.S. state. No unadmitted JD's at this time. Please forward resumes to the address above.

Location: Manhattan
Compensation: $15-18 an hr. + OT
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

The market rate in NYC is a flat rate of $41.80 an hour, or $35.82 an hour + OT. See- http://temporaryattorney.googlepages.com Is this placement agency advertising ridiculously below-market compensation in an effort to maniuplate the well-established market rates in the NYC document review market?

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://jdunderground.com/thread.php?threadId=1013

I did a whois search and a corporations search. To find out more info about these people, follow that link.

Anonymous said...

Nasty jerk who kept using the "N" word in the last thread, Come in here:

$120,000 a year? Try making that at $15 an hour.

Anonymous said...

Actually, we should find out which firm hired this agency to place doc review attorneys. I think we should encourage people to apply just to get an interview so that we can find out which law firm is offering these abysmal rates. (Or could the agency be taking an excessive cut?)

Anonymous said...

"so that we can find out which law firm is offering these abysmal rates. (Or could the agency be taking an excessive cut?)"

Probably, both. In '01, Hughes Hubbard ganged up with Hudson to provide that abysmal &19 an hour rate.

Anonymous said...

"Legal Options is still being shady by changing their craiglist email address and having NO web presence and responding to NO emails."

Did we actually find an agency that is more shady than E.P. Dine? Is this even possible?

Anonymous said...

the thread on jdunderground really says it all...

keep writing to them ... someone needs to bring this sort of insanity to a halt

has anyone called them yet?

anyone ever work for them or hear of them before today?

this has to be a crazy joke right?

Anonymous said...

Let's be fair; it could very well be a typo. But why did they change their e-mail to an anonymous account? Why aren't they responding to their e-mails? Even if this is an honest mistake, it doesn't speak well to their customer service.

Anonymous said...

if there was ever a reason to deploy every single resource of every single doc reviewer in nyc, this is it.

they also listed the same rate for legal a contract legal assistant position, so there's still like a .000000001% chance it was a genuine typo. but my better judgment thinks not.

if anyone gets a reply from them, or gets to the bottom of this, post it all over the place.

god i just hope no one accepts pay like this. could set a very scary precedent.

Anonymous said...

They have always been posting on craigslist. Always $3-5 below market rate, but never this low.

I guess they are trying to gauge really how desperate the recent crop of heavily indebted admittees actually are - a true race to the bottom.

Anonymous said...

"anita and lily are gonna start looking real nice if the alternative is $15-18 or unemployment.

misguided temps often complain about the most juvenile shit - so i'm really hoping something major (in my mind, THE most major thing to ever happen in this industry), doesn't get overlooked b/c some doc review doesn't have toilet seat covers or someone got fired for playing minesweeper.

if there was ever a time and a cause to lobby - this is it.

$15-18... i'd fucking spit in these pigs eyes if i saw them on the street"

Anonymous said...

Toilet seat covers and fighting for your self-respect are important. This just shows that when you give up an inch of your dignity, they take a mile.

Anonymous said...

i knew i had heard of them somewhere. scary how they have no website, and their shadiness w/ the email address change mid-day.

so it's likely a typo then?

who lowballs market rate by 50%+?

agencies are unscrupulous, sure, but $15-18 is a nonstop laugh riot.

and look at what their typo/aggressive undercutting caused.

they'll truly be getting what they pay for if anyone is desperate enough to work for those peanuts.

what law firm even WANTS people that will work for that little- even if it's the most menial due dilligence?

crazy fucks... so ridiculous

just keep calling them out on it... drive them out of business or something... cold comfort but at least they'll feel some pain

Anonymous said...

It could be a test. I remember how Lily used to brag about how many tier 1 grads she could grab when she was paying as low as $19 an hour.

Anonymous said...

Makes you sick when you consider that first years are now making over $200K a year. $15 an hour?

Anonymous said...

This means that the average 1st year associate is now making 7 times more per hour than the average contract attorney.

Anonymous said...

REMOVED FROM CRAIGSLIST!

This posting has been flagged for removal
(The title on the listings page will be removed in just a few minutes.)

i'm assuming that was user initiated, and not the agency themselves removing the listing

by NO means should this be the end of the campaign against shit like this.

please stay on top of this and find out more details - i pray to god this wasn't real

Anonymous said...

"Author: wait
Subject: May still be a scam
Time: May 16, 2007 - 12:48 pm

Now that the names of the principals have been revealed, what about taking it another step to determine WHO, exactly, these people are? They may be stakeholders in other temp agencies or law firms, or they may be affiliated with someone in such agencies/firms.

It could still be a scam, but perpetuated through multiple levels of people for "plausible deniability."

people w/ resources to do this - get on the case and crosspost everywhere!

Anonymous said...

Legal Options could be a front, invested in by other agencies and firms, to drive down contract attorney wages. How can we investigate?

Anonymous said...

"Ann Kotsovolos, former paralegal administrator for Skadden Arps opened her own staffing company, Legal Options, in New York. "

siiigh... they're apparently very, very real... sick

Anonymous said...

Market? No such thing.

I was friends with a recruiter and we went out and got drunk a while back. She told me that someone told her that rates were going to go up to $35 by the end of the year.

Sure enough, when the end of the year rolled around, all the firms raised their wage to that rate. When I confronted the recruiter about it, she denied ever having said it. Fishy.

Anonymous said...

huh?

what about the matter at hand here...

no one has any first hand experience /w these clowns?

no one got a reply?

i hope they read this, grow souls, and feel stupid.

won't happen though

Anonymous said...

I never answered their ads, as they were always advertising for jobs that were below market rate.

Anonymous said...

They plan on collecting resumes of people that are willing to work for $15 an hour and are going to present that list to Anita and Lily in order that they can boot the other agencies off the project.

Anonymous said...

Legal Options to Lily and Anita: "Look at all these stellar candidates we can provide to you for $15 an hour, they just passed the bar, they are drowning in debt and they are willing just about to do anything." "Fire these $35 an hour pieces of dead wood."

Anonymous said...

well they need to be laughed out of the business if that's their plan.

revolt over shit like this.

it's hands down the biggest issue ever.

agencies like this need to be shut down, their employees rendered homeless and peniless.

thank god we acted fast and got the posting removed today, but they need to feel some serious pain so they don't fuck around anymore.

how dare they... honestly

Anonymous said...

If it isn't Legal Options it is going to be Dianne Barrasso.

Diane Barrasso to Anita and Lily: "Look at all these stellar candidates we can provide to you for $3 an hour, they just passed the Indian bar, they are drowning in feces and they are willing just about to do anything." "Fire these $35 an hour pieces of dead wood."

Anonymous said...

then we need to make it beyond clear to these agencies and firms that paying us MORE, not insulting mcdonalds salaries, will get you better quality people.

honestly - isn't this kind of shit painfully obvious already? when you scrape the very bottom of the barrel, you get precisely what you pay for.

$35/hr gets you $35/hr people.

$50 gets you better people.

projects will be easier to manage, run more smoothly, etc, w/ better people clicking.

you ain't gonna get that for $15 bucks.

so ridiculous

please make them publically apologize and announce it was a type.

even if its an obv lie, it would be a pretty cool feat if we could get them to do that

shit i used to laugh at $32!

$15! HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Anonymous said...

All of this doesn't surprise me.

It's all about fighting for your professional image.

Teachers provide a valuable service and demand that they be treated with respect. Their salaries (at least in NY) reflect this.

Contract Attorneys, on the other hand, mock their jobs, buy into the inferiority complex put out by biglaw, and don't even demand an iota of respect, eg. not even requesting toilet seat covers so they can avoid catching an anal rash. It's no wonder that these agencies and firms believe they can get away with paying $15 an hour.

Anonymous said...

to: above poster - supply? demand? econ much?

Anonymous said...

to above poster: obviously, the $15 rate is too low, as evidenced by the across-the-board viciousness and swiftness of the outcry against it.

Anonymous said...

Paulson Temps sent a few people to Verizon to work on a project paying $19/hr, where they were promised to be "inside the Google-YouTube lawsuit." Actually, it was a doc review position, in a dark room, closed off from the rest of Verizon. And then Verizon starting firing half the temps there, because of "production issues" (re: not getting the same levels done each day). Did I mention the $19/hr. No OT, btw.

Anonymous said...

Experienced, Nassau County, Long Island public school teacher:

$111 an hour.

-----------------------------
Experienced, admitted, 150k in debt NYC lawyer:

$15 an hour.

Anonymous said...

to poster above, above poster.

i obv wasn't talking about supply/demand re: the bullshit $15 salary. that's a joke.

i was talking about teachers.

there's a need - so they have bargaining power.

there's a glut of lawyers, so they shit on us.

sorry if i wasn't clear.

anyone go down to legal options lair and spit in their eye yet?

Anonymous said...

"i was talking about teachers.

there's a need - so they have bargaining power."

They have a strong union.

Anonymous said...

"This makes sense, actually. The Staffing Company wannabe goes trolling for a project from one of her former big firm contacts, pitching it almost entirely on a price that is so low that the firm can't help itself in deciding to give her a try. She then goes to the market, trolling for the people to staff the project, at the $15 - 18 insulting rate. Trouble is -- there are probably enough hungry JD's out there that she will get a fairly good response, and she'll staff the project -- for a while, at least. Then people will start bailing on her when they have just a LITTLE experience they can parlay into a gig on a higher paying project. Net effect though, is that she has undermined the contract attorney market and lowered expectations of what a project can be EFFECTIVELY staffed for. You guys need to all send your resumes in, get hired, and then tell her "Sorry, we got other better paying projects" the day you are supposed to report. Serve her right."

Exactly, who is with me? Let's all sign up and get put on the project. 2 hours into training we should all excuse ourselves and demand to be paid for those 2 hours. That will put an end to this nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Exactly, who is with me? Let's all sign up and get put on the project. 2 hours into training we should all excuse ourselves and demand to be paid for those 2 hours. That will put an end to this nonsense.

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

Caveat: What if they were just trying to gauge whether anyone would respond at all? Maybe they were just collecting resumes. I say Ann at Legaloptions, besides the angry shouting of the masses objecting to the obscenely low offer on various message boards, should hear nothing but crickets chirping.

Anonymous said...

Anita should institute an immediate $10 pay cut. If anyone quits, she should call up Ann at Legaloptions.

Anonymous said...

Entry-level data entry, $15-$25/hour: http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/lab/328201793.html

Anonymous said...

I can't decide what is a better way to make loads of money by sitting on my ass and exploiting people: opening a law school or a temp agency.

Anonymous said...

or being a CLE provider.

Anonymous said...

"Doc Review Man" [The JD version of "Blue Collar Man"]


Give me a job, give me security

Give me a chance to survive

I'm just a poor soul in the unemployment line

My God, I'm hardly alive

My mother and father, my wife and my friends

I see them laugh in my face

But I've got the power [of attorney], and I got the

will [I got a B- in Wills, actually]

I'm not a charity case

I'll take those long shifts, impossible odds

[of finding non doc review work]

Keeping my eyes on the keyboard [and monitor]

If it takes all that to be just what I am

I'm gonna be a doc review man

Make me an offer that I can't refuse

[How could I? I've got $70,000 in loans to repay]

Make me respectable, man

[Doubtful, but at least I am paying down those loans]

This is my last time in the unemployment line

So like it or not, I'll take those

Long shifts, impossible odds

Keeping my back to the [cubicle] wall

If it takes all that to be just what I am

I'm gonna be a doc review man

Keeping my mind on a better life

[Once my loans are paid off]

When happiness is only a heartbeat away

Paradise, can it be all I heard it was

I close my eyes and maybe I'm already there

[But then I open them, and I'm back to...]

Long shifts, impossible odds

Keeping my back to the [cubicle] wall

If it takes all that to be just what I am

I'm gonna be a doc review man

Anonymous said...

no time for songs.

they never wrote back to any emails - did anyone hear anything from them?

literally NO ONE on this board has ever had any contact with this company??

please don't let this die

Anonymous said...

finally some answers:

"Author: yepper
Subject: worked w/ them
Time: May 16, 2007 - 6:51 pm

I went thru Legal Options back in January 2006. They got me in at Sullivan Cromwell for $32 and hour + OT. S&C was a nice project, we got free food, car service, etc. Erica is the chick who does the placement- she is VERY hot and has a sexy Southern accent. I don't know if she's still there or not.
But yes, $15 an hour for admitted is sad. But that is the current legal market. The saturation is simply beyond belief and gets worse every year."

Anonymous said...

and then ann from legal options chimes in anonymously, tail b/w her filthy pig legs:

Author: Just a typo
Subject: Someone made a mistake
Time: May 16, 2007 - 8:44 pm

Someone just made a typo. You people made a big deal about nothing. Lawyers should do there research before starting rumors. But this is the internet so people make a big deal because its anonyomous. Here are previous links from Legal Options on craigslist on May 1 http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/322427177.html and April 24th http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/317790123.html


the same wording on all of them except the compensation is different: "Compensation: $33-35 an hr. + OT"

Admitted Attorneys- Temporary Document Review Projects

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: resumes@legaloptions.com
Date: 2007-05-01, 3:20PM EDT


Admitted attorneys needed for document review projects at large firms in the city. Must be flexible for long hours, OT including weekends, and be admitted in one U.S. state. No unadmitted JD's at this time. Please forward resumes to the address above.




Location: Manhattan
Compensation: $33-35 an hr. + OT
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Anonymous said...

interesting "apology" ann.

good luck rebuilding that steller reputation for that piece of shit wannabe agency of yours!

gotta be tough working your way back UP to bottom-feeders!!

you know what? $33 is insulting.

don't undercut. even by a few dollars b/c it'll marginally increase your bottom line. it's tacky. and transparent. and insulting.

treat people with respect, give them what they deserve, and they will do good work for your clients, and you might actually succeed in life.

instead of an angry response on a msg board claiming the rate was a typo -maybe you could have responded to a personal email earlier in the day, and put the fire out 12 hours earlier.

you chose to wait, be evasive by changing your email address and not responding to any emails. now you have to deal w/ the irreperable damage to your company.

hopefully you learned a lesson here.

Anonymous said...

You kids are sheep. 42 comments after one day, with everyone's comments showing they are aghast. Don't believe everything that you read. Find out the details yourself or by proxy, meet the recruiter, then draw a conclusion. No wonder you were such easy marks for law school.

Admissions Recruiter

PS: Did you hear that they may legislate away my Sallie Mae kickbacks! They paid for my beach house!

PPS: Nah, I'm just a KA like you, but less gullible. See what I mean? You believe garbage because you read it. Step away from the computer and explore real life!

Anonymous said...

you sir are an idiot and a douchebag of the highest proportions.

i believe we actually DID find out the details for ourselves by taking swift and immediate action.

should we have allowed the damaging and insulting post to remain on craigslist for days instead?

get your fucking head out of your ass. the world hates you.

please remove his completely off topic and ridiculous post tom.