Sunday, December 23, 2007

Mickey's (of Simpson Thacher) Christmas Carol



I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Hopefully, like was done in years past at the old Satan's Workshop, you won't be asked to come in and review Vioxx documents on Christmas Day.

Speaking of Satan's Workshop, for those of you that spent any significant time at 65 Broadway, you may want to enjoy this Christmas, as this may be your last:

"I hear 65 shut down a month ago. I think the building was actually shut down so they could do renovations. I think asbestos was the issue...can you say "MESOTHELIOMA"?"

What about World Trade Center dust?

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

65 Broadway had cheap building management. I once got stuck in one of their elevators for over an hour.

Anonymous said...

If you want an elevator that works, 9:40, get a perm job of your own.

Oh, I forgot- you can't. Guess your fat ass should be taking the steps anyhow.

Anonymous said...

the policy at 65 was to give temps 1 of the 3 holidays of thanksgiving, christmas and new years off. so if you wanted christmas off you could get it. but i imagine it would kind of suck reviewing documents on a holiday for $27 an hour

Anonymous said...

I am sure the cheap building manager at 65 Broadway did a thorough cleaning, overseen by an aggressive, competent EPA headed by Christie Todd Whitman, before Satan's Workshop opened in 2002.

Anonymous said...

"for $27 an hour"

In 2002-2003, Satan's Workshop was paying $19 an hour. Christmas with Lisa Hart, or shooting self? Tough call.

Anonymous said...

11:52, has your career stalled so miserably that you are still hung up on years 2002-2003???

I guess 'contract atty' on the resume really does kill your future.

It's almost 2008, fucko!!

Anonymous said...

It's almost Christmas. What are you doing reading a contract attorney blog, fucko??? Unless you are an agency hack, which is probably the case. Go fuck yourself and have a Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

I celebrate Kwanzza, thank you.

Now get back to 2002!

Anonymous said...

Let's go back even further, say 1999 0r 200o, not much has changed....http://tempinfoblog.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to use the blog in the manner of tom the temp, but rather to focus on the larger issues at hand. Tom does important work and provides a forum for the disenfranchised temporary attorneys in NYC. There are other notable bloggers out there in other cities such as blacksheep blog in Philadelphia and myattorney blog in dc. They all have different riffs on the same theme, working as a contract attorney. A frequent topic of discussion is the lack of permanent jobs for American trained lawyers.

This situation is not mirrored in India where Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is booming. Its cheer leading bloggerRahul Jindal, is playing a far merrier tune, waxing poetic on the dearth of trained, skilled legal professionals. It seems odd that there could be such dramatically opposite conditions in these legal markets. Why is India booming and the United States sagging? It seems to me that the growth in the American legal industry is primarily coming in India.

A recent article (I will post it when I find it) suggests that growth in the United States legal market has been stagnant for the last 30 years. Yet, we continue to open more law schools (both ABA accredited and state accredited) and increase tuition costs. This, coupled with the hard sell by many lower tier schools on the riches and prestige to be gained by the J.D. degree and quickly revoked first year scholarships have created a new, permanent underclass of attorneys, saddled with debt and no possibility of earning enough money to comfortably pay off this $150,000 debt unless they achieve "biglaw" status and earn $160,000 starting salary. As we all know, these jobs are open only to those attending the very top schools, the very well connected and only the top 5 - 10% of students attending lower ranked law schools. So where does it leave the middle of the pack law student with massive debt, no job prospects and future jobs being outsourced to India?

A recent posting in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog offered readers the chance to vote on the lawyer of the year. The resounding winner was Loyola 2L one such law student, with large debt and a small chance of finding a job that will enable him/her to live a decent life. So what are most current law students and practicing attorneys facing now? Crushing debt and worldwide competition. Some people were clever enough to avoid this trap, went to top schools or excelled at lower tier schools or perhaps even better, got an MBA or no graduate degree at all.

For most law students, the current market conditions make it very unlikely they will be able to find a job as attorney even though they have spent in excess of $100,000 for that purpose. Is the U.S. system of legal education broken? Should we start shuddering law schools? Should we tell corporations and law firms to hire their paralegals and attorneys in India?

Anonymous said...

I have mentioned this in the past. The medical profession was in a similar bind at the end of the last last century. Store front Medical schools were opening up and flooding the market. The physicains stopped this by 1) requiring medical schools to have hospital affiliation (clerkships), residencies for licensure, and smaller medical school classes.

I would suggest the ABA follow suit: 1) eliminate PT lawschool programs 2) require clerkship in a lawfirm for at least one year with school affiliation, and lowering lawschool class size.

Anonymous said...

How would the TTT administrators get rich? Where would Update get grist for all of their NYC sweatshop mills? Never going to happen.

Anonymous said...

My favorite part of Mickey's (of Simpson Thacher's) x-mas carole is when Mickey comments upon what an amazing rack the ghost of Christmas future has.

Anonymous said...

As of maybe 2 weeks ago, 65 wasn't completely closed and may still not be. I ran into someone who was still working there...there are far fewer people there of course.

Anonymous said...

Idea:

Why not post what jobs are currently running, pay rate, average number of people on the job, agency staffing and duration?

Might give job seekers idea of what ture nyc market is at any particular time.

Better information wouldn't hurt and might help.

Anonymous said...

11:12, this isn't the place temp attys come to share information. it's where they come to be the immature aholes they are and to blame EVERYONE BUT THEMSELVES for their lack of ability to secure perm employment.

Anonymous said...

This is the place to share information on the worst projects and the most sleazy of agencies. After reading this site, enter those projects at your own risk.

Anonymous said...

I am the national director for a legal placement agency headquartered in Boston. We are looking to expand to NYC and are looking for someone to run that office. If anyone knows someone with staffing experience that would be interested in running their own office let me know. After reading some of the comments on this site I feel that we would be a welcome addition to the NY legal community. We offer contract attorneys the same benefits that our internal employees receive. I am the National Director for the legal division and all of our contractors have the same benefits I have.

Anonymous said...

How should people get in touch with you, John?

Anonymous said...

I work for Beacon Hill Staffing. Our number is 617-326-4000. My name is John Tarbox. You can call and ask for me.

Anonymous said...

as to 7:43, thanks for sarcasm.great help, please move out of market or go work at a cornerstore to share your thoughs.

1:14, congrats on graduating last year, moron. please move out of market.

Anonymous said...

5:40, Doesn't appear that English is your first language. Take some ESL classes and get back to us. Tx.

Anonymous said...

Here's a dose of reality for your rumor mill bullshitters...

First, 65 was never shut down. If you happened to read the newspapers or check an actual news site once in a while, you may have noticed that the case settled, so naturally they had to let people go since there aren't nearly the same number of documents to review, morons. There's still a smaller crew of us reviewers at 65... however who knows how long that will actually last.

Second, Nobody ever had to work on Christmas Day at 65 for at least 4-5 years now. It happened for a couple of holidays way back in the day (and only a few of us left were there to remember that). Yes, you had to sign up to be "on" for a holiday weekend (Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years), but that only happened sometimes when there was a big deadline or something - or whatever they decided to tell us was the reason. So yes, it sucked, but we got the actual holiday and we got paid double time anyway, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

Last, They never shut the building down for any reason, much less for EPA reasons. They did some elevator work last year for about a month or so and it was annoying, but that was it.

As any lawyer with more than, um, zero years of actual experience knows... you should probably check your facts before you base your arguments on stupid false bullshit.

Happy New Year.

Anonymous said...

Well put HB. "us reviewers" I like that.

Anonymous said...

Who is HB?

Anonymous said...

Mickey Mickey your so fine your so fine you blow temps dicks!

Anonymous said...

Well written article.