"Tom,
There are agencies that have overextended themselves in the boom years and are stuck with idle equipment and empty prime leased out document review space. Any guess as to which of the agencies are going to go under?"
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105 comments:
From this blog, you'd think nobody would miss the "roach infested basements" and "warehouses."
It's about time for a shakeup. The agencies were getting out of control.
At least they kept us employed
There should be more work for us now, but there is actually less. During the last downturn I was turning down work.
Something is rotten here.
All the work is India. Don't tell me there is absolutely no English review going on because of the downturn.
I miss Anita.
8:54 you don't get it, people WANT to work, they DON'T want to be treated like crap and have their health and safety threatened.
No one misses roach infested basements and most of us would be happy if everyone who rant those places were suddenly homeless with cancer.
Notice that the good firms and good agencies are not the ones constantly getting blasted on this board.
Treat people decently, and most of the time most people are happy and work better.
Its not a luxury to work in a place that is not violating the law, although you sure seem to think so, as such see the above homeless with cancer reference.
When are th Katten layoffs coming?
Agencies/contract attorneys, we are all in the same boat. We are all sitting ducks waiting to be emasculated. Get over it, the work is NEVER coming back. Whether you are an out of work contract attorney sitting at home watching Maury Povich, or work for an agency sitting in an empty room full of computer terminals, we are all sitting around waiting for the inevitable day that bankruptcy hits us. Blame it on the spineless immoral shysters that outsourced our jobs to India. The same thing that happened to manufacturing and then IT is now happening to us.
Doc review isn't the only legal practice being outsourced or farmsourced to cheaper parts of the U.S. It happens in patent prosecution too...
We need our bar associations or ethics committees to get tough with firms that have work done in India while claiming to practice law in the U.S. Where's the protectionism?
Let's stop insulting the agencies, associates and partners from now on like we used to and hope instead that they will be employed again someday so the wealth they created will trickle down to us again.
In all honesty, that is our best hope in life for a decent paycheck. Like it or not, the truth is that most of us will never have the resources or potential to generate such amounts of money in any other way ever again.
That's why I encourage everyone to pucker up and support the endeavors of the many people above us in the food chain first. Now is not the time to voice resentment towards the hand that feeds you. Let them go back to business so they can re-establish the old guard so to speak. Before you criticize me bear in mind that all this boils down to an attempt to regain our jobs while locking in a justifiable high rate for us like before. We would never get paid anywhere near as much again without some of the old BigLaw framework in place.
I wouldn't worry about these Indians, they can't even speak proper English. But in the same way how associates will take our work when the industry declines, I believe we should be allowed to take some work from the paralegals at least. It wouldn't be fair to us reviewers otherwise, since we have JD's and those above us step down and take our jobs away.
It's really funny that the majority of work we're seeing announced is foreign language -- a Korean project was announced on today's DC Craigslist. But the English projects have vaporized.
Article: "The Case for Outsourcing Document Review"
Excerpt:
Editor: As in your own case, are you seeing companies turning to India?
Weir: I am seeing more and more companies embracing the option of having some document review services conducted in India. More importantly, I have seen that the perception of such reviews in India is changing. I think India's role will continue to grow as companies become more comfortable with this option and experience the benefits of the high-quality work being done there. Companies and law firms appear to recognize that having a domestic foundation combined with offshoring capabilities can have many advantages including round-the-clock coverage, one source of project management, and a dedicated workforce.
Link:
http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/current.php?artType=view&artMonth=March&artYear=2009&EntryNo=9461
If people think the recession is not causing a lot more doc review projects to be sent to India, I have a million acres of prime land for you in the Maldives Islands.
De Novo Legal is seeking temporary attorneys fluent in Korean for a
document review project in Washington, DC. Current US license and the
ability to read and translate both English and Korean is required.
Ok here it is in a simple explanation. Everyone is generally correct, but they overblow it based on emotion and not reasoning and logic.
The facts:
1. There is some doc review going on in India but its low level stuff, hyped up by the LPOS are part of their business model, but the marquee firms would never send their work over there (I'm talking like the 20 largest firms in the World...) I mean think about it, firms are prestige whores who want Harvard and Yale degrees and law review editors to brag about to their giant corporate clients, why would they do the opposite and have Indian hacks who barely speak English and get laughable legal training do the work?
2. The recession is an enormous factor: big corporation litigation is on a holding pattern because they can't get credit, and BigLaw is stuck twiddling its thumbs, the result being the doc review going on is being done by first year associates.
3. Its a worldwide recession and Europe is in tatters as well, that's why there are no European foreign language doc reviews.
4. there are projects in New York, it hasn't completely dried up, I'm on a nice project now with overtime. The problem is competition is fierce and not only do you now need the magic amount of doc review experience (1-3 years), but you need to be on the agencies "A" list, and yes they all have their "go to" A list reviewers: the ones who always show up on time, never bail out on a project, work lots of hours, never complain, and bug the agencies just enough to be short of harassment. (Unfortunately there are also less scrupulous factors like being a young, very good looking guy...)
5. Eventually the work will come back to DC and NYC with a vengeance. Prosecutors are already lining up to go after everyone and his brother involved in the massive loan/mortgage fraud. (At this point the Feds and State prosecutors have slam dunk cases...)
And thats it in a nutshell.
Yes, we know De Novo and the others are looking for attorneys who speak exotic foreign languages.
The question is, is De Novo or anyone else in DC looking for attorneys who are fluent only in English?
Or even English and Spanish???
Just let me take a wild guess here, De Novo has offshored its entire English-language operation to the suburbs of Bangalore, with the exception of two relatively minor projects in Hooterville, Iowa, which pay $14/hour?
Kelly's stock price has sunk to new lows.....
Update has a MAJOR advantage at S&C... Wendy, you dog you... who would have guessed!!!
I'm less and less convinced the 'India factor' is that big of a deal. (As much as LPOs would love everyone to believe it is huge).
As someone mentioned above, the difference between this economic downturn and others is the HUGE credit crunch. Even if litigation is counter-cyclical, you still need some money to fund it. Right now there is NONE.
Not sure if/when doc review will come back strong. But right now, it looks more like the economy than anything else, which is out of our, the agencies', and the firms' control.
The time to wake up is right now. Do not take it as fait accompli that outsourcing doc review cannot be stopped. These are not call center operations. There are good reasons why a JD from an American school and and law license is required to practice law. One really good one is that many foreign countries, like India, have serious problems with their legal professions. Do a little research.
The ABA and the banks and corporations, if they could, would push America back to the society that existed prior to the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and there were few regulations on corporations and banks. The corporations will get away with whatever they can until they are stopped. Obviously the times are changing and now is the time to act.
Contact the journalist who wrote that piece in the WP, your members of congress, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, the media and anyone else that will listen to get it into the zeitgeist that the legal profession is being outsourced and it must be stopped. What's next? Why not outsource Congress or the courts? Unfortunately the investment banking sector did not outsource itself so now the whole world is fucked.
This is a fight for your livelihoods so you better start acting like lawyers, unless you want sell furniture to pay off your 100K in student loan debt. Don't take this lying down, because there is nothing left to lose.
12:07
Very true and good analysis, but consider this.
Let's say you are a client which has engaged a law firm to handle a big case with lots of doc review. The client and the firm get together and cost out how much it'll take to prosecute the matter.
And the number crunchers tell you this:
If the doc review is kept in the USA, it'll cost X.
If the doc review is sent to India, the quality may be less (marginally less or a lot less).
But it'll cost 0.2(X).
You have some money laying around, but since this is the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and credit has almost vaporized, you don't have a lot.
But you absolutely, positively, have to go ahead with the litigation.
Who you gonna call?
1-800-INDIA.
The work is not going to India. Firms have legions of junior associates sitting around doing nothing all day. Despite the fact that the firms are losing money, they aren't going to fire all the junior associates at once, but let them go in batches depending on the trajectory of the economy. Expect monthly "Black Thursdays" until the economy turns around. In the meantime, for those associates still remaining, the firms are giving out document review which would normally be done by contract attorneys.
I am an Indian attorney in Chandigharh working on a document review right now, for a brand new LPO. I am sitting in a room with 80 well-qualified attorneys, all clicking away... Tell my boss the work is not going to India. Tell us! Talk to me, baby!
The work is not "going" to India. It is already here!!
From craigslist's legal/paralegal listings:
Tour guide anyone?
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/1070534727.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/1070464585.html
I have a BA in economics, and lived through the 1970's and 1980's. Here is my wisdom:
1. The Baby Boomers are the most corrupt generation in USA history. I never heard the saying, "It is easier to get forgiveness then it is to get permission", until Bill Clinton was elected president. The 'Boomers' have ruined the world economy with their greed, stupidity, and immaturity. We should name this period, The Great Boomer Depression!
2. I do not think all of your jobs have gone to India, probably just the less demanding ones (ones that could be done by anyone with an undergrad degree). The rest are probably going out of state, to 'A-List' reviewers, and to associates.
3. This economic change for New York legal jobs may be like the transfer of auto manufacturing jobs (1980's to the present day) from the highly unionized Midwest to the 'Right to Work' states of the Southeast.
4. No one in Washington D.C. knows how to fix the economy, so do not expect any improvement in the near future.
Yes, the economy is changing, forever. The professional classes are now being exported. Make no mistake, this has been underway for at least 15 years. It has now reached attorneys. Before it was just IT, Internet, etc.
What we are witnessing is the systemic collapse of our nation. We are no longer willing and able to build our products, create our wealth. No, we want shortcuts and reduced costs. We will export jobs and careers all to pad the bottom line. I would like to know how much of our TARP and stimulus money is being spent in INDIA. If even one penny is being spent, it would be an outrage.
We allow illegal immigrants to flood across the border to take jobs that supposedly "Americans Don't want". But let's face it, it's just greed.
The Indians, Mexicans and others are the equivalent of the barbarians at the gate in Ancient Rome. Our empire is unraveling at brakeneck speed. We can no longer operate a function, efficient economy. No, we have to resort to gimmicks, like "subprime credit", "outsourcing" and many other useless acronyms and expressions.
The Boomers have sold us out. They believe that we will do nothing to stop the exporting of our jobs. We are just losers and sheep, ready for them to exploit.
So greedy, Boomer run corporations will hire illegals and export jobs to India. We all know how stupid this is. It's just the same greed that ruined our economy continuing. Obama is not strong and focused enough to solve this mess. Congress is in shambles, engorged in greed and earmarks.
We will have to stand up for ourselves and demand jobs be returned to JD Holding, US Barred attorneys. Otherwise they will continue to be commoditized and disappear in the middle of the night.
10:20
I liked your rant -- well said.
What I don’t understand is why all you guys care if the doc review work is going to India? I’ve never done doc review, but from everything I gather, its dull, laborious, humiliating work done in sweatshop conditions. Having been in small law, I know that the pay/benefits is terrible and arguably doc review pays more, but you’re nothing more then a rat clicking on a mouse all day long. There are other options. How many have tried to get into the federal government? That’s where I am now, making well over 100K, with excellent benefits, tons of time off, interesting work, student loan repayment and fun people to work with. Better yet, it wasn’t difficult to get into. Outside of DOJ, there is very little elitism and anyone can get in. Yes, most of the opportunities are in DC, but once you are in the system, you can move to ANY agency, ANYWHERE relatively easily. My way in? I joined the AF JAG Corps after law school—another well paying job with no “elitist” requrements. I was in the top 25% of my third tier law school and had the most “elite” credentials in my office. Yeah, you might get sent to Iraq, but its better than sitting around complaining about jobs going to India. Do something with your life.
I have been reading these rants about outsourcing for about 6 months now - yet I've never once seen anyone provide the name of a law firm or company that has outsourced doc review (and I don't mean hype from the LPO trolls)
it seems that outsourcing has grown a little bit right around the time that U.S. English language doc review has dried up - while there may be a correlation, that does not automatically mean causation
what's probably more likely is that firms are assigning doc review work to existing associates who would otherwise be twiddling their thumbs for a very handsome salary -
other posters have alluded to the credit crunch that impedes a firm's ability to front the money for large scale doc review - that's also a likely cause
it's entirely possible that the Biglaw business model (hourly billing, most of which is chewed up by partners) is showing cracks in the facade
unless and until someone provides some proof and not just conjecture, can we stop obsessing over India and look at the structural problems in the legal industry that are trickling down to stamp out doc review?
how's Wendy a dog? Do tell?
I
just took it up the ass and offered seconds if I can get a doc review placement. Wish me luck!!!
Some examples firms using outsourcing:
http://www.iht.com/articles/
2007/08/21/business/law.php
http://blog.law-scribe.com/ (Baker MacKenzie)
I'm sure our LPO Huckster troll friends can provide more examples.
Perla? Beuller?
Where is the nice document review job with OT that prefers cute guys? What agency?
There are rarely cute guys on doc reviews. You will be in great demand.
At 11:41 the commenter said that he was on a nice doc review that preferred "very good looking guys" and that he had OT. Where is that and what agency hired him?
Unless you are a cute guy named Babu, you aren't getting an English level review.
You idiots do realize that the pigs at Biglaw billed out retarded TTT coders at 350/hr and up and gave a a shitty 35 an hour and nickle and dimed everyone out the wazoo on breaks and, in general, acted like total jerks about everything?
My hope is that biglaw itself dies altogether. They are terrible sub-human scum. Sharecroppers in Antebellum Georgia got to keep more of what they produced than doc review slaves ever did on the agency plantations.
@10:38 - you don't think being in the top quarter of your class, even if it was a third tier school is not elite? You don't think the JAG is elite?
I tried my damndest to get into Army JAG and Navy JAG and was flatly turned down. Hell, I even tried to get into the National Guard, but they said the only wasy they'd take me is if I would be an enlisted paralegal. I had a brief look at what secondary MOS "paralegal" would have required for me: Infantry.
So yeah, it's be nice pulling down 100K+ like a zoomie officer, but that path is just not open to some of us grunt-types. Screw you.
1201
The "good looking guy" comment should have been your hint 1141's is lying or exaggerating. Even the comment about the type of people getting projects is a lie. As are the hours.
Projects go to the people who are in good with the agencies (that's it) regardless of any other factor. This does not mean work or anything else.
And, about good looking guys. There aren't that many good looking guys on doc reviews. I can count the number of good looking guys on one hand or maybe two if I am feeling generous.
biglaw still calls the shots, don't delude yourself.
You owe the contract company and the client nothing. they will fire you in two seconds. many will lie to you and tell you the contract is going to continue so you dont quit.
I just wondered where the good-looking guys were? I think the Update girls entertain them and give them jobs.
1247
The good looking guys are in a different profession.
not the case 12:47,
I wish or at least would be willing but, ain't happening.
love to know which is the good looking job!
signed,
good looking
I hope chris brown starts dating some of the update staff to knock some sense into em
I waxed my ass and still no doc review
A clue is the the Update blonds who invite all the good looking guys to cocktail parties!
again- what good looking guys? "not ugly" or average is not the same as attractive.
BTW- what are the chances of getting an out-of-state doc review? I'm willing to rent a room in North Carolina for a month if I have to.
Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator, is investigating TARP money that goes to outsourcing. Write to his office because some of the banks that have taken TARP money are outsourcing legal work to India (Huffington Post).
All good looking guys should call Update and be sure to flirt with them on the phone. Doc review guaranteed.
Dammit- why aren't there any male recruiter????
recruiter-'s'. My bad.
Perhaps fewer people are litigating and that is why the doc review has dried up - no one has money to pay lawyers? Seriously I dont think india is that much of a threat.
323
It's not that there are fewer cases. It's that there is no money to finance them. The credit crunch is real. It's due to harm smaller businesses soon due to concerns over pay roll etc. This is just one example in which businesses are being harmed.
There is also the reality that law firms are over stafffed with associates right now. This is why "big law" is dying. It's a cost ineffective model for doing business, even for lawyers who are notoriously cost-ineffective in o ur business model. The big law firms need to have the remaining associates do some kind of work. This leaves us last on the totem pole.
Most of this is proveable by doing a litlte research outside of this blog.
Most likely it is a "perfect storm" of little available credit to finance operations, outsourcing, and now an oversupply of associates due to the slowdown in activity. So if outsourcing can be stopped or slowed it will result in more jobs.
You have not produced any ource of legit information (outside of press releases/article propaganda) to prove that outsource is a factor. That's why the claims over outsourcing seem to be an echo chamber effect.
Sure, and Bear Stearns is a good stock pick.
@10:50 - get a clue.
I interviewed at the NY office of a Texas-based firm in summer of 2007. The hiring partner proudly told me that his firm was working with an Indian law firm to outsource "low level" and first draft documents that first year associates normally get so that his associates could work on higher level work. Indian outsourcing is not a joke and it is not limited to document review. If you don't believe me, do your own research. There are U.S. companies and law firms that have their own Indian offices to handle such work, it's not just outsourcing to Indian firms, the U.S. companies actually operate the facilities.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the current legal landscape is not what I signed up when I attended law school. I thought I was joining a profession with ethical obligations and strict bar admissions, not a wage slave indentured servitude class. I owe six-figures in first-tier law school debt, I've been unemployed since November and I apply to jobs all day every day.
I should have gone to med school, the AMA looks after its own. F*ck the ABA.
I didn't opt for med school ... takes too long. I'm almost done with nursing school! A 2 year nursing degree will earn almost as much as doc review right out of school, and will surpass it within a year or two.
Besides, there's no FLSA blanket exemption for nurses ... like for lawyers. So, I'll be looking at overtime pay.
And, as a travel nurse the agencies pay almost all your expenses ... flight to job location (like Hawai'i,) housing while on assignment, per diem for food. Your paycheck is all WAM!
Screw law.
Cheers!
Oh yeah! Anything in health care is growing ... except health care lawyers.
:-)
7:00
Yeah, but the economy has been weird for the past 6-7months. What you're seeing is temporary in nature and not permenant.
At the moment a nursing degree is also better than an MBA, and experience with special ed. middle schoolers is more valuable than experience in derivatives.
It's temporary and will recitfy itself when the economy recovers, and it looks like that may happen fairly soon.
7:00
Yeah, but the economy has been weird for the past 6-7months. What you're seeing is temporary in nature and not permenant.
At the moment a nursing degree is also better than an MBA, and experience with special ed. middle schoolers is more valuable than experience in derivatives.
It's temporary and will recitfy itself when the economy recovers, and it looks like that may happen fairly soon.
Whatever happens with the economy the ABA has clearly failed as regulatory body and needs to have whatever authority it has over the legal profession revoked. It is a disaster for the profession and consistently underminds the integrity of the profession with its neoliberal perspective. It does not represent the legal profession as a whole but only narrow corporate interests. Matter of fact, its membership only consists of a small percentage of licensed attorneys. Why should anybody be taking advice from the ABA? It needs to be replaced with a quasi-governmental organization.
747
Are basing this on Wall St. and the stock market the last 3 days?
You should not use the stock market as an indicator of what's happening in main street America. The fact that stocks have been going up has no rational relationship to the economic news reported. Those real indicators are still going down- including employment news and GE's rating going down (which means finance is still in the crapper).
People are just trying to make a profit (short term) off of the historically low market numbers. This, however, does not mean the fundamentals have been addressed. You still have a mostly insolvent banking industry. You still have a real estate market that has not hit rock bottom yet. Those are just some of the depressing facts.
One honest Wall St type recently said people should not be fooled by the false upswing. Namely, that the numbers would go in the markets regardless of the data, but that you should use the data to make your judgement, and not the profit making happening in the markets.
The ABA is not a regulatory body.
Nobody relly pays that much attention to the crap the ABA publishes.
Besides, they're not a regulatory body anyway. The state bars regulate the attorneys. If you read their opinions they pay lip service to the ABA, and then do what they want.
We're (hopefully) at the tail end of a global economic storm at the moment. Try and stay calm and ride it out. Things will either improve or get so bad you won't have to pay your loans back.
The knee-jerk reaction to shift to education or health care will only cost money and you'll have to compete with a huge aplicant pool for the available jobs.
8:20
Whenever the market is bad the media says it will only get worse and all the news is doom and gloom. When it's on an upswing they tell you it can never fail and this is the "new" economy. Don't trust them. They use either fear or greed to make you shift your investments, so they can make a profit.
Personally, I think it takes a while for the stimulus packages to take effect and you'll see an upturn shortly. You also have to remember that stimulus packages have just recently been implemented in other countries also.
Besides, recruiters have started calling me again.
Maybe I should start investing based on that. If they call, invest. If a project is cancelled or delayed, sell. From what I've seen this has been right about 100% of the time.
I am not basing my views on what the media says. I am looking at economic indicators. My point is that you should know which indicators to use. Rising unemployment, a down rating of the credit of a major blue chip company- and that tells more than anything that happens on the market.
Debate with a snake in the Drexel law school admission's office
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=61635
Also, check out the video:
http://www.xtranormal.com/
watch?e=20090312193629652
Sometimes lawyers can be so literal that they miss the point.
My comment @6:22 about the AMA and the ABA was not intended to be a comment about whether the ABA is a regulatory body -- the point of the comment is that lawyers as a group are not taking steps to protect their professional status.
If you look at some of the decisions that have been made by lawyers over the years, (such as the move to the billable hour, outsourcing their own work, competing for work in auctions, allowing paralegals and other non-lawyers to do what essentially amounts to legal work, etc.), it seems as though lawyers would prefer to have no professional status whatsoever.
Yes, several posters were banned from TLS in a last ditch effort, to keep some sad law lemmings from soiling their futures forever, by going to the new bottom feeding TTT in Philadelphia, Drexel.
These law schools continue to produce questionable stats, screwing over young people.
1043
I see your point now. Everything you say is true, but much of this arises from the nature of the personalities involved in the law. This profession attracts some really nasty human beings who are not required to work well with others. Think about it this way- doctors must learn to work well with others as a part of the profession. Even MBAs are taught how to work in teams. Lawyers are the only professional school graduates that I can think of in which from the start of the program- its all about individualism or me, me me. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising.
9:06 says: "recruiters have started calling me again"
out of curiosity, what city are you in and what agencies are calling? you don't have to give any personal info that would out you - just tell us what agencies and are the jobs in English or foreign language?
AMERICAN EXPRESS outsources a lot of leagl work to India. Maybe the entity should change its name.
How the hell do I stop freaking Hudson from emailing me B.S. every day about reviews seeking people fluent in Latvian, etc... WTF
10:29 et al.
Doesn't the PRESENCE of all these foreign language doc reviews that have proliferated everywhere recently indicate that it is NOT the economic crash that has caused English doc reviews to disappear?
If the credit crisis were really the reason, then we would see ALL doc reviews virtually disappear, not just English language ones.
But in the past few weeks, I've seen Korean, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch, etc. doc reviews being called in DC alone.
If firms and clients have the credit to run doc reviews in all these languages, then they should also have the money to run English ones. Certainly all these doc reviews in Korean, Turkish, and Latvian are subject to the exact same theoretical credit pressures that some people say have caused firms to stop calling doc reviews altogether.
Therefore the English ones are either being shipped to India en masse, or kept inside biglaw firms and being given to associates (somehow I really doubt this), or are being "farmsourced" to small, low-cost towns around the US.
I think it's a combination of India and farmsourcing.
Document Review Attorney – Reasonable Overtime Hours!
We are continuing to seek admitted attorney candidates interested in working on large scale litigation matters.
Project Description:
This is an online review project. On this project candidates will assist with the Review and Redaction of documents related to a complex litigation matter as well as the creation of a privilege log. Documents will be reviewed for relevance, attorney work product and privilege. We expect the project to start within the next week or two and believe that it should be a multi-month project.
Required Experience:
Qualified candidates will have at least 1 year relevant experience as an attorney, be admitted to practice in any US jurisdiction, have graduated from a US accredited law school, and be available immediately.
Additionally, suitable candidates will have the following:
* Online document review experience
* Strong work history
* Excellent academic record
* Be available for AT LEAST 3 to 4 months
* Live in Richmond, VA
------
Look at the above. HIRECounsel is advertising a doc review in Richmond, VA. You must LIVE in Richmond, in fact.
It's obvious they are going to smaller cities because both labor and office space are both CHEAPER.
Richmond is close enough to DC that it'll be easy for them to send people back and forth from DC supervise this project, but far out enough that doc reviewers can't commute from DC. Therefore the labor pool is not affected by people expecting the prevailing wage in DC.
The ABA is regulatory in the sense that it accredits law schools and the accreditation is required by the state bar associations. So the ABA can flood the profession with lawyers and degrade the profession by causing cutthroat competition. Agreed, the issue is that the practiioners of the law have to take steps end this current perception that the law is just another business. It is not, thats why you have to take an oath the Constitution. The professional status of the legal profession neeeds rehabilitaiton and the ABA is actually working toward diluting the professional status with its ill concieved emphesis on neo liberalism. If we "kill all the lawyers", or destroy the gatekeeper function of the legal profession, as Shakespeare knowingly observed, corrpuption and chaos are the result.
what is best waybto give head so I can get job?0
i think i hate document review today...
10:51
You're seeing postings for foreign language, but they either get cancelled or they're staffed with a skeleton crew (like 2-3 foreign language speaking attorneys). So there's not the huge market there that you imagine.
What documents do you hate? I haven't seen one in months.
"A 2 year nursing degree will earn almost as much as doc review right out of school, and will surpass it within a year or two."
Uh, sure - but to earn money with a nursing degree, you have to be a nurse. Do I find anything about nursing even the least bit attractive? Let's see ... the whining sick people? the being on your feet all day long with never a moment to yourself? the blood and shit and vomit? the doctors who treat you like you're little more than a maid with a fancy license? Yeah, right - I really want a piece of that action.
11:18
Hey, dick, please tell me what Shakespeare said--I'm curious
600
Your argument would be more convincing if the legal industry was not full of maladjusted personality that love to whine. At least, sick people have a reason to be complaining since in some cases they may be dying. Here, on a daily basis we see people wallowing in their own manure rather than take a chance on doing anything that may actually require work. I am not interested in becoming a nurse, but I am not going to look down on them for actually doing something good with their lives. What are you doing besides taking up space and wasting oyxgen?
"A 2 year nursing degree will earn almost as much as doc review right out of school, and will surpass it within a year or two."
For the moment it will. It won't when everybody that's been unemployed runs over to health care beacaue it's "safe." Also most normal people move don't do doc. review for life.
My bet is on IT as a good place to look for jobs in 3-6 months. There's a shortage of CS grads and it look like Obamma is going to cut back on outsorcing.
I'm reading the Drexel thread over at TLS.
Good God, some of these 0L's have no idea what is in store for them financially if they plunk down $150,000 for a law degree and don't make at least the top half of their class.
The fact that people in the United States are so willing to take out outrageous loans for dubious reasons is why the world is in financial crisis. This madness HAS to stop.
IT was one of the first industries to be sent to India. Every time a group of workers gets any leverage, their jobs are exported.
Good 'ol USA! I wish we could export the Congress, perhaps we can elect an outsourced goverment to conduct business in India.
As far as Drexel, all but the top 5 or so people in every class will have trouble finding work. It's the bottom school in the entire Northeast. It's undergrad is a joke, too.
Sure, he actually had a coherent thought in his head.
I don't think there are many BS CSCI grads out of work or that were out of work even in the dot com crash. Maybe History majors that learned how to use GUIs for web development were out of work, but that's about it.
I also don't think your precious doc review work is being outsorced to any great extent. There simply isn't that much work and the remaining associates are doing it. In case you haven't noticed there are layoffs in all the industries and temp agencies that place unskilled workers (doc. review) get hit first.
6:36
I don't look down on nurses - they perform an absolutely indispensable service. That doesn't mean that anything about nursing is attractive to me, which is what I said. It may be a great alternative for some lawyers, but not for those who are introverts and who feel their strengths lie in analysis, research, and writing. FWIW, I'd hate to be a trial lawyer almost as much as I'd hate to be a nurse.
Just got off a project today with a major firm in midtown. I chatted with 5 of the associates during this project and I can confirm with absolute certainty that they're doing absolutely nothing beyond calling each other on the phone, emailing each other and surfing the internet all day.
1010
That's a fair statement. I apologize for making assumptions based on your prior statement. It's definitely good to know who you are. To be honest, it does not sound like you really want to be a lawyer either. Maybe you should look for a job involving research? I occasionally see this sort of work being advertised, but I don't what's happening with it right now. Like everything else, it maybe in the crapper.
1010
That's a fair statement. I apologize for making assumptions based on your prior statement. It's definitely good to know who you are. To be honest, it does not sound like you really want to be a lawyer either. Maybe you should look for a job involving research? I occasionally see this sort of work being advertised, but I don't what's happening with it right now. Like everything else, it maybe in the crapper.
1043
Everyone I am talking to that does have a project keeps saying they are on 40 hour week schedules. So even the workd that is there seem light.
Unfortunately, law and medicine are breeding grounds for the "average" looking. A few good looking people "slip by", but they're not going to Harvard Law School.
The hottest girl I ever dated was a law student who worked at Hooters during law school. I have yet to be with anyone hotter. The rest of the girls were average or below. I'm sure the girls would agree its the same deal with law student guys.
Thank you 11:00 PM. Paralegals need to eat too. Who do you think you are?
Are there ever jobs in NYC which require fluent Hebrew knowledge? I lived in Israel for years. Which agencies handle those types of jobs?
10:47-
That has to be the dumbest comment I've ever heard. Seriously.
There's -what- millions of people in law and medicine? And you've met ALL these people?
Like that saying goes, just because I haven't seen mockingbirds doesn't mean they don't exist.
6:00
Not yet, but I did hear of a Yiddish doc review in Sept 2008, in Brooklyn. It was run by an agency called Mushugineh Legal.
Just kiddin'. I think there actually was a Hebrew doc review in NYC very recently, in February. An ad ran on Craigslist.
LOL I heard what, I mean with WHOM that DOG has been tailwaggin' Man oh man, it's juicy stuff. She has a "super special" friend at 125.
>Projects go to the people who are in good with the agencies (that's it) regardless of any other factor. This does not mean work or anything else.<
Not so. Being good with agencies of course helps, but when a law firm tells an agency that they want specific people for a review, that's who the agencies provide (if they're available). Having an A+ track record at doc review gets you called back and also used for other projects of the agency.
>Doesn't the PRESENCE of all these foreign language doc reviews that have proliferated everywhere recently indicate that it is NOT the economic crash that has caused English doc reviews to disappear?<
Nope. It just means than in this downturn in doc review business that agencies can staff English-language projects from their existing reviewers and don't have to advertise for new people. Not so for a scarce foreign language.
UPDATE I HOPE.
I HOPE THEYT FALLL HAAARD!!!
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