Happy Halloween

Or, for those in the Sullivan & Cromwell basement, just another Saturday in the office.

The Hudson Goon

Steve the program manager from Hudson who was in charge of the Cadwalder project is a true piece of work--while he was training us he was condescending, arrogant and few times during the privilege log review when he found himself lost he lashed out at us by saying: "you are the ones who will be doing this, not me." His level of nastiness was so apparent than even the associates at Cadwalder looked at each other and kept sending texts to each other in apparent disbelief.

His arrogance was met with utter silence.

The Return of "Lily"?

"I would just like to let you and your readers know that Hudson is trying to staff a long term project at Hughes Hubbard and Reed again. I don't know if this is for the Vioxx cases that didn't settle or a new case of the same magnitude. I also don't know if they will be reopening the offsite plantation. The Eggman was canned a while back, but Lily is still around."

For those newbies fresh out of law school who haven't had the privilege of running across Lily, you are in for a real treat:

"For those who don't know, 'Lily' is not her actual name. Her real name rhymes with Lily and I will use this psuedonym to protect the guilty.

Anyone at HH knows who she is. She is a grotesque 300 lbs, and her physical deformities are utterly beyond description. Her best friend is a bag of cheetos, and her fat, mangled fingers are often coated with their orange powder. She drives her slaves (this is the slang for 'managing' temps or 'contract attorneys') offsite in a basement in New Jersey. I believe there may be windows, but I have not been there myself to verify this fact.

Lily does maintain a presence in the New York office, rather unfortunately, and we see her rear her ugly head from time to time. Probably just taking orders from some non-equity partner in charge of the firm's various doc review projects. The sole purpose of this woman's existence is to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of each slave, and to make their miserable lives as horrible as possible, all for $35hour."

Welcome to 2009! Same Lily, much lower rate!

http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/2007/04/lily-hughes-hubbard-horror.html

"Let Them Eat Cake" - The Great CLE Scam

"Every day, I get at least one email from the New York City Bar, almost always offering some expensive for-pay CLE program. Yesterday, I received an email titled Better hurry up last chance to register for CLE class! This reminds me of an Indian tout on the street trying to hook you to go into their shop to spend some dough. So much for the illustrious image of the Bar with their grand office on West 44th Street with plaques of all their famous members (100% from the big law firms of course).

I have accepted at this point that the New York Bar will never do a thing to help my career and that they will give a license to anyone who will pay their unconstitutional annual fees. But they could spare us these desperate messages for CLE money. And with it, their usual veiled threats about what happens if you don't pay for CLE and you will be disbarred.

Howard Miller, the new big firm head of the California Bar, said that his contribution will be to force more pro bono work on California lawyers. California has 225,000 lawyers and has very high bar testing and annual fees. So they throw another burden on the funeral pyre of all their thousands of unemployed lawyers. While Miller says, "Let eat cake". Since he is living off their millions in fees."

Juristaff

Tom,

Just an update. I am on that "junior" level document review that pays $23 an hour. Ironically, not one person on here is junior. Oh, well. Check out this email we received today:

"Please pick up the pace. They are expecting you to do about 80 docs an hour and all of you are less than half that. Changes will be made soon if this does not change asap."

What a dump this place is. Every week half the project leaves. We drew a little graveyard with tombstones and the grim reaper on it. Soon, it won't be able to hold all the contract attorney dead.

Paul Weiss: The Cartoon

Check out the following work from Kate Scurfield, an amazing cartoonist from England who amazingly captures the hell of the Paul Weiss basement. Thank you to the "Jobless Lawyer" blogger who posted this and pointed it out.

http://joblesslawyer.com/cartoons/101209-humor-print-1-document-review-monkeys/

The New York Bar - "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas"

"Tom, the biggest issue in the New York bar association is whether to admit ex-cons. Since they admit non-J.D. foreigners and allow outsourcing, why not ex-cons?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/03/08/new-york-sets-a-high-bar-for-convicted-felon/

Incredibly, the New York bar presented this to the newspapers as their having such a high standard, since New Jersey went ahead and admitted the ex-murderer.
Most of the people writing on the blog said he made one little mistake and should be admitted.

The New York bar will admit anyone. Despite their marble statutes and supposed grand traditions, they are all about collecting (high) fees. It's the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas that is not in Texas (even Texas has higher standards).

I once worked on a project where months into it one of the 'lawyers' was found not to have been admitted anywhere. Last bar exam, the New York bar boasted a 91% pass rate. Basically, anyone at all can be a lawyer in New York. The State Bar of California boasts on its website the constantly increasing number of lawyers. Last year I checked it was 200,000."

Paul Weiss Axes Staff Attorneys

Above the Law is reporting today that Paul Weiss is conducting a series of quiet layoffs in their staff attorney program. One befuddled tipster reported, "some of these staff attorneys have been there for seven and eight years and they are not even offering severance." Cry me a river. What do you expect from a bunch of despicable human rights violators who conduct mass retaliatory firings after workers contact the media about cockroach infested work environs and atrocious working conditions? After 8 years, Paul Weiss has thrown you out like a piece of trash, just as you have been complicit in treating countless souls like disposable trash throughout the years. Welcome back to the temp pool!

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/paul_weiss_staff_attorney_layo.php

Job Plunge

While there appears to have been a recent flurry of activity in the temporary document review job market, the overall American job market continues to deteriorate. They always say that an uptick in the temporary job market is a leading indicator of good things to come. Let's hope so, and pray that the red line doesn't continue to plunge off the cliff.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/comparing-employment-recessions.html