Assault at Labatoilet?

"Apparently Labaton & Sucharow has come up with an unusual incentive system for its junior hires in this benefit bereft market: The right to assault & hospitalize even more junior hires. This Kapo- Kapitalist system was put to the test when one of the recent hires: (name to be confirmed) sent a fellow attorney to the emergency room with a concussion today. The cause of this treatment by this belligerent barrister was that someone asked him to turn down the volume on the game function of his iphone, during one of his infrequent visits to the work area. More on Mr. (name to be confirmed) as/if he develops; will he be arrested, deported or just plain promoted?"

Merry Christmas From Harris Beach LLP

Figured I’d pass this along. I know it was only three contract attorneys and the firm isn’t a big player, but I just was dumbfounded by the fact that they called today to tell us the project is over. The firm is closed today. It couldn’t wait until Sunday evening. Or even early Monday morning?

Merry Christmas, eh?

"As I’m walking back into my apartment this afternoon, I heard the final few rings of the telephone and the answering machine turn on. A staff person from the attorney temporary staffing agency I’d been working for these past few months was leaving me a message telling me that the project I had been working on at Harris Beach PLLC on Wall Street was over effective immediately. The firm’s current advertisement hook is 'Lawyers you’ll swear by. Not at.' How funny. Real professional too. Well, I had a few choice words for those attorneys today, that’s for sure. It’s unconscionable to call someone on Christmas Eve, when the law firm is actually closed, to tell them that their job is over effective immediately. Great timing. Wonderful way to usher in the Christmas holiday. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, right? It couldn’t wait until Sunday evening or even Monday morning?"

http://laidofflawyer.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/bah-humbug/

Happy Holidays From Quinn Emanuel

"Here are a few tales from the holiday season at Quinn Emanuel:

We all joined Quinn on an up-note. We were told we would be direct hires making $55/hour plus overtime and operating on California's generous overtime rules. The project was to be run by a heavily made up (think Jersey Shore) cheerleader and a crooked-nosed lurch from Fordham.

All went swimmingly for a week. We got our steady diet of indignity, but as it was served with a healthy dose of money, who were we really to complain. And so it carried on a week until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when they gathered us all in a great big room to tell us that our pay had been reduced by $19 an hour, cheers, and have a great Thanksgiving. Also, you no longer work for Quinn, you work for a woman at Strategic Legal with a herpee on her lip. Oh, and a baleful "sorry" to those who had canceled their holiday plans, but our work wouldn't be entirely necessary this weekend as they planned to increase our hours later.

And so they did. The week after Thanksgiving was up to sixty hours. The week after that was unlimited, but do not bill too much lest you get tired. The apoplexy and abject managerial failure obtained in the instructions doled out assiduously by the Cheerleader in a flurry of daily emails reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld's 'snowflakes.' In these emails were a delightful mix of perfect reversals in instruction with the necessary admonishments about how we should have known the entire time what she was thinking (though she didn't give us the production requests because drooling assholes like us wouldn't get such high falutin language); warnings blasted without even a scintilla of irony when people worked fewer than fifty hours the week after Thanksgiving about failing to live up to what we 'had agreed' to do; and perhaps my favorite, an email in which the Cheerleader (I'm sure to appease Lurch) lectured us children on the moral quagmire of billing while shitting. I was so shocked by the last bit that I forwarded it to a few friends with jobs at other firms.

To make the season bright, I get word today that the project looks to end Thursday. Christmas Eve. With no warning given either to those of us on the project since the Great Rate Cut or to those that started yesterday. What the fuck is this job I've got. I'm so grateful I couldn't have made plans for Christmas, seeing as I'll likely not be working after all."

Knee-jerk Positive Thinking Is A Mental Disorder

In her new book "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America", social critic Barbara Ehrenreich lays out how an epidemic of postive American thinking from the Iraq War to the build up to the recent financial collapse has led to misery and brought us nearly to the brink of economic collapse.

Ehrenreich recently noted that, "two weeks ago, I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at a meeting where people who were about to be laid off told their stories. A woman next to me said that when her unemployment insurance runs out, she'll live in her car. Then, another woman said, 'Well, we have to remember to be positive, and that means don't watch the news, don't read the newspaper, just concentrate.'"

There is no shortage of postive thinking delusion when it comes to the law school scam. The Wall Street Journal for example did a front page story not long ago questioning the integrity of the post graduate career statistics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. When it comes to delusion, facts and statistics apparently don't matter. Just last week the ass clown career center dean of the law school (Graham Sherr) gave a presentation to the unsuspecting 1L's in which he stated, "there are more jobs than there are of you, but you have to shun bitterness; bitterness is ugly." He then proceeded to demonstrate how positive delusional thinking would somehow reach out and magically bend the supply curve in the legal marketplace. Apparently, it worked because several minutes later the same fraudulent, puffed up career stat numbers that were criticized in the WSJ piece magically appeared on the overhead screen.

Labaton Suckaroo - Scrooge Of The Year

"Dear Tom,

I nominate Labaton Suckaroo for the Scrooge of the season award. I worked for them at their offsite Merrill Corp hellhole earlier this year and I blogged about the infamous Blondie who was the team leader at the site. I managed to find something else, but I have some friends who are still working on the same Countrywide project back at Labaton’s headquarters downtown. They related the following to me: Labaton promised their temps, who they made short temp attorney employees, benefits after six months of service. Last week, they were called into a meeting on their six-month anniversary and told by a nasty personnel troll that they would not be receiving their paid vacation that had accrued or be paid for company holidays, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, for this year. Some of these short term attorney employees had already planned vacation days over Christmas and got it approved, but now were told that you are not getting paid for it and that you are not getting paid for the company holidays either, and it’s too bad if you made plans. Lousy Labaton postponed all benefits until 2010 in order to avoid paying their employees for Christmas.

You can imagine what this has done for morale in a situation where they expect their short-term attorneys to build a plaintiff’s case in a multi million-dollar lawsuit against Countrywide, which was acquired by Bank of America. This is not mere document review. They expect their ex temps to do substantive work for $32 an hour flat while temps who are doing the same work, but representing a co-counsel on the same case at Labaton are making $45 an hour. Also, they recently blocked Internet access because the sleazy Guliani type COO came down and observed a few people on the Internet; apparently the same greaseball was instrumental in stopping Christmas pay.

Well, I guess Labaton Suckaroo is following in the great tradition of other ambulance chasing plaintiff firms like Paul Weiss and Milberg Weiss. I suggest you also put Labaton Sucharoo in your hall of shame. I know that they are very conscious of their image, as Paul Weiss was when you embarrassed them before, and they do monitor this blog. Thanks for providing this forum to expose the hypocrisy and abuse of these toilet law firms. I know that your blog does make a difference; Blondie almost got fired last time.

All the best!"

"Synergy"

Hey Tom, a large project is gearing up with Synergy, a new gang of pimps in the doc review ghetto. Rate is $33 flat for 40 hours. Miserable does not begin to describe the situation. The incompetent old hags from Aronld & Porters DC office are running the "training gulag."

First you have to fill out a 12,590 page conflict form listing every firm, matter, and case you've handled since being admitted to the bar, as well as the name of your first grade teacher, blood type, and scores of other irrelevant and personal info. They have been bouncing the forms back again and again for even the smallest typo or discrepancy. Apparently the case involves Avon. Let me tell you, those Arnold & Porter hags sure could use some - they should lay it on like drywall spackle and then sand off the excess.

Anyway, only 2 days into training they already cut 1/3 of the 50 coders for "failing" a pathetic doc review test (maybe they're taking lessons from Lady Barasso). Now they're in scramble mode to replace them ASAP- so all coders beware! Stay as far away from this shitshow as possible- the in-house counsel and Arnold & Porter will be breathing down your neck like it was Alcatraz. The coder/straw boss ratio is like 2:1. I'd rather ride around on a garbage truck than push paper with these devils. A & P obviously have zero experience running this size review- I'm half tempted to write the Avon CEO and let them know that their "counsel" have their heads up their asses (or are their heads their asses- hard to tell!)

A Law School Carole

When you get a chance, you just HAVE to check out this computer generated cartoon that will be featured in the National Law Journal on Monday. While I got a kick out of the ghost Ralph Marley, the shadow of the (still alive, but might as well be dead) former law student who used to rent Steve's apartment and now does document review somewhere in New Jersey, my favorite scene has to be that of the Ghost of Law School Past, one of the most hauntingly disturbing and hysterical things I have seen this year.

Scroll through the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-_wDwmOQ1U

Here's the article, including commentary from the vile crap diploma school deans and useless ABA:

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/14/spotlight-on-esq-never-writer-also-an-animator-a-latter-day-loyola-2l/

More Lexploitation

Earlier this year we told you that "Nora Moo Moo" (no, not King Kong) would be arriving in Los Angeles. Well, she has arrived and those previously nice California rates are beginning to plummet:

"Here is a Lexploitation posting on Craigslist. I know because I received the same e-mail directly from them, although they also mentioned that there will be no paid parking parking ($60/week).

On a positive note, Providus is staffing a project at 34/hr."

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/lgl/1500640581.html

Another E-Discovery Shin-dig

"Hey Tom, Did you see this? Let's Gate-Crash the E-Discovery Shin-dig!‏

Listen to some of the podcasts! We have Diane Barasso, slave-mistress of Barasso, and the Panega-3 outsourcing crew! Sounds like quite a shindig."

Learn how to most efficiently downsize and outsource your legal work to India, followed by a presentation by Lady Barasso on how best to torture those Americans remaining through "non technology solutions designed to maximize efficiency, including ways to accelerate the review teams." I am curious as to what "non technology techniques" Lady Barasso has in mind to prod the teams along, especially when she oversees one of the most stifling, demoralized, low paid review camps in the NY metropolitan area. Maybe she will give a lesson in her infamous churn and burn mass firing techniques.

http://www.ediscoveryevent.com/main/?utm_campaign=MPPosse&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=exacttarget.com&utm_content=home&utm_term=discount&MAC=IUS_POSSE_#1

Matasar's Junk Bonds

In the unregulated Wild West fantasyland of the American Bar Association, you now have a dean of one of the most overpriced law schools in the nation (who has jacked up tuition 5x faster than inflation over the last 10 years) serving as the head of the Board of Directors of a private student loan financing company. Put this together with the fact that many of the bonds sold off into the ABS market by this financing operation are now going negative, and you have one fishy situation. Lucky for the investors in the FFELP trust, the American taxpayers will be on the hook for 97% of the principal and accrued interest AND PENALTIES in many of these garbage loans.

Thankfully for us, several reporters are interested in looking into this seedy situation, while the ABA sits back and promotes outsourcing and "how to get ripped off while setting up a solo practice" promotional blogs.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fitch-Affirms-Access-Group-bw-809064258.html?x=0&.v=1

Snubbed By The "ABA Journal Blawg 100" This Year

Despite winning our category last year, it looks like we weren't recognized by the ABA editors this year. I guess our Congressional letter writing campaign and our nationwide call to defund the organization didn't go over too well.

Regardless, I urge everyone to vote AGAINST the "Strategic Legal Technology" blog for Prism Legal under the tech category. Thanks ABA for honoring an Indian outsourcer in one of the worst job markets for young lawyers EVER.

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/third_annual_aba_journal_blawg_100