The Sullivan & Cromwell Insane Asylum

"Now I know everyone has a favorite nick name for Albanian the Anus: ladka, Balki, wild & crazy guy, but as a member of the ESL (English as a Second Language) set he is part of the inner-sanctum at Sullivan & Cromwell. So much so that a 10k phone bill Ennus racked up in the United Kingdom to call the US to bore and confuse his coworkers or exchange animal husbandry tips with his close relatives was hidden by Pary Garchment. But what Gary could not cover up was his rank incompetence in which he lost....irretrievably terrabytes of BP documentation. Apparently they sent MF like Martin sheen in appocalypse now to relieve him of his command.

Point of order stop calling the ladies of S&C "Big Mama" it is quasi racist and not specific enough since S&C likes its underlings fat, female & affirmitive action. Next week I will tell you about either: Cokie Lopez the addicted associate, the porny paralegal & the stairwell vidoetape that Fave Digaro tried really hard not to see."

Take Advantage Of The Unemployed Week

As Congress plays games and twists itself into political gridlock, millions of Americans are losing their unemployment benefits. Coincidentally, just as benefits stalled last week, rates for several upcoming reviews plummeted. I am sure this is all just a normal function of the market and not just a carpetbagging opportunity for certain sleazy agency middlemen to stuff extra money in their pockets.

"Contracts Attorneys Needed ASAP

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Date: 2010-06-28, 6:17PM EDT
Reply to: job-ytcgp-1816081049@craigslist.org
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Fortune 500 Company is seeking several contract attorneys for a review starting this Wednesday!

We are seeking licensed attorneys who can commit to at least 10 hours a day and who are available to work through this upcoming holiday weekend and all of next week.

If you are interested, please send your resume in WORD.

Compensation: $26/hr (flat rate)"

The Subprime Student Lending Bomb

The short-seller, Steve Eisman of FrontPoint Partners, is perhaps best known as being immortalized in Michael Lewis’ book, “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” as having warned about the sub-prime mortgage mess when nobody cared. He is scheduled to testify today in front ot the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Eisman has recently noted:

“Until recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive as the subprime mortgage industry. I was wrong. The for-profit education industry has proven equal to the task.”

With Title IV student loans, “the government, the students and the taxpayers bear all the risk and the for-profit industry reaps all of the rewards.”

“We have every expectation the industry’s default rates are about to explode.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37896158

The Lord And A Million Serfs

"At the same time, law firms are instead expressing a “growing enthusiasm” for a staffing alternative—contract lawyers, according to an Altman Weil press release. Last year, 39 percent of the law firms used contract lawyers. This year, 53 percent will or might do so, while 52 percent expect that contract lawyers will become a permanent part of their staffing plans."

And the TTT schools love them, too! After bilking 40,000 kids out of $150,000, why not dump them onto your grubby biglaw partner friends who can exploit them in cockroach infested basements and not have to worry about contributing towards those pesky health/dental plan and 401K things? They will be so desperate to ward off Sallie Mae that they won't mind slaving away for 80 hours a week in unventilated, superheated basements. Meanwhile, you can share in the loot with your skeletor Joan Wexler look-a-likes and enjoy obscene, record profits and jacked up tuitions in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/law_firms_express_growing_enthusiasm_for_contract_lawyers/

Toro! Ole! HireCounsel Deflates The Rate!

"HIRE COUNSEL SPANISH LANGUAGE PROJECT IN WESTFIELD, NJ

Hire Counsel is currently seeking candidates admitted in at least one US jurisdiction for a Spanish Language Project in Westfield, NJ. The project should interview next week and start shortly thereafter. It is a document review project which should run for 4 to 6 weeks, involve 40 hours per week (no overtime) and will pay $32.00 per hour. The rate is on the low end for foreign language work but our client is not requiring any prior document review experience, just fluency in Spanish and admission to at least one US Jurisdiction. For candidates seeking to obtain experience working on a document review project this may be a good opportunity to do so."

Frozen!

"TTT, I was just staffed on a project overseen by a cold blooded reptile. She would literally BLAST the AC like you wouldn't believe, and would constantly bitch to the maintenance men about how supposedly "warm" it was. Can anyone say early onset menopause? It's no fun standing at the bus stop in the sweltering early summer heat wrapped up like Nanook of the North in your winter coat. Thirty people are absolutely fucking miserable, but nobody has the courage to stand up and say anything. Market is so rotten, so-called professional admitted attorneys are afraid of rocking the boat and being blacklisted and frozen out of low rate $20 an hour temp gigs. We all rather spend our summer days hauled up in a windowless supply closet, cryogenically frozen like Walt Disney, praying that we don't come down with pneumonia lacking health insurance. We should all kill ourselves now."

Before Benefits Accrue, Staffing Agency Swiftly Kicks Your Butt To The Curb

"I have been a contract attorney in the SF Bay area for the past 4 years or so. In that time I have worked through approximately 6-7 staffing services. I have noticed that many of them tend to "lose my number" once I have been on project(s) for 4-5 months or so.

Most of these staffing services offer benefits like paid holidays and sick time, but only to workers who have worked over 1000 hours for them. (1000 hours is approximately 6 months of 40 hour weeks.) I have had agencies send me out on projects for a while, but once I get close to the 6 month mark, I suddenly become invisible and never find work through that agency again. Whether it's one longer project or cumulative shorter projects, once I get close to that 6 month mark, the agency never calls again and sends other workers out on projects. There is never any indication of trouble or dissatisfaction with the work I've done, the work just stops.

I don't doubt that staffing agencies would use workers for a pre-determined period of time (up to 4-5 months) and then find new workers to send out on projects so they don't get stuck paying pesky benefits to their workers just because they're legally obligated to do so. I'm just curious whether anybody else has had a similar experience in becoming invisible to staffing services once they approach the benefits date."

Premier NYC TTT Law School Jacks Up The Tuition!

46K a year to attend the Brooklyn Law School Dump and Document Review Training Facility? Is the Dean Joan Wexler freakin out of her mind? For years we have called out this scoundrel and her ilk in the press for their blatant misrepresentation of post-graduate career statistics, and yet they still have the audacity to jack up tuition three times faster than inflation in one of the worst job markets and deflationary environments since the Great Depression. Pure unbridled arrogance and greed!

Georgetown Law Grad Arrives At Simpson Thacher Covered In Defecation

A van with "Georgetown Admissions" painted on the side was apparently last seen riding around McPherson Square canvassing for homeless.

"We haven't had a continuation of the awful people you can meet on projects recently, so I figure I'd send this gem along. I finished a project about 2 weeks ago and I had overheard a story about one of the coders not more than a few feet from me. Apparently this gentlemen came in one day with shit on his pants and his shoes. When he realized the awful stench of feces was coming from his person, he went right on and continued coding as if nothing was wrong. He eventually "tried" to go clean himself up (after he was coaxed and almost mocked into doing so, even by the project manager), but for the rest of the day he stayed soiled. Can you believe that some people wouldn't even have the decency to go buy another pair of pants or, God forbid, go home for the day so as to not subject others to his lack of cleanliness?"

Lowenstein Sandler

TTT,

Forewarn your readers about this dump! The recruiters are fishing around to staff another project here and will lie to your face about how great it is. They claim it is a short commute from NYC, but when you get here you will find yourself in a dangerous ghetto in the outskirt bowels of New Jersey. The guy that runs the place is a major league class act asshole. He brags about taking MBA seminars to make the place more "efficient" which means that there is no talking, cell phones, or internet. If you can't stand the misery or nausea that you develop after working at this dump after a week and decide to jump ship, the agency will blacklist you FOREVER! STAY AWAY, STAY FAR AWAY!