Waiting For Godot

"Let's go. Yes, let's go. (They do not move)."

"Tom,

I am very frustrated. After being out of work for a couple of weeks, I got a call to start a project early last week. I was very excited. The day before work was to commence, and after tying up some last minute business, I received a call from the agency informing me that the project had been pushed back to the following Monday. After a long weekend revving up for work, I was informed by email that my project had been pushed back again. A couple of days later, the project (you guessed it) was pushed back, yet again! Screams with frustration.

Foolish me, I called the agency seeking clarification. The lady immediately became snippy, saying that the client was having issues, that they were thankful for my patience, and that I was just going to have to remain on standby. I kindly informed her that I was having issues, that I was precluded from seeking out other employment opportunities, and that if something else came along that I might have to take it. She barked back, saying that I had already agreed to be submitted for the project, that if I 'quit' that I would 'do what I had to do,' before hanging up on me.

Sadly, she probably just doesn't care. By crossing me off her list and dumping my husk on the side of the road, she probably has hundreds of other sorry saps "on standby" eagerly waiting for the job to nowhere. Sadder still, the diploma mills will be pumping out an additional 45,000 victims, and India has thousands of semi-literate reviewers who will work for five dollars an hour."

Pee In The Cup

"I heard RR Donnelley (the massive octopus legal outsourcing operation)is mass drug testing doc reviewers - if this is true, doc review is hurtling towards blue collar status."

Compliance Staffing To Shucked Off Contractors: Drop Dead And Go Starve In The Street!

Over a hundred people worked for the massive 3+ year World Trade Center litigation in the Wall Street area for Compliance LP/Patton Boggs. After the end of the project was announced for the first week of October, they kept extending it for an additional week, an additional 3 days, another week etc. In that time people were lining up other projects to jump to off as they could.

Well guess what....now that some of them are coming off their projects and signing up for unemployment benefits, Compliance is contesting ALL of the claims saying that everyone quit before the project ended! That's right, work for 3 years and get dicked around on the end date and then NO BENEFITS FOR YOU. Of course the end date announcements and revisions were always verbally announced so no one has documentation to contest their unemployment denial. DO NOT WORK FOR COMPLIANCE!!!! DO NOT WORK FOR COMPLIANCE!!!! Especially since those turds are offering a new gig at $28 an hour!

The Lexolution Chicken Coop Is Once Again Open For Business

Lex-pollution has re-opened the infamous "Chicken Coop" over on East 40th St. This time it's a Quinn case. We are only getting $32 flat an hour, and the project sucks! There are tons of tags for each document, and the associate from Quinn is strutting around the floor like a Gestapo officer.

No talking allowed, just grind out your work. No Internet access either, naturally. It's a miserable review and even more miserable work environment. They have the heat set on about 110 degrees in here or else it's freezing cold. The bathrooms are filthy as usual and often out of paper towels and soap. Maybe Lexolution should just spread wood shavings or straw on the floor for us to relieve ourselves on. It really is just like a chicken coop! Click Click, cluck cluck! Cock-a-doodle doo!

Jones Day: A Follow-Up

Tom -

The person who wrote to you about the Jones Day project left out several important details:

1. Jones Day never told Hudson that it was a privilege log review, instead telling them it was a straight review using Documatrix. Presumably, this was to save money on the hourly rate, because priv log is always a higher rate.

2. The first year associate Jaime is getting a bad rap. The real jerks are the senior associates, Marla Bergman and Joe Hand. They're the ones being nasty and acting arrogant toward the temps and threatening to fire them daily. They're also the ones who fired the entire project after the first week and then hired all new people.

So please take Jaime off the hook. She wasn't that bad and is presumably under a lot of pressure from the two senior associates mentioned above.

The "ShitFingers" Chronicles - Solo In Bankruptcy Law

The "ShitFingers" Chronicles is a new ongoing venture created by L4L's in which he deconstructs the lies put forth by Solo Practice University and the other after law school scammers, in which they try to use false hope and other after-scamming carpet bagger techniques to bilk an additional $500 out of starving, unsuspecting law graduates.

"ShitFingers" refers to certain characters that L4L came across in the bathroom vestibules of the Sullivan & Cromwell basement. "One particular guy nicknamed 'ShitFingers' liked to operate his side practice via cellphone while dropping heat in the restroom stall, giving 'toilet law' a literal dimension. Later, you’d go to wipe and find he’d captioned draft briefs on the Charmin and hidden a stapler under the toilet tank. I often wondered why he didn’t just tape his law degree up in there alongside the stall’s graffiti. No one would’ve cared. This was, of course, in the SullCrom basement, down amid the boxes."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, we talk about becoming a bankruptcy solo. For one easy payment of $495, Solo Practice University will teach you about the intricate ins an outs of bankruptcy practice, mystical knowledge which will ultimately redeem you from the cockroach infested boiler rooms of Paul Weiss hell.

http://solopracticeuniversity.com/faculty/jay-s-fleischman/

"Professor" Fleischman will teach you about cutting edge developments in cut-and-paste Chapter 7 filings, will devote a whole subsection explaining the growth of consumer credit in the United States (no shit), and just in case you were comatose in law school (and throughout the first twenty-five years of your life) will explain to you what a judge, debtor, and attorney is.

Fascinating stuff, but L4L's will have none of it:


No area of law is 'complex.' The complex thing is getting enough steady clients to make a living, as opposed to drips & drabs.

Some BK attorneys buy mailing lists of folks in trouble and do direct-mail marketing (not allowed in all states, check your bar rules). Others do the phone book/newspaper ad method. Of course the big shops use TV & radio commercials.

All of these cost money. A lot of money. A 1/2 page ad in north NJ county yellow pages will set you back $12,500 a year. That's a shitload of 'simple 7s' just to break even on your ad budget. Direct-mail is 44 cents a clip postage plus the cost of the mailing lists, envelopes/stationary, and a 1-800# (which should bounce calls to your cell, b/c if you miss the call they'll move right on to the next bozo). And of course you ad will be buried amongst the 1000s of other clowns in the phone book and lost in the junk-mail shuffle.

Or you could "network" with CPAs and finance guys who might steer you a client who's in trouble, but most of these guys worth their salt already (i.e successful) already have lawyers/firms they deal with regularly and receive mutual referrals from in return. As a new solo you have nothing to offer them, and thus they won't recommend you unless they're a close family member of yours (like your dad, cough cough).

A guy I did doc review with did BK as a solo (hence his doc review gig LOL), and spent 5 K on google ad words in NJ. Didn't score one client out of it. Unless you wanna pay big $$$ per click with a high click limit, the big mills will pwn you. Remember, these are low-ticket cases with flat fees, so you can't go too wild wasting money on ads.

I saw a diner paper-placemat ad for a BK attorney recently at a diner in Green Brook NJ. Those ads are very cheap (i tried them back in 2007 for injury cases), but totally ineffective. I did 150 K placeats total spread among 7 different NJ diners for only $375 bucks. A run of 150 K lasts the diners like 3-4 months. I got no calls at all from these ads. Not one. You'd be surprised at how abysmal the response rate is for print attorney advertising. The big mills don't buy those TV ads for fun. They're the only thing that works and they know it.

I also tried a full-page 'penny-saver' ad, a 1/4 page ad in 4 different condo newsletters, and about 4 different church bulletins. Believe it or not, the church bulletins were by far the most effective (and the cheapest- only $10 a week). I got about 12-15 living will gigs from these Catholic nutjobs who want to stay 'plugged in' like Terry Schiavo even if their brains are a pile of mush. You'd think they'd be 'dying' to meet their buddy Jesus, but at $400 a pop I didn't ask questions. And sadly, it just wasn't enough $$$ to really make it worthwhile. You see, some shyster firm saw my ad in there and decided to buy the whole back cover of the bulletins for like $150 a week. Once that happened my calls dried up. Be aware that if you do find an 'overlooked' place to advertise, some shyster will soon find out and then come in and outspend you 10 to one to 'shout out' your ad. If I'd had a bit bigger 'war chest' I would've bought the back cover (they offered it to me first), but $600 a month is a lot of $$$ for a heavily indebted Seton Hall loser.

You could always spam-bomb craigslists 'legal services' section like 50 X a day and offer to do 7's in return for a cord of firewood or some Ramen noodles. Or better yet, drop out of law school and get into a trade that people will actually pay money for, like plumbing or auto repair."

Must Drop Off Convoluted Job Application Form In Blizzard For Short-term Shitlaw Position

Please complete the attached forms: 1) Application; 2) Conflicts form. The Conflicts form can be filled out on your computer and emailed back to us.

But the Application must be filled out by hand and dropped off at our office. This has to be completed ASAP: preferably tomorrow, but if weather is too inclement, Th. morning early is fine. Also, the application asks for 10 years of employment history (please list everything), and the conflicts form asks for firm names/all adverse parties for the last three years. When you do fill out these forms, please be as thorough as possible because they have come back to us with very specific questions.

-Sara Kim

Red Flag The Ad

As many of you know, legal professionals all over the country are
suffering during these economic times. In Richmond, many who have
relied on contract and temporary assignments are being taken advantage
of as concerns wages and over-time. Moreover, we have all witnessed
the diminishing amount of respect being accorded to our peers who have
worked very hard to become attorneys and paralegals. Last minute
cancellations, misrepresentations and a general lack of regard have
become the norm.

That said, please help protect what is left of our integrity by NOT
responding to craigslist posts that do not identify the hiring agency.
The anonymity that craigslist provides, allows the agencies to gather
resumes and then undercut your pay as they fight amongst each other
for the few assignments available in the Richmond market. This results
in lower wages, greater turn over and less respect for our profession
as a whole.

You have worked hard to become a legal professional. Don’t send your
resume to a faceless email address. It hurts all of us (attorneys,
paralegals and even the agencies) in the long run. Please join me in
flagging posts that do not identify the agency or law firm in
question.

-Saint Peter

Jones Day

Tom,

I was just talking to a friend who told me to watch out for this place in NYC!

He was recently at Jones Day (two weeks ago) for a couple of days. They were fired on the spot because the slave driver felt that they were not typing entries fast enough into the privilege log. Please publish the story to alert others not to work there as the first year associates were real jerks, watching over people. The real punk was the African American female associate named Jaime. She was on a real power trip.

Has anyone else heard anything about this place? I got called to work there awhile back, but I didn't take it as I was able to land something else.

A Barren Wasteland

I was wondering if you know anything about the DC contract attorney market? Feel free to address this only in your blog, but I'm starting to wonder what's going on.

At least three of the 14 temp firms I signed up with last year have closed their DC offices, and one now appears to be placing only JDs rather than licensed attorneys. Colleagues with years of experience are finding only 1-2 week projects, and I haven't had a nibble since November 2, and that was for $25 an hour.

Is it even worth it to renew my bar dues? Is the market here dead? Or should I try to figure out if maybe this is just me and I had a bad review or something from one of the firms where I worked last year?

2009 Most Profitable Year Ever For The Paul Weiss Slave Drivers

Stuffing hundreds of heavily leveraged law graduates (earning $21 an hour without benefits) into cockroach infested basements, forcing them to slave away for 14 hour days, and then mass firing them the minute the economy takes a downturn is certainly a sure way to make oodles of money. God bless biglaw, the big banks, the ABA, and America!

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/paul_weiss_chairman_says_2009_was_the_most_profitable_ever/

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/02/what_did_paul_weiss_just_say.php

More Fallout From ABA President Carolyn Lamm's Spin Piece

Tom the Temp

[I wrote this as a Letter to the Editor to the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, January 27, 2010. They apparently were not interested in publishing this in their forum.]

I am the author of “Third Tier Reality,” a blog dedicated to informing potential law students of the risks inherent in going to law school. I am writing in this forum to weigh in on Mark Greenbaum’s opinion piece to the Los Angeles Times on January 8, 2010, and the response from the president of the American Bar Association, which was featured on Above the Law.

Carolyn Lamm asks Mr. Greenbaum to look at the number of students, as opposed to the number of law schools. Fine, let’s do that. We will look at the sheer number of U.S. law students enrolled for the 2008-09 academic year:

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%208.pdf

By the ABA’s own numbers, ABA-approved law schools had a cumulative enrollment of 142,922 students in 2008-09. There simply is nowhere near such a demand for lawyers, to justify such massive enrollment.

Now let’s look at the number of annual law graduates. According to the NALP, ABA-accredited law schools produced 43,587 graduates for the Class of 2008. The ABA reports 43,588 JDs for the same year.

http://nalp.org/uploads/08SelectedFindings.pdf (page 2)

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%207.pdf

The fact remains that American law schools are producing far too many graduates. Simply put, there are nowhere near this many available attorney positions in a given year – even in a good economy.

While we are at this, let’s look at some more numbers. Let’s take a peek at the average amount of student debt for law students.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%2020.pdf

For the 2007-08 academic year, the average amount borrowed for students attending public law schools was $59,324. For those attending private law schools, this amount was $91,506. For the 2001-02 academic year, these respective figures were $46,499 and $70,147.

Carolyn Lamm is incorrect in alluding to the consent decree between the Department of Justice and the ABA, as a reason why the ABA cannot limit the number of law schools or available seats. The suit originated due to the ABA requiring law schools to pay their professors at a certain level. Furthermore, the consent decree expired – by its own terms – on June 25, 2006. The parties have chosen to abide by this lapsed agreement.

Carolyn, if your organization is so concerned about violating antitrust law, you may want to ask the American Medical Association how it manages to accredit only 131 U.S. medical schools.

http://www.aamc.org/medicalschools.htm

http://services.aamc.org/memberlistings/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.search&search_type=MS&wildcard_criteria=&state_criteria=CNT%3AUSA&image=Search

Or you may want to confer with your counterparts at the American Dental Association to see how they are able to keep the number of ADA-approved member schools down to 58 – without violating antitrust laws.

http://www.ada.org/prof/ed/programs/search_ddsdmd_us.asp

Could it be that those professional schools actually care about protecting the significant investment of their practitioners and students? Carolyn, your organization simply needs to own up to the fact that it does not care about current law students or recent law graduates.

Nando

http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."
Bertrand Russell