Boies Schiller To 40K!

I just got the most retarded phone call. Temp job out in Albany, "6 months" on the project although they claim they try to keep people on longer, doc review job with no upward movement at all, $40k a year. I'm assuming no benefits either obviously. I guess after 6 months they expect you to go onto unemployment or something. I think the girl on the phone knew how shitty all this sounded, she said "that's a lot for Albany" which I of course don't buy for a second.

They demand you start within 2 weeks of the "interview" (why interview for doc review?).

I don't even know how you'd find a place to even live in that quickly. I don't care how bad the legal market is, that is the worst thing I have ever heard. I forgot to check on hours, but I'm assuming it's at least the full 40 hour work week, if not more than that.

If you check their web page, they tout diversity and being a top law firm. Now I don't know, maybe it isn't this law firm doing the hiring, but I actually think it is, but regardless, if it's another firm placing, this firm should be angry to even be associated with that.

Please don't use my e-mail or name or anything, but I'd love to know what other people think about this. As bad as things are, this one takes the cake. If they manage to fill this, it's going to be people living in Albany with their parents, there is no way anybody in their right mind MOVES out there for something this pathetic and for a temp job. Talk about insulting.

The Law School Transparency Project

"Instead of simply griping about the shortcoming of law school employment statistics, Patrick Lynch collaborated with fellow Vanderbilt law student Kyle McEntee to develop what they hope will become a new source of information for would-be law students. The two have founded a non-profit organization called Law School Transparency with the goal of compiling detailed employment and salary information from all ABA-accredited law schools."

Good luck with this guys. I am sure you will receive a deluge of cooperation, especially from the ABA and the lower tier law schools. Your attempt at system wide transparency through carefully reasoned law review articles is admirable, but when you mess with the income streams of the lower tier law schools (who owe their very survival to scamming young people with access to mountains of subprime educational debt), get ready to get thuggy with it. You are dealing with the trashy, dishonest, seedy salesmen personas of Massasar, Joan King, the Valvoline Dean and their ilk, not Learned Hand.

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/

The Clowns At The American Biglaw Association Are At It Again

As if profits per partner weren't high enough last year, it looks like the ABA is about to come out with another one of their award winning outsourcing decisions. To all you out of work lawyers scounging around in garbage cans looking for food, relief is certainly NOT on the way. Carolyn Lamm's kangaroo commission is seeking input before they rubber stamp another employment sapping "ethics" mandate.

"YOUR COMMENTS SOUGHT
MAY 7, 2010 DEADLINE

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 is studying the ethical and professional regulatory implications of legal process outsourcing in a domestic and international context. The Commission is reviewing the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, existing ethics opinions and other literature and studies about this topic. The Commission is also interested in gathering information about domestic and international legal process outsourcing from lawyers, law firms, clients and outsourcing providers, and developed the following questions to do so. We look forward to hearing from you. Please do not feel constrained to limit your responses to the information sought by these questions. We are interested in receiving whatever information you feel is relevant. Please e-mail your responses by May 7, 2010 to Senior Research Paralegal Natalia Vera at veran@staff.abanet.org"

http://www.abanet.org/ethics2020/

The Working Professional Poor

The Offer:

I wanted to touch base with you and see if you’re available for an upcoming assignment. I have a client who is seeking 4 contract attorneys to work onsite in Bloomfield, New Jersey, starting next Monday, April 19th and I wanted to know if you’d be interested.

Here are the details:

Pay Rate: $22/hr – flat rate
Hours: 9am to 5pm (with 1 hour lunch break)
Location: Bloomfield, NJ
Expected Duration: 2 weeks

Please let me know if you are interested and I look forward to hearing from you!

Best,
Jeannine

The Response:

Jeannine,

Sorry but that rate is rejected and, frankly speaking, downright offensive.Thats less than I pay my own paralegals, and even less than someone makes after graduating from Devry.

Low wages, a lack of hours, no benefits, ballooning tuition debts in one of the highest COL/taxed areas in the nation.

Ass Clown

"TTT,

Instead of constantly putting a hatchet to the firms and staffing agencies, why don't you focus instead on some of the psychoids, perverts, and malcontents that somehow get staffed on these projects and make life a living hell?

I am currently on a nice foreign language review gig that was generally going well up until today. Some ass clown (who was probably playing around on some illicit website) downloaded a virus onto the server and crashed the entire project's network system. How about before we hire someone we run their name through a sexual perversion watchlist? Not only did dozens of people lose out on an opportunity for hours today, but just wait until the client finds out about this. Just another wonderful day in the oh-so "distinguished" practice of law."