4/06/08-
"Dear Tom,
I was one of the recipients of the email axe from Hudson yesterday, and I guess I'm as pissed off as any of the rest of us who received the same message. They obviously didn't have the nerve to tell anyone in person. What wimps! The irony (for lack of a better word) is that, after a day without almost any assignments, David King stood in front of us on Friday and announced that the office was closing at 5 p.m. But he was quick to reassure us that that there's still lots of work ahead and that he'd see us all on Monday. The humane way of handling this situation would have been to end things then and there, and do the honorable thing by telling us the truth. At least that way we'd have had the opportunity to gather up our belongings and leave with some dignity. Now I'm put in the uncomfortable position of having to return to the office to retrieve my personal possessions when I no longer work there. I refuse to feel humiliated, but it sure will be uncomfortable.
Being treated this way is no way to thank those of us who worked extra hours and worked hard. Last time I checked, it doesn't cost extra money to treat people respectfully and professionally."
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The axe has fallen, and the anger is palpable.
"Fucking scumbag thieves (Hudson) said this project would last 4 to 6 months and send a fucking email when axing everyone. Pussies can't even call people.
David King and Vlad (The impaler) claimed that there was plenty of work....
I should have jumped ship a month ago.
Now the market is going to be flooded with us loser coders.
Read that a few people have mentioned the Newark project. Well, hate to break it to you, but make sure you have your welcoming mat down, because about 200 + contract lawyers just got fired this weekend, and they are saying the project is winding up...
Remember there are 800 of us."
312 comments:
1 – 200 of 312 Newer› Newest»I guess the scraps will be left for the "team leads" to fight over.
Does anyone know which State David King and Vlad are barred in. I think they need a bar complaint filed against them for laying/misrepresentation.
On the other hand I doubt either of those boneheads are barred anywhere, maybe the Nothern Mariana Islands :)
anybody heard anything about the Philly project??
I have been told that about 500 lawyers have been let go from the NJ office. There is going to be a flood in the market, which is going to suck.
Either way, I made about $16,000 in a month. Anyone want to join me for a glass of champagne?
Those temp leads like David and Vlad are only parroting orders from above...they don't make decisions, just mete them out to the masses. Their dominion has just been reduced greatly, but their role will be the same...being mouthpieces for the firm. Remember all of the leads are Hudson employess that hit temp lotto, nothing more. We'll see all of them again down the road, on other projects.
I bet they're worried about their own jobs now...they're just temps. When this projects ends, they go too. If the firm wanted to hire them as perm employees, they would have done so already.
OK. Now that it seems like the project in Philadelphia is coming to an end, I want to take a poll. Who are the hottest guys in the Philadelphia Office? Be honest.
The way this was done was pretty uncool. They should have said something Friday instead of King saying "we will resume normal operations on Monday" What a bunch of bullshit...I turned down 2 jobs last week for this project and now I am gonna be screwed for probably months...I cant wait till the day he gets the phone call that puts him on the unemployment line too..lol
FUCK HUDSON
Fuck that pussy David King!
I see a pattern of underachieving in David King. First, he was a fucking cargo pilot in the Air Force. Ask any military pilot who flies real aircraft (Fighters: F-16s/F-15s/F-18s, F-14s) and they will tell you the shitty pilots fly cargo planes. (My brother is an F-18 Marine Corps pilot.)
The second thing is working for a den of thieves. (Hudson)
Boy do I feel bad for the poor fuckers who don't have a law practice on the side. You're gonna be out of work for the next six months. You might as well go back to Newark and panhandle for change.
Flip Vlad and David King the bird for me when you see them on the street.
um, before people start listing out hottest guys, or hottest girls, or any other type of list that might be embarassing, Philly site isn't over. chill out people!
I find this board to be informative, but it causes too much panic. Newark probably shut down. fine. But the Philly site is surviving this "round" of eliminations. (not sure about a potential second round tho)
YAY! The losers are unemployed again and will be begging the very people they "voted" for, for work. Poetic justice. :)
Well, we all knew it would end sometime. The problem was that this project was so poorly managed that usual indicators a project is about to end (hours of sitting around without work, shutting down early) had been routinely happening since day one. On the bright side, at least I never have to see Vlad or David King ever again.
"We're not going to be open this weekend because FTI has to reset the servers, but we will be back on Monday on a regular schedule, starting at 7am"
-David King
How can anyone be surprised the project is over? There hasn't been steady work for weeks. Be grateful for the days we just sat there bullshitting, most firms just send you home if there's no work.
Sure it was a dump, but the pay was good and the hours plentiful. Time to turn the page and find the next moneymaker.
The problem I have with Hudson is the lack of honesty. Every other temp job I have done, you are viewed as a member of the "team" (even if you are on the lowest level). I always have been told by my supervisor that the project is winding down and even given notice so I could try to find another project.
Hudson, on the other hand, believes in treating us like children and telling us nothing. They lie to our faces and then call us or e-mail us after the fact. How hard would it be to tell people that the project is winding down? What were they afraid of exactly?
In other words, 4:06, let's find another project to complain about and how we don't get treated like "associates" even though our temp resumes look like diarrea.
4:09- if you want "honesty" find your own stinkin job.
I havent seen any mention here that on Friday, Hudson posted a note on the door telling people to check their emails before coming in on Monday... This after announcing we were closing at 5 and axing weekend hours... I'm assuming it is over... Any one know if its really over?
4:11-- nice spelling.
...the note on the door thing happened in philly.
Temp attorney means you work on a temporary and limited basis. You should have no expectation of job security. In return you get paid 35 bucks an hour. I recommend that you stop looking at short term money goals and start at the very bottom as an associate so you learn how to practice law, even if that means you dont make 16 grand in a month. With 500 of you out of jobs, you may be only making 16 grand for the year. There are only so many crappy temporary positions out there. So take the associate possition in a small firm for 40 grand a year and work your way up.
More bad news:
April 6, 2008
Drug Makers Near an Old Goal: A Legal Shield
By GARDINER HARRIS and ALEX BERENSON
For years, Johnson & Johnson obscured evidence that its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch delivered much more estrogen than standard birth control pills, potentially increasing the risk of blood clots and strokes, according to internal company documents.
But because the Food and Drug Administration approved the patch, the company is arguing in court that it cannot be sued by women who claim that they were injured by the product — even though its old label inaccurately described the amount of estrogen it released.
This legal argument is called pre-emption. After decades of being dismissed by courts, the tactic now appears to be on the verge of success, lawyers for plaintiffs and drug companies say.
The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.
More than 3,000 women and their families have sued Johnson & Johnson, asserting that users of the Ortho Evra patch suffered heart attacks, strokes and, in 40 cases, death. From 2002 to 2006, the food and drug agency received reports of at least 50 deaths associated with the drug.
Documents and e-mail messages from Johnson & Johnson, made public as part of the lawsuits against the company, show that even before the drug agency approved the product in 2001, the company’s own researchers found that the patch delivered far more estrogen each day than low-dose pills. When it reported the results publicly, the company reduced the numbers by 40 percent.
The F.D.A. did not warn the public of the potential risks until November 2005 — six years after the company’s own study showed the high estrogen releases. At that point, the product’s label was changed, and prescriptions fell 80 percent, to 187,000 by last February from 900,000 in March 2004.
Gloria Vanderham, a Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman, said the company acted responsibly.
“We have regularly disclosed data to the F.D.A., the medical community and the public in a timely manner,” Ms. Vanderham said. “Ortho Evra is a safe and effective birth control option for women when used according to the labeling.”
But Janet Abaray, a plaintiff’s lawyer from Cincinnati, said that Johnson & Johnson took advantage of an agency overwhelmed by its many responsibilities.
“Johnson & Johnson knew that F.D.A. does not have the funding or the manpower to police drug companies,” Ms. Abaray said.
A series of independent assessments have concluded that the agency is poorly organized, scientifically deficient and short of money. In February, its commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, acknowledged that the agency faces a crisis and may not be “adequate to regulate the food and drugs of the 21st century.”
The F.D.A. does not test experimental medicines but relies on drug makers to report the results of their own tests completely and honestly. Even when companies fail to follow agency rules, officials rarely seek to penalize them. “These are scientists, not cops,” said David Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown Law School.
Last month, at a trial over the schizophrenia drug Zyprexa, Dr. John Gueriguian, a scientist who worked at the F.D.A. for two decades, testified that the agency did not always ask for strong warnings even if it believed a drug was risky. Companies typically oppose warnings, and the agency knows it must compromise on its requests or face years of delay, Dr. Gueriguian said.
“We at the F.D.A. know what we can obtain and we cannot obtain,” Dr. Gueriguian said. “We have many, many problems, and we have a management system — what we can’t obtain we will not ask.”
For years, top officials at the agency acknowledged that lawsuits could aid the agency’s oversight of safety issues. In the last decade, suits over Zyprexa, the withdrawn pain pill Vioxx, the withdrawn diabetes medicine Rezulin, the withdrawn heartburn medicine Propulsid and several antidepressants have shown that companies played down the risks of their medicines and failed to disclose clinical trials to the public even as they have aggressively marketed their drugs.
But now, the agency says a proliferation of lawsuits could lead to an overlapping patchwork of rules that would burden companies and might discourage patients from taking useful medicines.
The Ortho case, however, suggests that Johnson & Johnson, like other drug makers, is not always quick to tell the F.D.A. about potential problems with its medicines.
In 1996, the company told the agency it planned to develop the Ortho Evra patch in part because it would be likely to expose women to less estrogen than pills. The company suggested that the body would not break down hormones delivered via the patch as readily as the pill, so lower doses could be used to achieve contraception. And unlike the pill, which must be taken daily, the patch is changed weekly.
High doses of estrogen are known to raise the risk for blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes.
But a crucial trial completed in 1999 showed that the patch delivered 30 to 38 micrograms of estrogen into the bloodstream each day, according to company documents.
Because up to half of the estrogen in pills is lost in the digestive tract before it reaches the blood, the study suggested that the patch delivered an amount of estrogen that could be as high as a pill containing 76 micrograms of estrogen. In 1988, the F.D.A. banned birth control pills with more than 50 micrograms of estrogen.
But the study’s author, Dr. Larry Abrams, who has since retired from Johnson & Johnson, decided to apply a “correction factor” to the results of the 1999 trial, according to documents. He claimed that the patch actually delivered about 40 percent less estrogen than the trial results showed — about 20 micrograms a day.
Dr. Abrams made the change, according to his deposition, to adjust for the different ways the body metabolizes hormones from pills and patches. This adjustment was never part of the study protocol, a plan filed with the F.D.A..
“The judgment was made by the pharmacokeneticists at the time that in doing the calculation, it was probably appropriate to make that correction,” Bob Tucker, a lawyer representing Johnson & Johnson, said in an interview Thursday. “Later on when people looked at it in a different time frame, they concluded that probably the correction shouldn’t be applied.” The company mentioned its decision to use the “correction factor” only once in a 435-page report filed with the F.D.A., and then only in a complex mathematical formula. When the study was published in 2002, there was no reference to the alteration.
Mr. Tucker said that the F.D.A. was aware of the “correction factor.”
Clinical trials conducted before the patch was approved raised other red flags, as patients complained of breast soreness and nausea. “The side effects seem related” to high estrogen doses, one company scientist wrote in an e-mail message.
Two other studies, one conducted in 1999 and another in 2003, confirmed that the patch released more estrogen than the pill. Still, Johnson & Johnson delayed reporting those results to the food and drug agency, according to documents that have been made public in lawsuits.
After the patch was approved, the company marketed it as releasing 20 micrograms of estrogen to the blood every 24 hours, a figure it now acknowledges was inaccurate. It also acknowledges that the patch releases more estrogen than the pill but says that the estrogen released under the two methods cannot be directly compared.
The New York Times provided the drug agency with a copy of a court brief and asked whether agency medical reviewers were aware of the “correction factor.”
Rita Chappelle, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, replied, “At present, we are reviewing the allegations and cannot comment further at this time.”
Prescriptions for the patch grew rapidly after its introduction, reaching more than 900,000 by March 2004, according to data from Wolters Kluwer, a company that tracks prescription trends. But as the use of the patch rose, so did reports of side effects.
By 2004, after the death of Zakiya Kennedy, an 18-year-old college freshman in New York, food and drug officials had become concerned.
In November 2005, the agency announced that it had placed a warning that the patch “exposes women to higher levels of estrogen than most birth control pills.”
Since then, an epidemiological study has shown that women on the patch can have as much as double the risk of blood clots than those taking pills. And prescriptions for the patch have fallen 80 percent.
Still, lawyers for Johnson & Johnson say that patients should not be allowed to sue the company because the F.D.A. approved the patch and its label.
“F.D.A. is responsible for making those decisions,” said John Winter, a lawyer for the company.
Judge David A. Katz of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio is expected to rule soon on whether any of the lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson can go forward.
In the fall, the Supreme Court will hear a separate pre-emption case involving Wyeth, another drug company. Chris Seeger, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who has about 125 Ortho Evra cases, said he expected the court to rule in Wyeth’s favor.
“Our lawsuits are the ultimate check against the mistake made by the government, or fraud made by the companies against the government, or just an underfunded bureaucracy stretched thin,” he said.
Janet Roberts contributed reporting.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
It is not over, there have been drastic cutbacks at both sites. I have heard that it went from something like 600 in NJ (maybe 800 like the post suggests) to like 250. The Philadelphia site has lost about half of its staff of contractors, which may mean all of those who have come in since the first of the year.
Hudson definitely screwed people on this project. (nothing new) I even heard that on the Wednesday or Thursday after the March 17 deadline Hudson was trying to staff additional people on the project. The reason that they staffed up in the beginning of the year was to meet that deadline.
This is why we need a Democrat in the White House.
Temp attorney means you work on a temporary and limited basis. You should have no expectation of job security. In return you get paid 35 bucks an hour. I recommend that you stop looking at short term money goals and start at the very bottom as an associate so you learn how to practice law, even if that means you dont make 16 grand in a month. With 500 of you out of jobs, you may be only making 16 grand for the year. There are only so many crappy temporary positions out there. So take the associate possition in a small firm for 40 grand a year and work your way up.
There is definitely something to the Preemption issue in this type of drug case. The case next fall is something like Wyeth v. Levine. See also the cases Medtronic v. Riegel and Warner-Lambert v. Kent, and what happened with them.
Drug companies like A-Z are going to hold out on their litigations until at least this fall to see where the judges stand in oral arguments, and maybe until next spring for a decision. Depending on how the Supreme Court decides they will either settle or get the case dismissed. That will be the final end of the project.
Pay attention. The economy sucks right now. Inflation is up, gas prices up, housing prices up, and salaries down for anyone not in the top 5% of their graduating class from a top 50 law school. Jobs are tighter than ever, and most small and mid-size firms will be unwilling at this time to bring on a new lawyer, especially one that has already been out law school for more than 6 months and has no experience except Document Review. They would rather just wait until the new law students graduate and take the bar exam, and then abuse them by paying 30-35k a year and working them for 70-80 hours a week and not giving them any responsibility or opportunity to develop useful skills. There are no more real opportunities to work your way up in the legal field unless you go solo, and for most that is fraught with its own problems.
Hudson, in this latest fiasco, proves itself to be the absolute nadir of this gutter profession. Anyone accepting work from these deceitful slimebags, should do so at their own risk.
This is why we need a union. It could help protect us from Unnecessary staff ups and sudden lay offs. It could get the agencies to deal with us more honestly.
Yeah, the only problem with not accepting jobs from Hudson is that at least in Philly for the last several years, Hudson has always had large projects that they could place you on. They were at least a good fall back. If not accepting work from them, you could go a long time between contract jobs.
Yeah it was "contract work" and maybe there were "signs" that the project was winding down, but...come on! Treat us like human beings and give it to us straight. Don't bother with the "we are ramping down slowly the same way we ramped up" and the "we will resume normal operations on Monday" and the "we really want to keep all you guys" song and dance. There most certainly was a more professional, less shady, less spineless way of concluding a three month long project that was supposed to last six plus months. In addition, it may not have been the smartest move , but people left their belongings at the office simply because so much time was spent by David King reassuring us that we would return on Monday!
MY PEEPS: THERE'S A FAT LADY ON MULBERRY STREET.
Did the team leads just e-mail people? Or was it an e-mail from one of the recruiters, Julie Dailey, Lauren, etc? If it was an e-mail notification does anyone have a copy of the e-mail?
It has been my experience that generally a recruiter will call you to tell you that you are laid off, not just e-mail.
For all those laid off, make sure you contact the unemployment office immediately. Hudson will get hit with a bunch of unemployment claims at one time, and they will want to try to minimize that damage and find new placements for you. Play the game, and forget about the idiots with the poor business plan.
For personal things that you left there, if it is like the Vioxx Project, then you will have to go to the front desk guard and try to get all of your stuff from him. If something is not in there, it is because the team leads forgot to pack it up, but be careful, do not approach them directly, go through the recruiter if something is missing. I heard there were some real problems with this process on the Vioxx case.
so now that we know that the Philly project has ended for alot of people...can we vote for the hottest guys?
i'm not sure about any of this...i got a "Congratulations you're not fired!" email last night around two am. Maybe don't get all worked up just yet...
Well I am from the Philly project and I started in January. I just got the email letting me know the project has ended for me.
Well buck up, waiting tables pays about the same, and at least drinking on the job is usually allowed, and if not allowed, easier to do without being noticed.
Here's the email I got from Hudson:
Good morning, we hope all is well.
We at Hudson are writing to you in reference to your contract position with McCarter & English. We have received word that McCarter & English is making significant cuts in staffing on the Seroquel project in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York City. If you have received this email, your participation on the Seroquel project for AstraZeneca has ended. Due to the volume of those whom we need to contact this morning, we are emailing you rather than calling you, but we hope to speak with you in person early in the coming week.
Please respond back to this email with a short note today to let us know you have received this message.
We hope that the project has been rewarding for you, and we very much appreciate all of your hard and terrific work and dedication to the project.
If you would please forward a copy of your updated resume to us at Fred.Deleon@Hudson.com, we would be very pleased to contact you regarding upcoming projects for which you qualify. We have been quite busy and will hopefully have new opportunities for you in the near future.
Again, we appreciate all of your hard work and look forward to a continued relationship.
With our best regards,
The Hudson Placement Team
(212) 351-7400
I just heard that apparently some Philly people who started in January were saved by their team leads. I wonder what criteria was used to make that decision.
LIARS, FUCKING LIARS! Throw us to the wolves and reassure us 10 times about how we will "resume normal hours Monday". What was the point of such mendacity? That's what pisses me off. If you want to can us, okay, but don't put on this show and dance about how we will all be back. Twatfaces.
Philly is apparently running at 75% strength. An earlier note said that the workforce was cut in half. It seems that just the "new" people who were cut in half. So if you were onboard before this January, you're safe. If you came on in January, it's a rough 50/50 shot that you were safe. Philly people were never told that "normal hours resume Monday." Most people saw something coming.
great! So what about the hottest guys in Philly?
I think Casey is pretty good looking. Anyone else care to add?
does tom the temp have a fiduciary duty to all of the temps that were released and post new positions or will he apply first and post second.
What about hottest girls?
7:06, that's not correct- there were some cuts from people hired in the second-wave/early-August group.
What about King last week. "There is plenty of work, There are hundreds of thousands of documents he said. We are just waiting for them to come in." Lying sack of shit. Based on those lies I turned down 2 other doc review assignments last week. Rule of thumb never believe any of the lies. Lesson learned.
David King is an asshole!
Stop complaining 7:20, you will be back at Hudson's door as soon as they have the next gig. And if you don't like it, you know what you can do? Get your OWN job where you get treated the way you think you deserve. You are free to walk. Land of the free. Don't sign up then complain- you can't have it both ways.
I like how he threw smoke and mirrors at us with that bullshit about being fired if we propped the door open: nice decoy.
They also loaded up the kitchen with boxes two weeks ago, enough boxes to feed a small country, another decoy.
Are we that fucking stupid to fall for that bullshit, I guess so. Praise the fellow coders who smelled the bullshit and took new projects weeks ago.
Hey 8:05 go F yourself eh? FYI I did not work for Hudson. Lots of people are complaining in case you have not noticed.
Yes, 8:05, and you will continue to fall for it again and again since you have no choice but to temp. I'd shoot myself if I were you- nothing is going to get better.
Hey, did anyone see last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica? Boy howdy, that's good stuff! So, who do you think is the last cylon? I think it's probably the president, but it could also be Starbuck...or Adama. I guess I'm just not sure. wooo weee....good stuff!
Strategic employees still have not been notified... I called them this morning and they said they hadn't heard anything and would get back to me.
Holy Frak! Julie Dailey is a Cylon!
By the way, have you all accepted Gaius Baltar as your personal Lord and Savior?
No one wants a list of the hottest people in Newark? Is that because it was without a doubt the ugliest collection of people on the planet?
I was told by Hudson that Newark cut 75% of the workforce, so some people will be there Monday.
Were Newark folks especially ugly? I just thought we were especially asinine. Any Strategic folks out there with any info?
Hard to imagine that Strategic would be spared...I would guess only Hudson folks are left at this point.
There was no "last in, first out" in Philly: team leads were asked for a list of 7-10 names to cut per team. Half of the project consisted of teams made entirely of people hired in January and later.
Although it may be premature to consider yourself a survivor(plenty of time to send out e-mails on Sunday), what do you think is in store for those who remain? Major cut in hours? Are weekends a thing of the past? Do you see any team leads returning to the coder position? Agree all the signs were there. They moved people around for the past two weeks in Newark. The McCarter people said it was coming, so it is hard to understand why the Hudson folk handled it the way they did.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine that Strategic people were spared when Hudson controls the project but how could Strategic not be aware of the cuts as of Saturday, and even weirder, why would they lie if they were?
My guess is that somebody at Strategic has been alerted but hasn't felt the need to let it trickle down. Passive-aggresive perhaps. Bordering on evil? Hmm...
I have to admit that the Newark project had some great people there. I made a lot of friends.
Lisa Carlin was an exceptional team leader and she's too good for this bullshit work.
On the other hand, half of the people were unemployable psychotic morons, these were mostly people over 40. For the most part the young folks were normal.
Ageism isn't cool, dude... You're better then that!
Strategic people were notified this morning. I guess it's easier to lie when you're getting paid.
It called temp work for a reason. Stop whining and get a real job if you don't like it. Nowhere is it guarenteed that you would get a Firm job once you graduated from law school. If you spent as much time looking for a job as you did complaining you would might have found one by now.
You whiners are all ungrateful morons that should be happy someone offers you this opportunity to work at all.
Yawn - 11:36 you are just cutting and pasting the same idiotic, long-winded abuse over and over again.
You are the fat, stupid and lazy one. I bet you were too stupid to even get into a decent law school. That's why you are slumming it as a temp recruiter and spending your time on this blog. You are pathetic, go out and spend Sunday away from your computer.
Fine, you can fire us at any time, but don't fucking lie to us about. Why couldn't King just have said on Monday, Friday is last day for X people, and Y people can come in on Monday. Instead we get a fucking email on Saturday morning.
And how pissed are the poor SOBs who show up on Monday at Newark because they didn't read that pathetic email? I have friends who commuted from Philly. I hope one of them shoves his no good Hudson badge up David King's ass when he sees him.
It's called temp work because it provides temporary work, doesn't mean you expect to be treated like dirt. Are we not human beings who can be trusted to leave the building at 5:00pm on Friday with the knowledge that we won't be returning? Do we not want to say goodbye, collect a few phone numbers, toast the project, like regular people? Would you want to humiliate your fellow lawyers, often 20 years your senior? You gonna stand in front of fifty lawyers and say it "disgusts" you to have to annonce that someone is stealing food from the third floor, or announce that technically you're supposed to space out your 15 minute breaks by 4 hours? On the whole, the adults in the room are the temps.
What's pretty funny is that they hired 50+ just two weeks ago, promising 3 months of work.
Maybe the client got a whiff of this blog and pulled the plug. On the other hand, D. and the others are just temps and were probably in the dark as well. The reason they hire team leads like him is to act as sponges and shock absorbers for all of the hate and venom, so the firm doesn't have to take a direct hit. It's a pretty effective strategy, the coders end up hating Hudson and the team leads, but not the firm so much. I think most of us would be hard pressed to name even one firm person on this case.
Hudson earns its money in times like this.
11:36, is that you, Doug Lee? We all know you used to bend over and take it up the ass from Simon. Are you doing the same thing at McCarter now?
I love lamp.
12:36-- Amen! I've been on other temp projects where I have been given two-weeks notice that the project was going to end. It is Hudson's MO to lie and then call or e-mail you after the fact. Just because we're temps doesn't mean they have to treat us like garbage.
Yes, 1:14- you are garbage in the legal world and you will continue to get treated as such. Contract attorneys are the UNWANTEDS. There is no incentive for anyone to "treat" you better. You are replaceable 100x over. This loser blog has been up for over 2 years and you have nothing to show for it but further damage to your already garbage resume.
It's much easier for Hudson to treat you like garbage. What always makes me laugh is that these slobs at the agencies have the gall to call us their "employees". It's nothing but a legal fiction to serve their slavemasters, the law firms.
Hudson treats its employees really well, eh? Mass firings by e-mail, no advance notice. Abusive team leaders that falsely accuse you of stealing food. The basest and most utterly disgraceful swine on the planet. This is what you get when you work for those assholes at Hudson.
So 1:26, how does it feel to have to work for them? When no one will hire you perm and with those loans on your back... you are at the beckon call of "those assholes" and every other agency. Clearly you can't make money without them. HAHAHAHAH!!
Hey 1:19/1:33, instead of putting down the people who post here complaining about the agencies why don't you actually try defending the actions of the agencies? Yes, the temp attorneys need the agencies. No one is disputing that. And, you're right, a lot of the temp attorneys ARE losers. But what do the agencies get out of treating them like shit? There's really nothing in it for them other than the obvious joy they get out of being a bunch of assholes. You're certainly an example of that.
The Philly office team leads were allowed to hand-pick their favorites to keep on regardless of seniority or actual quality of work...
Wonder if they kept the guy that nods-off and falls asleep 10 times a day?
My one gripe is that there was not some uniform way of cutting down the teams. I worked more hours than some people who were kept on. I can't say I'm surprised that when it came time to choose favorites, I was not someone my team lead would pick. Why? Well, both she and I know why and it certainly wasn't for underperforming. I take solace in karma--what goes around comes around.
1:33-- what the hell is a "beckon call"?
That's the funny thing: those who were let go will probably be the first onboard the next assignments and, as a result, may find themselves with seniority and with team-lead status.
When the McCarter project finally ends, half of the team leads for whom this is their first contract job (the other half know better) will be surprised to find themselves out of work and (gasp!) not being offered a permanent job with Dechert/McCarter like they think is coming ("...you mean my foot isn't in the door!?!?") as a result, they'll find themselves taking the next available job, probably in the second or third wave of hirings for whatever cases arise, and, most likely, under the team-lead direction of people they axed this past weekend...
FUCKING HUDSON!
You are not temporary attorneys, you are temporary paralegals, trust me. You are no longer practicing law.
You can be Teri Shiavo and do your job. You are a all pathetic. Just take your money and shut up and go to the next "project" and use your "skills"
Wah, Wah! We should be treated better! Wah wah everything should be handed to us on a silver platter! Wah Wah we want free money we dont even want to work for it. Wah Wah it's no fair that we took out student loans, we did not know we had to pay them back.
Love,
Sleazy Recruiter
3:15 is spot on: Hell will freeze over before McCarter or Dechert (a real white shoe firm unlike McCarter) hires a lowly pathetic team lead coder from a toilet law school.
Of course not, they would have hired them already if that was an option. Why would they wait until after the project, when they're no longer needed to hire them?
Sleazy recruiter, if you think there's too much complaining then maybe stop treating people like shit and watch how fast the complaining stops.
Also, get a life.
I am neutral. Its humorous that attorneys who suffered through 3 years of law school and a horrible job market would actually be bothered and/or take the time to respond to trolls on this forum.
Equally amusing is the fact that purported "associates" and "agency employees" would take the time to troll on this forum. If you don't know anything about the internet, then you are probably upset by these trolls.
They are probably temporary attorneys who are just trying to stir the pot. Or, perhaps they really are "associates" at a big firm waiving their superiority complexes in your face. Either way, they are pathetic for trolling, and you are pathetic if you let their trolling get to you.
That said, I feel badly for the people who lost their source of income. I predict that we are one election away from the end of tort reform and an explosion of litigation. There is blood in the water, and the sharks are coming.
As a temp, I feel like there should be some amount of warning. At the same time, that note on the door was an adequate enough warning so that if I had photos at my desk or food in the fridge, I'd go grab it.
But still, it's hard for me to believe that so many people are "shocked" that the lay-offs came with so little warning. It's often that way in the temp world. And forget the temp world, it's often that way in the real world. Even if you've never had real world experience, watching tv or movies would expose you to the scenes where people walk into their offices thinking they have jobs but soon walk out with a paper box full of their possessions. It happens in an instant. The only difference is, if you get fired, you usually get severance. But not so with temp jobs.
In addition, it's hard for me to believe that none of you guys can see problems with giving advance warnings. I mean, most of us act pretty decent, but you all know that there are always a handful that would blow their lids. What should the higher ups do? Keep a disgruntled employee at the desk for another week or so. When President Clinton left the White HOuse, a lot of his political appointees' staff thought it would be funny to rip off all the "W" keys on the coputer keyboards as a joke (or not as a joke). We all know for a fact that at least one or two people would do something equally assinine, even if 99.9% of all people would behave rationally. And then you risk having people behave even worse and perhaps requiring security to come drag them out kicking and screaming. (this has actually happened at one project i previously worked at). The no warning "surprise" lay-off is the result of the very few ill-behaved persons ruining it for the rest of us.
Its unfortunate the way Hudson/McCarter handled this matter. However, I hope that we all get on new projects relatively soon. Good luck to everyone out there ... later.
if there are 500 laid off, do you all expect the next job to be open to 500 people. plus the new bar results come out soon. supply and demand, looks like there are to many doc reviewers out there and to little openings.
A temp talking to Hudson:
Thank you sir may I have another?
Thank you sir may I have another?
Thank you sir may I have another?
90 hours and win a free t.v.! HAHA, suckers, you all worked yourselves out of jobs!
Its amazing how long it's been and you morons still think you deserve 2 weeks notice, or that your "income" is gone. It's a FUCKING *temp* job. That's right. Temp=temporary=contract. It comes on with no notice, as in you don't get to pick your start, and it leaves you with no notice. None of you stupid fucks complain the job starts with no notice like a perm job. Guess what? It's not your JOB. It's a temporary situation.
tem·po·rar·y
adjective, noun, plural -rar·ies.
–adjective
1. lasting, existing, serving, or effective for a time only; not permanent: a temporary need; a temporary job.
–noun
2. an office worker hired, usually through an agency on a per diem basis, for a short period of time.
Love,
Sleazy Recruiter
You wonder why no one tells you in person, simply read this blog. Your all a bunch of nuts ready to shoot the place up. Clearly no one here has a clue what it is like to work as an associate in a Firm. If you did you would realize temp work is a dream compared to the miserable treatment and low salary you get as an average associate. And no, the job security is not better and the notice for being let go is just as short.
Stop acting so entitled and do something with yourselves besides griping - even if you need to switch professions...
Oh- by the way - Simon is a dream compared to the average partner at a Firm..your just too immature and inexperienced to realize that...
I was dissed for pointing out the supply demand equation last Thursday, way in advance of the Saturday hone calls. Indeed, my sources were correct, there is very little long-term, good paying doc review projects for quite a while. Find a job with the government or a small firm before June, it gets worse in the summer for contract review jobs, if you don't have something lined up by Memorial Day weekend..........you'll sit the summer out until late August, if you don't do something fast.
The "protecting the safety of the reviewers" rationale behind the unprofessional email terminations is bogus. When I worked for Hudson, we would constantly raise red flags about an emotionally unstable reviewer, who used to drink vodka out of a flask, would repeatedly mutter to himself, and would oftentimes wear a large trench coat to work. Hudson of course did nothing, as they needed warm bodies for the crappy project.
7:49- I assume we'll be seeing you at the next Hudson project as well. Like the rest of the babies on here, it's just wah-wah-wah complaints and no action. I bet you already called Hudson with your availability.
your agency gets you the job i thought and that is it. they also pay you. that is all you do how can the agencies be bad? it's an honest question.
just because the firms don't want you talking or surfing the net , how is that the agency's fault or how does that make a recruiter sleazy?
please respond in detail? I would appreciate detailed responses so I can understand why everyone is so upset.
What I love is that there was a fairly large contingent of folks from out of town on the McCarter project - DC, Deleware, PA, NY, etc. Since David King (lead of the Hudson folks and agent for the law firm) told us all explicitly that there was plenty of work and to return on Monday morning, a lot of folks packed up and went home -- leaving tons of things in hotel rooms over the weekend. Of course, none of us got word of the cuts until well after we left leaving a huge mess to try to get back to Newark and get our things, cancel hotel rooms, and figure out if and when we'd get things we errantly left at the firm. For once, albeit temp town, I believe that we have a bona fide claim for fraudulent misrepresentation and detrimental reliance against Hudson and McCarter English for the financial cost and hassle of getting things for the out of towners. Can anyone say - class action against them? I can! Stay tuned McCarter, we are going to nail you for punitive damages on this one... and you can keep your sewage overflowing disgusting bathrooms for yourselves and those cohorts from Hudson that were in on the fraud.
"Class action against them"?
HAHAHAHHA!! Right after you strike, unionize, sue the agencies, and um.. what other bullshit? I've never seen a bigger bunch of all all whine no action pussies in my life.
punitive damages, fraud, reliance, class action?
TEMPORARY ATTORNEY!, haha. key word, TEMPORARY.
doesnt even pass a laugh test. no wonder you are a temp. you have no understanding of the law. guarantee you will jump on the next project like a trained monkey.
I can see the agency sock puppets have found the site.
Yup, we found this site. And we ain't never giving you more toilets, suckers!!
Next time it's a porta-potty on the side of the road outside the firm. And you'll STILL be begging us for assigmnents.
Is this the Hudson Julie Dailey?
"How do I know how other women feel about their bodies? Because I have lived it. Until I became a nudist, I was convinced of my lack of worthiness because my body never fit the stereotype. Even when I only weighed 107 pounds, I thought I was fat. Off-the-rack clothing never fit my shape."
http://www.cirrus.kcsky.net/newnude.html
8:17- time to get a life. You clearly can't get a job.. but trying to stalk recruiters? Wow. You are more pathetic than your fellow coders.
I still have dreams of being naked in public, but they are no longer nightmares. They are glimpses into a soul set free. Fear no longer dictates my direction, so I can turn my attention to more important things. And from now on, I will play naked in the mud whenever I can.
Julie Dailey Copyright © 1997
Why does Hillary always lie?
Wait...is this Daily Kos?
Why are atty temps obessesed with recruiters more than they are the law firms?
Why, o' why?
Are we still getting pizza on Fridays? I hope so. Cause it would really suck if they stopped doing that. I love pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza. I like plain pizza the best, but mushrooms are good too. I love mushrooms. I hope the dude that gets all the donuts didn't get laid off, cause that would suck too. But I guess I would spend less time at the gym, so that's not so bad.
I love lamp.
At Sean's next big binge drinking party, I suggest we have a mud-wrestling party. It's everyone against big butt Sandrene.
Dear Sleazy Recruiter:
You would not have a "permanent job" if were not for the temporary attorneys. Or maybe no job at all. Look at the bright side, if it were not for us you probably have to consider taking a place in your true profession. How does it fell to be a pimp?
It feels great! I get a steady paycheck, great medical benefits and there's never a shortage of
"lawyers" blowing up my phone begging for work.
And if some get pissed off, who cares? There are always others. Most are assholes anyway who think they should get treated like associates. The firms just ask me to cut them when they get too self-entitled. It's cool.
Is it bad that I actually like my recruiter?
I thought our job was going to be 1-3 weeks, and we got 4 weeks. I call or send her emails, and she actually replies. She even bought me cookies one day.
I worked at a firm as an associate for a few years, but I prefer to work temp for lifestyle and personal reasons. I am not stressed out any more and I have time to travel. I know my dog could do a temp job, but that is the beauty of the work.
If my recruiter gets me the job, I am more than willing to click away like a trained monkey, and make us both money - and the money was really good on the McCarter project. I actually got paid for 2 days of just sitting on my butt! $800 a day!
If i cant get a job for the next few months, that is fine.. I will just head over to Mexico, sublet my apartment and chill out for while.
Thank you De Novo for setting me up with this total joke of a job!!
8:49, that was the most honest post i have ever seen on this site. thank you.
you do not make yourself out to be a victim. you take the money and understand the work is not difficult. thank you.
Of course it's bad that you like your recruiter. You are supposed to stalk them and look them up on linkedin, and try and find out where they live. You are supposed to threaten to sue them. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU??!!!!!!
As per my conversation with the Hudson Recruiter who called to see if I got the email -- apparently there was a conference call btwn Hudson and McCarter at which McCarter, against the advice of Hudson, chose to move forward with at least one giant mass firing rather than give people notice that cuts were imminent. So, if you believe that, it was all McCarter's idea. The prior speeches by the McCarter partners and the Friday speech by David King were just special performances to keep US from bailing on THEM. Now Hudson has to deal with HUNDREDS of pissed of attnys and McCarter gets to pretend like nothing ever happened. It totally WON'T be awkward at all in Newark (or Philly) on Monday.
Hudson doesn't have to deal with pissed off attorneys. There are more of you monkeys. You are replaceable.
McCarter is a toilet. Go temp at a real law firm.
8:57pm, thanks for the info.
Hudson contacted me today, Sunday, at 8pm. I began in Newark early January, and it was a good run. I'm filing for unemployment online tomorrow in New Jersey until the next one. So long, folks!
That's it, I am tired of this crap. Send the Astra-Zeneca documents to Michael Moore.
If Hudson had it their way, the project would have went on for ten years. Yes, David King is a liar, but his whole life is a lie, but that is besides the point Hudson's goal is for the project to go as long as possible. Hudson could careless of how well you perform. The company's in-house counsel is the liasion between the company and the outside law firm. The law firm set the guidelines for the project environment. Please explain to me how Hudson is the malicious culprits... Explain how it is appropriate to read papers, talk on cell phones, and conduct your private practice while billing the client. And for the record I was released.
My dad paid for law school. I have a trust fund. I drive a BMW and live on the Main Line. I have a house on the Cape and another one in Aspen. I am the classic underachiever. I don't like to work hard. I am for the Bush tax cuts, but the war is a crock of shit. I take great amusement in David King and some of the team leads. Some of the team leads are cool. I like sealing wax. Greed is good. I like big butts. I like to skate on the other side of the ice. I have the world's largest seashell collection. I keep is scattered on the beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen it?
Wow, such hostility and antagonism. We all went to law school, worked hard, some of us had great jobs before the economy crashed and burned, or maybe some of us like myself made a bad job switch and were left needing immediate income. We all passed the Bar, we are all capable, and I am sure not a single one of us went to law school with the intention of being a coder. But shit happens in life, and we ended up here. Sleazy Recruiter, you are a trained monkey just like the rest of us. I should know, because I was a recruiter (abeit briefly) and it was so distasteful to me that I quit and am doing doc review till I can find a permanent job.
The point is, while none of us should expect the perks of permanent employment, we also deserve to be treated like human beings. Some of whom have families to support. Yes, the company has to protect it's ass, and none of us should be surprised by sudden firings. BUT DON'T give a fucking song and dance routine for weeks aboutr how much work there is and do a 180. If you know mass firings are coming, don't reassure people and then they turn down other projects (like I stupidly did). Just say nothing. Say "we have no information".
I think most of us want to be practicing law, but the economy blows and the market is oversaturated. So we do what we can do get by. ANnd some of us sel out and become slimey assholes who fuck people over and pat themselves on the back about it. Get off your fucking high horse, sleazy recruiter, you're not practicing law either. You're just a mouthpiece and you're disensable just like coders are.
I got to make over $40k already in Newark for about 800 hours of work in about 2 1/2 months' time. I am one of the lucky few to stay. However, I was not so naive to leave my things on Friday. People need to read between the lines and remember that the work is temporary. They can get rid of you at any time for no reason at all, without notice. Hell, Sullivan does it all the time. "Project ends today at 5, thanks." People in Newark already spoke of floating resumes when the work started to dry up. You can't do this type of work and have a false sense of reality. And even if you did get canned, there was great money while it lasted. If you didn't take advantage, then don't blame anyone.
Gonna be interesting to see who is in tomorrow and what the vibe will be...
McCarter is a shit firm and no attorney from a decent law school would work there anyway.
While a class action lawsuit would be a joke, I would consider a bar complaint against the McCarter Partners and King for misrepresentation.
All of them should be reprimanded.
Its easy to file a bar complaint in NJ.
Who knows the names of the McCarter partners in on the lying?
New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct:
"RPC 4.1 Truthfulness in Statements to Others
(a) In representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly:
(1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person"
Right, McCarter is a shit firm in a shit-hole city, filled with toilet law school Partners and Associates like that toilet law school Seton Hall. Half of the fucking partners went to that toilet school.
Us recruiters are not as dispensable as you toilet clickers. We are needed by the agencies to keep track of which of you "attorneys" to avoid (we can't keep everything in the secret database in case we get audited)and which are worth a call.
Without us agency people, our firms would hire too many of you rejects and would fire us. We are needed for our knowledge of the cesspool, aka temp pool.
"RPC 4.1 Truthfulness in Statements to Others
(a) In representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly
Typical no law-knowing temp. The project leaders aren't representing "the client" BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ASSOCIATES OF MCCARTER. Just like you were NEVER EVER an associate. You are ALL employees of Hudson with no "clients".
Nice try at feeling like a real atty, though!!
according to the nj bar, temp doc review is not the practice of law.
they consider it paralegal work
Oh, really? I guess that means we don't have to pay for overpriced CLE's and $350 registration fees.
what is the call on practice of law for purposes of pro bono work in nj? Does temping constitute the practice of law? Any case law?
doc review does not constitute the practice of law for purposes of pro bono. they merely consider it paralegal work.
you still have to pay your fees if you want to keep up with your attorney license.
you also must complete icle within 3 years to keep your license.
but doc review is paralegal work you are not practicing law. you are mere paralegals or support staff for real attorneys, according to the nj bar. call them up on monday and ask if you dont believe me.
McCarter English - rancid, festering toilet.
Lying to people is pretty unprofessional, in any industry. I wouldn't even hire David King to feed my cockatoo.
By any chance, is David King related to Joan King?
We're looking forward to a full report on Monday as to the working conditions and situation at 90 Mulberry. What rationale will David King give for this fiasco? Which team leads were let go (if any)?
I would guess there will be a few days of bliss for those that survived. It won't last too long, though as McCarter sharpens the axe for the next round. Such is temp life, the Sword of Damocles ever hanging above our heads.
Kudos to Hudson on their incredibly poor handling of this situation. I have worked on large projects run by their competitors and they have rarely ended up being bitched about in blogs and certainly nothing like this massive clusterfuck known as the Newark project. There are much more sophisticated and professional ways to treat people and run projects. Hudson is well versed on on taking the low road, treating people like trash.
Long live Hudson - Queens of the sweatshop!
Good luck to those of you returning, frontload your hours and make your money while you can, you are now on notice (if you weren't already). Old Man McCarter is getting ready to swing the axe again!
Well, the project had it's moments. I was very surprised that no one was mugged or shot dead with it being Newark and all. We all made lots of money and can all afford to take a month off to be honest. I'm going to Europe for a week with the money I made on this project. Yeah, Hudson kinda screwed us over, but I expected this from day one. We do need a union, but since I have no intention of starting one I am not going to bitch. I personally made enough to live on for a year thanks to this project. Maybe around late May I will actually look for more work, but until then screw it.
quick question? are any of you embarrassed that you work in an industry where you need "team leaders" and you all want "unions". you dont sound like lawyers you sound like children.
you will always be treated like children because you act like children.
oh, and the recruiter above talking about recruiter being "necessary" or at least more necessary for firms than temps is delusional. Recruiter work on commission at most agencies and are lucky to crack 60k a year. We make more on 1 project than they make all year. Doing doc review is also more noble than the telemarketing and posting fake ads on craigslist that they engage in day in and day out. I get a phone call (always from a blocked number) from these asshole recruiters at least once a day every day and usually more often than that. They are all annoying rats. They call at all times of the day, even diner time. The decent ones avoid making phone calls and send out spam instead.
All the good industries/fields already have unions or at the minimum they have functioning cartels like the AMA. The ABA has no nuts so we need a union to take its place. Even freelancers have the freelancers union so they can get a decent price on health insurance at the minimum. The team leader crap doesnt exist on every project.
What do you want your temporary attorney union to do for you? and are you willing to give up more money to fund the union?
There is clearly a consensus in the community that we are willing to give up some money to fund a union and what we want is clear from reading this blog. We want agencies to stop jerking us around and be honest about how much work there is on a project. We want clear #'s for how much overtime we will get that they wont change every other day and we want our rate to track inflation. $35 p/h has been the norm for years now and inflation has eaten into this $35 a lot. The agency can negotiate more out of the client or it cant, but that shouldnt be our problem. The good agencies will negotiate more out of the client and the bad ones will fold. The less agencies the better from our perspective since the more leverage they have the better for us too.
Hey everyone,
I was on the Newark project for a short time and it was very unprofessional to claim "normal hours will resume on Monday". But I knew something was amiss when they stopped weekend hours and sent everyone home at 5PM. Use your head people with less work, they cannot keep all those people! I am not sure what they are worried about if they told the group "hey the project ends next week" what are the masses gonna stop working and start screwing up. Most of us are professionals and would conduct ourselves accordingly.
Also the whining has to stop about how terrible everyone is! Its a temp job and to be honest there were times when we were not working that hard. Sure the work is tedious but try working all day on motions and complaints ,along with dealing with clients and other opposing firms/attorneys and see how you feel. The pay was good and all you needed was a little brains and the ability to sit in a crowded area for 50-60 a week, with little stress.
The real problem is the influx of temps looking for work now. Curious to know who was kept, those of you who were let the rest of us know what it is like. To everyone I worked with I enjoyed your company on the project.
The code words for you (these mean something to those who worked with me, who I wish I had got some of your contact info)are draft picks, tatoo lady, 80's music, bin fortuna, Hoover Dam and many others. Did any of you get to stay in the project?
I surmise they probably kept the people who had an in or worked consistently very long hours. They will probably tell the new people "hey we kept the best coders because the next deadlines involve more complex work"
Good luck everyone, and will probably see some of you again.
11:37 PM
Embarrassed to be in an industry that "needs 'team leaders'"--No not embarrassed, team leads are seen in numerous industries. They are seen on sales teams, on manufacturing teams, and in a number of other contexts. The thing is when an industry is using team leads that have little to no experience either managing people or doing the work and unknown limited powers, you end up with a situation of despotism and disrespect. There is no hierarchy within which decisions are made in this industry. The recruiters and the law firms do not care and have little concern for the contractors, and really do nothing to actually manage them or motivate them besides offering money. This creates a race to the bottom. How little work can I do and/or how bad can I do my job while maximizing my hours at the job site and still not get fired? I agree that some of the complaints on sites like this go over the top sometimes, but give us a break, Unions in the white collar world are becoming normal. There are even suggestions that Associates should unionize, so why not contractors, too.
Fast facts on unions and professionals:
* The union movement is now 51 percent white collar.
* In the professional and related occupations, 17.7 percent of workers are union members, a higher proportion than the workforce in general.
* Employment in the professional and related occupations is growing faster and adding more workers than any other major occupational category. While total U.S. employment is projected to grow 13 percent between 2004 and 2014, the growth for professional and technical workers is projected to be 21.2 percent, or 6 million jobs.
* Three-tenths of the growth in professional and related occupations is expected to take place in the health care and social assistance section, one-fifth in government, and one-seventh in professional, scientific, and technical services.
* Some 24 percent of all jobs in 2004 required a bachelor's degree or higher. Over the projected period of 2004-2014, 36 percent of the 18.9 million new jobs are expected to be filled by those with a bachelor's degree or higher.
Source: Analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures by the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees; BLS, January 2007.
Anyone serious about the union idea??
Check these three sites out:
http://www.lawmemo.com/articles/attorney_unions.htm
http://www.aflcio.org/
http://www.dpeaflcio.org/
Massive generalization ahead...There are 3 types of coders--
1. Those who were thrown into the system because of a flooded market in a down economic time need and have little choice in the matter. These are usually the younger and more inexperienced coders who went to a TTT law school and do not have the connections to get a job.
and
2. Those who left associate and other career jobs at for any number of reasons. These people tend to like the flexibility of contracting, prefer the low stress, maybe retraining for another profession, or have come to earn some money in retirement or going into it.
and
3. The new freshly minted lawyer who believes that this might be a career move that will look good on their resume, or as a weigh station while they continue to job hunt in a tight market.
The 1st group would actually benefit from the formation of a union, but about half of them do not know that they could even form one or how it would benefit them. This group wants higher salaries that are adjusted with inflation at least. They want their experience (even on Doc Review) recognized with a higher then entry level wage on new projects. They want a career path even within a document review world. They want respect. This is becoming an ever larger group, though many are not ready to resign themselves to doc review as a profession, and will not spark a union themselves, but might join if it is explained to them.
The second and third groups are who the recruiters and the firms think they deal with on a regular basis.
The second group usually recognizes the benefits of a union, and many of the would be more then willing to support one, but definitely will do nothing start a union. Some in this group do not care for a union, and figure they will be out of the law by the time it is started, or that they can do better without a union.
The third group is totally deluded, and gets bloated every summer/fall. They do not realize the benefits of a union, and do not believe that they will ever need one. Some of this group (larger numbers then ever before) will someday become members of the first group, but this takes an amazingly long time. First they have to be screwed over on a few projects, work under detestable conditions, not get paid enough, and be turned down for a real job because their resume has been "poisoned" by document review.
We should start a union, but who is going to do it? What will it actually do for the contract field??
Who do you guys and gals think posts the anti-contract attorney flames on this board?
I know for a fact that both plaintiffs attorneys and recruiters monitor this site (the recruiters hate it because they do not like it when we temps share information).
Do you think it is one of the recruiters? Do you think it is one of the fucktards like the temps left on the Vioxx review (yes, Satan's Workshop will never die) who will defend the McCarters, Decherts and the Hudsons of the world to their dying breath? Or do you think it is just some bored mouth-breather who has nothing better to do with his time?
My guess is that it is the same guy (or just a few people) based on similarities in the postings-- bad grammar and spelling, repeated use of "wah wah," calling us "children," etc.
Anyway, I thought it was something interesting to think about-- why is this person wasting his time attacking people who already are downtrodden? I guess to make himself feel better about his own miserable life.
Wah Wah Wah- where's my temp union???
NEVER! You unorganized fools! Never!! Muhahahaha
I fully support the idea and reality of document review support staff to get goals accomplished for the client in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
What I do not support are generalizations how agencies are evil. Or projects are sweatshops. I never heard of people at sweatshops making 40 grand in a few weeks.
Further, I do not support singling out specific recruiters as sleazy ect.
Therefore, if you are going to generalize recruiters as pimps, projects as sweatshops, and your doc review plight as some sort of "woah is me, I struggle like Jesus Christ himself", then expect to be called WHINERS, COMPLAINERS, SPOILED BRATS, LACKING TRUE ATTORNEY SKILLS, CAN'T ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING INDEPENDANTLY AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND NEED TO HAVE FANTASIES ABOUT UNIONS, STRIKES, WHAT YOU ARE GONIG TO DO, ect. in a general way.
If you dish it out, you have to learn to take it.
Just realize and try to comprehend your jobs are temporary. I feel for your plight and dramatics, I understand law school loans, but the market will work itself out.
No attorney is entitled to make "alot of money". If your reason for becoming an attorney was to make money, you should have been a drug dealer instead. Your reason for going to lawschool was to become an attorney. However, many of you feel the need to sell out and review documents for cash, no longer practicing law. You accept the money like a homeless person accepting a quarter on the street, then you complain that you weren't given 2 quarters.
I feel bad that 500 0f you are now unemployed, but really, did you expect your project to go on forever like some sort of utopian fantasy. Let's be realistic. There is an end to every assignment in discovery. I hope that you all apply for real attorney jobs or find another career because temp attorney work seems like a miserable way to live the rest of your lives.
Several comments:
1) The bogger far above who claimed to have earned $16,000 in one months (probably 5 weeks) must have been fraudulently billing. This person apparently works these jobs no differently than alot of people, in industries often ending up criminally indicted...at least e/she has a similar mindset. That said, this is the type of document reviewer that a law firm would need to vet thoroughly, for fears that aren't performing their job competently or they are fraudlently overbilling. There is no solid reason for a doc reviewer to be billing at this level, as there apparently was no deadline. If alot of this type of billing was on-going by @500 attorneys, no wonder the project ended as it did. I can identify with the client's GC getting wind of this type of activity and saying "enough". There are several people I've met over the years of doing doc reviews, who routinely show up on such projects, and I suspect it is/was one of these usual suspects. As a group, each is a "get over" type of personality, who claims the victim and entitlement stanze in life at every level. If they are doing it there, they are doing it at every level of their life, including within the context of interpsonal relationships.
2) That said, hearsay of years ago from a reliable source is that McCarter refused to get an ambulance for a catastophically ill doc reviewer, dying on the spot. Neither did they want the cost of the ambulance nor the imputed liabilty. This firm should be boycotted by all reviewers. They are destined for the final circle of Dante's DIVINE COMEDY.
8:32am
It was easy to make that much money on the McCarter project. No fraudulent billing. Just filling out a timesheet for every hour you work.
In case you didn't know, there was a discovery deadline, long weekend hours were encouraged, bonuses were offered, and if you maxed out the bonus hours you made over $5,000 a week.
For example, one week, McCarter offered a $1,000 bonus if you worked 80 hrs between Wednesday and the following Monday. I worked over 100 hrs that week and made over $6,000 including the bonus thousand.
No fraudulent billing. Just filling out a timesheet for every hour you work. Many people did it, the company made the deadline, and we made really good money for a while.
They could have ended it professionally, but they took the low road. That doesn't mean we have to join them.
I was on this Newark project for 2 months, and I was never 100% comfortable there...I always had the feeling they would fire people at any minute with no warning (which they did to some.) But seriously, that's the nature of the business. Its not just Hudson; I've been on other projects, through other agencies, with mass firings done in less than appropriate ways (20 people out of 40 getting the call on a Saturday afternoon, while still at work!!! So some had to leave literally while others stayed.) It sucks but it happens. What surprises me is that anyone is surprised at all.
I dont think anyone is really surprised I think the reactions stem from the way things played out as in David King telling us we would resume operations monday and there was tons of work etc. I think a lot of people were just surprised they did not just say the project was over then and there. That would have been the right thing to do IMO
There is alot of fraud on many of these projects. I know many of these "heavy coders" that you speak of. They bill fraudulent crazy hours, but the agencies tend to look the other way because these criminals are generating so much income for them. They make the rest of us look bad. A union can help protect our professionalism and weed out these bad apples.
You can maybe overbill by an hour or two but on most projects they watch after you like a hawk looking over some mice. We've all been on projects where they make you sign out to go take a piss. How can you overbill by much on a project like that?
Many people max'ed out the hours on the McCarter project. Those people should be entitled to their money if they worked the long hours. There was no fraud, just no sleep. There were many people who were making between $4,000- $5,000 in one week.
I billed $16,000 in a month. I barely slept, did not commit fraud, and there were many of us who stayed the entire time.
Wonder what the team leads like Ike and Jonathan billed - they were there even more than I was. They probably made over $16,000.
Like someone is honestly going to produce adequate work product on the 99th hour. Hudson LOVES these people, and everyone feels the pressure to race to these hours. I wonder how many of the "mega-billers" got canned. I would guess not many. Agencies like Hudson are destroying the legal profession.
The question becomes what are your personal standards and work ethic. How do you define "work"....merely showing up, occassionally coding some documents within 4to 5 hours of that probable 14 hour day. Was it merely both showing up, occassionally coding, and watching the clock every minute until yo hit 14 hours. How much time did you actually spend on a document, and how many docs did you merely code, caring little about the category you chose, merely to hit a button. Listen, I've been there, I've seen it. Oh Yes, how many times did you clock in, disappear for 3 hours, come back for another 3 hours, and then disappear again for another 5 hours - that is a particularly important question when it comes to the weekends. Commonly see people show up Saturday and Sunday mornings, as early as 7:30AM, disappear until 10AM, return for another 4 hours, disappear again until 7PM, return and "work" until 11:30PM or later....Please, Please Please...... whether or not you indeed participated in the foregoing, the fact is that there far too many reviewers who do conduct themselves as such. We all know the word is "no snitching", but frankly when the 1st quarter ends on March 31st, and the client's GC looks at the billing to Hudson, and audits the quality of the work done, DO NOT be surprised if they cut the project. particularly when they have budgetary concerns, are approximating a settlement or arbitration, the client has poor earnings, are approaching tax time and no longer need the corporate "write off" of litigation costs. If Hudson managed the project and their supervisors turned the other way on fraudulent billing, then clearly that GC was extremely smart to can Hudson - damaging the client. If the account now moves from Hudson to Strategic, then I'd say there are some openings in recruitment at Hudson. This was a decision made based on many factors, but someone should put out there the type of conduct that goes on during projects, and highlight that the "usual suspects" who do nothing but "get over" and fraudulently bill should be snitched upon and vetted. it is ruining it for the rest of us.
I was once on a project with Lex-pollution where I kept getting calls from the recruiter informing me that the client wanted me to work more hours. Puzzled, I confronted my manager, and was informed that my manager requested no such thing. God, Scott Krowitz is a sleazebag.
Remember, don't hate the player, hate the game. You should have billed 14 hours a day sucker!!!
Remember, don't hate the player, hate the game. You should have billed 14 hours a day sucker!!!
Remember, don't hate the player, hate the game. You should have billed 14 hours a day sucker!!!
Remember, don't hate the player, hate the game. You should have billed 14 hours a day sucker!!!
Remember, don't hate the player, hate the game. You should have billed 14 hours a day sucker!!!
See what happens when you code that often? You develop a nervous tic in your index finger that makes you keep on clicking and posting the same thing several times!
Those of you let go (especially in the Philly office) will love this. The third floor of 2 Logan (the Vioxx project) is trying to kill time until the Vytorin documents are ready to be reviewed.
They were allowing the coders to work on the Seroquel case even though they were not adequately trained (the QCers at McCarter probably noticed their names on documents in the past few weeks).
Even though they haven't had work since at least Thursday, they have been allowed to sit around and bill. They even got to stay till 7 p.m. as opposed to 5 on Friday.
None of them were let go, and now they are sitting around billing AZ for doing nothing. They weren't even informed (including the Dechert people in charge) of the layoffs at your site. Nice...
The next level of questioning indeed goes to the issue of the law firms' motive and interest. They bill us out. If they don't care if people fraudulently bill or get over (since they make money on your back), then the question is the billing practices of law firms. If and when you ever become a GC or attorney who must answer to the client on billing (assuming you get out of the temp game, even care about an ethical practice of law, and/or have any professional and personal standards), just remember to not hire McCarter or like firms where the above goes down, assume that if you do hire such a firm THEY are fraudulently billing and padding, and give chances to the smaller law firms that are hungry enough that they won't risk being caught overbilling.......and will have lower overhead costs. It is a trickle down problem, starting with the law firms, down to the agencies, and to us. The flip side is if you ever have a real problem wherein you need a quality and effective attorney, be sure to avoid the large law firms who will do to you what you've been doing to their clients. It isn't a suckers' game, you are the sucker. Who ever let you into law school, and your attitude in your latest blogs helps me identify just who you are. I am sure we've crossed paths, and that is precisely why you keep getting fired from jobs.
Will somebody please send this link to the GC?
Does anyone know the EIN for Hudson?
I dont regard it as "over-billing" or fraud when there is no work to do for a day and they make you sit there doing nothing.
I'm sorry but we are not salaried employees and they pay us for our presence by the hour. That's the price they pay for not making us full time workers. If they dont like the result they can put us on a staff attorneys salary, give us benefits and job security and then we wont make them bill the client for days when there is no work, but our boss isnt the firm and it isnt their client. Our boss is the agency and the agency rents us out by the hour no matter what work the firm has for us.
Plus, when you have down days like that it is always the litigation support peoples fault, not the temps. If they want to bitch at someone they need to go yell at the assholes who scan the docs in, not the lawyers and not the temps.
Hudson pulled this same crap for a Winston project back in the summer of 2004 in Chicago.
So maybe the problem really is the quality of the Hudson people, and that agencies principals. Certainly, I can name several agencies in NYC that indeed remain high quality - and vet their contract attorneys carefully e.g. Peak, is just one......That said, it is being said Hudson is now placing a doc review project ad alleging they will be pay $45 per hour plus OT. What a hoot.....looks like they are using a bit public relations stunt to cover for this weekend fiasco - as said by several colleagues.It is beyond us who in NYC can get away with paying temps $45 per hous - the last time that hit town was in the early 1990s for clear deadlined "second requests"..but, he, maybe antitrust is making a come-back......and the D.C. regulatory agencies are beginning to actually enforce and do their jobs....With the amount of activity this blog has gotten over the last 4 days since Hudson's debacle. this should get up to a GC and few law firm partners/associates with much ease....Last word on this mess.the reason why Hudson and McCarter misled the 500+ attorneys Friday night probably has more to do with making sure no one sensed a firing imminent and they assured themselves all contract attorneys were off premises Friday night to make sure no one sabotaged the computers and destroyed work product. They will never admit to this fact, but I'll lay money on its accuracy.......THAT is how little they think of you guys, but of course from this blog it is clear they had reason to be concerned, when combined with each of our personal experiences from the past of watching temp attorneys react like children, and indeed destroy or steal work product as "payback".......It is a never ending litany of problems with this industry, and nothing will change until someone has the guts to change it.
Call Michael Moore.
It's seems like the problem with Hudson is that they don't screen people well. Unprofessional people warrant unprofessional treatment from the firms; it's a vicious circle. Are there any agencies out there that actually screen well and offer professional working environments?
Only a few.....just a few, but they indeed exist.
Peak does not vet people well. Helene Diamond is always casting her email nets from here to Madagascar scrounging for lowlife bottom-feeders to take one of her $25 without OT slum projects. I was once on a Peak project and one of the temp attorneys used to floss his teeth with the firm rubber bands.
but they had free pizza.
Re: Peak.....my personal experience has been different than your experiences.
Maybe that is because you don't temp for them, but work for them.
I was on the Hudson/McCarter project for 2 weeks. I was told that it would last "most likely through June at least." I was surprised and am left angry at the sudden termination. Does anyone know of any other contract positions out there -- student loan payments don't pay themselves. Thanks!
Why are you surprised? Think people.
Many contract attorneys (especially the younger ones) don't understand that this little niche industry is ruthless. You eat what you kill and there really isn't any loyalty. AS HAS BEEN REPEATED A MILLION TIMES ON HERE, THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT YOUR CAREER COUNSELORS, THEY ARE USING YOU TO MEET A DISCOVERY DEADLINE. THEY COULD CARE LESS IF YOU DIED OF A HEART ATTACK OR GOT RUN OVER BY A STEAM ENGINE. It baffles me when my colleagues take anything that these agency/firm sock puppets say at face value.
It was clear that McCarter was rushing to meet a deadline. After the deadline passed, was it really realistic to assume that they would keep hundreds of people on staff? Was it in realm of possibility that they were going to dump hundreds of people onto the saturated/sub-prime recesssion riddled job market after the deadline passed? While you were busy clicking away for 15 hours straight to win your plasma t.v. or whatever, some of your wiser contract attorney colleagues were busy sending out resumes and reading the listservs and happened to jump ship before the McCarter temptanic sank. It sucks that you have student loans to pay, but you really have to take responsibility for your actions. May this be a lesson to you.
Why are you surprised? Think people.
Many contract attorneys (especially the younger ones) don't understand that this little niche industry is ruthless. You eat what you kill and there really isn't any loyalty. AS HAS BEEN REPEATED A MILLION TIMES ON HERE, THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT YOUR CAREER COUNSELORS, THEY ARE USING YOU TO MEET A DISCOVERY DEADLINE. THEY COULD CARE LESS IF YOU DIED OF A HEART ATTACK OR GOT RUN OVER BY A STEAM ENGINE. It baffles me when my colleagues take anything that these agency/firm sock puppets say at face value.
It was clear that McCarter was rushing to meet a deadline. After the deadline passed, was it really realistic to assume that they would keep hundreds of people on staff? Was it in realm of possibility that they were going to dump hundreds of people onto the saturated/sub-prime recesssion riddled job market after the deadline passed? While you were busy clicking away for 15 hours straight to win your plasma t.v. or whatever, some of your wiser contract attorney colleagues were busy sending out resumes and reading the listservs and happened to jump ship before the McCarter temptanic sank. It sucks that you have student loans to pay, but you really have to take responsibility for your actions. May this be a lesson to you.
If you are in the Philly area, word is that Hudson is staffing the upcoming Vytorin project. As a word of warning, you will have to work with the remainders of the Vioxx review-- most of whom are mildly retarded, Dechert staff attorneys-- most of whom are majorly retarded AND assholes-- and the infamous Simon Nagel (who supposedly is trying to be nicer after reading the slams on this board).
By the way, the people at 2 Logan are the same ones who were getting $35 an hour (plus overtime at 40 hours) to work on Seroquel despite the fact that they were never trained how to do it.
They currently are sitting around billing AZ for doing no work.
Just thought I'd rub some salt in the wounds. :-)
Who can post an update from Newark? One of the parking lot attendants is my neighbor and he said the lot was half empty today.
-Did they keep the entire QC team only?
-Are you all moving next door, to 100? Someone read last week that the building, #90, is being leased.
-Are the team leads coding now?
-Will you still get free pizza on Fridays?
5:17 pm, I don't mean surprised that I would get let go, of course this was just a temporary position. I was just surprised that they did it after only 2 weeks. I am not all that pissed or angry just mildly so. I will find something soon, but I will look past the "promises" made to me and realize that the worst case scenario is probably going to happen. But I don't believe your comment accurately states my naivete or lack thereof - i know that they were doing this for a deadline, but how was i supposed to know that BEFORE i was actually a part of the project? i only now know of these useful blogs....
For future reference, how do you know? Anytime Julie Dailey or a Hudson recruiter moves their lips, question it.
So just what is going down with Newark. This blog's discussion does not make it clear. Did Strategic move in to replace Hudson? Are there any contract attorneys left in Newark? If so, are they all Strategic and were the hours reduced to 40 hours, leaving only discreet projects and privilege calls left for those still working in Newark? I haven't yet heard a concrete overview of the reality as of today. With regards to projects available, none of my colleagues at law firms or in-house have anything going on except the usual suspects (S&C et al) who place people in the basement. But I wonder what volume is occuring at S&C due to the change in economic conditions. Who is left? Pray tell.....if you've heard of anything to help those now unemployed attorneys from Newark. It might be a better use of our blog time to help them out.
You have all been punked by Hudson.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
I was one of the new hires 3 weeks ago in Philly. I was told by Hudson it would be 1 to 3 months project and I did turn down another job once I commited to this one. I knew nothing of project, deadlines, personnel conflicts, issues or other goings on there. I was amazed at the amount of OT though and knew it could not last. I only knew something terminal would likely happen on Friday with the letter posted to the door... and decided to take my stuff out. Fortunately I had options and have already found another job. I feel mislead by Hudson and the McC firm and would never return to either again... but I now accept it for what it was... an opportunity to make some good money in a couple of weeks without much effort.
Hudson has a long history of engaging in bait-and-switch activities.
The project is still on, but it's an ominous feeling. First, except for a few at 100, everyone is at 90 now. Second, it was another day of minimal work. Hours have been chopped to about 55 per week. No weekends. The writing is on the wall, probably won't last past April.
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