Despite the presence of a clawback agreement, a federal magistrate judge has just ruled that one firm's e-discovery disclosure goof waives attorney-client privilege. Looks like doing document review on the cheap may not be such a great idea after all.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/e_discovery_disclosure_goof_waived_attorney_client_privilege_judge_rules
34 comments:
You get what you pay for
I think I'll hire Homer Simpson next time, D'oh!
I knew this was eventually going to happen. Up until now, it has been a complete race to the bottom. Outsourcing, the reliance on so called "smart" computer technology and logorhythms, contracting out with the cheapest deflate the rate agency even if it means you will be employing the Cooley anchorman. I mean when does it stop.
Client = -1
Lawsuit to defend = +1
Update will hire Goofy time and time again, as long as Goofy kisses up to and does whatever the Stepford Wives want him to do.
a real issue within the document review community.... unacceptable mistake of course... but on all the reviews I have worked (re: 16 or so), privilege has always been treated poorly...
The agency should have vetted the hired contract attorneys for their "real" experience working with privilege. Or, the law firm for the client should have hired a consulting attorney to train the doc reviewers in privilege. No matter, the supervising attorney and the law firm pay the consequences once the client figures it out......that means, the agency will be lucky if it is/was fully paid.......or lucky to ever again get an assignment in Baltimore, once all area firms learn of this goof.........some heads will roll at the law firm....
We need the hammer to fall every once in awhile. Too many firms are relying on clawbacks and the generalized goodwill of judges and opposing counsel to save their asses. This is causing many projects to be run in a negligent manner with an eye merely towards billing as many hours as possible.
Makes the bill 14 hours straight and win a free plasma t.v. gimmick not seem so smart after all.
I don't know about you folks, but I looooooves reviewing documents.
This should ensure a slow down of the process in favor of temps.
Best news I've heard in quite a while. It's about time a firm got "punished" for these grind it out billing parties where temps are required to log 90+ hour weeks and OT (if you're lucky enough to get time and a half) starts at 40 hours.
Believe it or not, in many more prestigious and better paying trades (like plumbing, garbage collecting, law enforcment, and drilling holes in sheet metal), OT starts after an EIGHT HOUR DAY, period.
Face it, the industry of law is dead for 95% of "attorneys." Anyone notice how stingy most projects of late have been w/ OT, meals, car servivce etc? The cost of everything (gas, food, and law school itself) has nearly doubled in the last 5 years, while doc review is still the same crappy $35 an hour for the majority of NYC gigs (or 40 straight time regardless of hours, which is basically no different than 35 w/ time and a half if you're hitting 65 hrs. or less per week.
Even the much vaunted Ivy-league associates are experiencing layoffs in certain areas like M & A and real estate. Law firm partners, being utter and complete morons from a business perspective, raised salaries to unreasonable levels (160 K starting + 35-45 bonus) and now face either cutting that rate (impossible) or paring down the # of associates. They've chosen the latter.
This year's OCI at the biglaw feeder schools might leave some mighty disappointed folks. And for the TTT kids, even the 'gunners' with top 2% and law review will be slogging it out in ID or gutter solo PI slopshops because making top grades at a TTT is like winning the Special Olympics- after they pin the medal on you, you're still going home a retard.
655- Read the article before you comment. It had nothing to do with the experience of the K lawyers.
when paying such money for results, mistakes are not acceptable..
The golden era of legal temping in NYC is now officially over.
I like 7:15's comment....too many law firms and associates themselves are sloppy, and oftentimes the judiciary and opposing counsels merely help them "cover up".......it is about time that judges finally do their jobs, and in the end give the client insight into just what a lousy job their law firm and attorneys are doing for them.........
I was once on a project, and the woman running the privilege review actually had the audacity to say, "you don't have to show me the document, just privilege it, all we have to do is make a half assed good faith showing." This whole thing is a huge scam. The game is rigged and lawyers and judges are always watching each others' backs.
All of these discovery magistrates and biglaw partners sit on the the same "Omnibus Paper Churning Act of 1963" committees. If you are a company and refuse to hire and spend boat loads of money on a firm that isn't buddy/buddy with one of these paper churning referees, you are screwed.
posting for $35 an hour on craigs list. 60 hours a week. anybody have any information on that one ???
What's with the new agency practice of posting craigslist ads with no identifying information? Shady.
And they are always inaccurate in their posts. You never know the situation until you actually arrive on the first day. Update is the absolute worst at this. Sometimes they have 2x the number of temps needed and then axe half after 1 or 2 days.
How about listing things like the following:
1) any perks
2) location of the gig (midtown, downtown)
3) type of situation (off-site at agency sweatshop or at firm)
4) # of attorneys sought or relative size of project.
5) type of matter for the review
6) type of firm
7) realistic duration (this is usually a lie)
of course it's dodgy business and they are probably afraid of other agency whores stealing their gig, but it would create a better working environment of the person had a clue before showing up if they actually understood what they were getting into.
Update is adept at the good cop / bad cop routine.
I don't respond to ads on Craig's List that don't list the agency. I don't send my resume to unknown entities.
And you thought the Nigerians were bad...
Brave New World: China-Based Law School Bids for ABA Accreditation
New York Lawyer
June 5, 2008
Peking University School of Transnational Law wants to become the first foreign law school accredited by the American Bar Association.
The school in China will welcome its inaugural class this fall, with 55 students enrolled.
Founding dean Jeffrey Lehman will seek ABA accreditation for the school so that graduates can take bar examinations in the United States. Lehman is a former president of Cornell University and former dean of University of Michigan Law School.
The three-year program at Peking University School of Transnational Law will be taught in English and will cover American law. The school expects to become a supplier of lawyers to international law firms needing help in foreign offices. It will function independently of Peking University's Chinese-based law school.
No other foreign law school is accredited by the ABA, nor has any foreign school sought ABA accreditation, said an ABA spokeswoman. The ABA standards do not limit accreditation to U.S. law schools only, the spokeswoman said.
Nearly all states require law students to graduate from an ABA-accredited law school in order to take the bar exam.
What a wonderful concept, expand the misery and crippling debt of TTT law schools into foreign countries.
First they get McDonald's now they toilet law schools...no wonder the world hates American culture. Is Sallie Mae going to be providing loans to all of these future Chinese toileteers?
How do you say "document review" in chinese? I think the smug Indian LPOs will be quaking in their boots as the Chinese get into the game.
Bye bye to the American practice of law, we've opened up our guild to the entire world now.
Sallie Mae will welcome the opening of Chinese toilet schools with open arms. Here, when toileteers default, Sallie Mae can merely mess up their credit for your their entire lives. In China, I am sure she will be allowed to come over to the homes of the toileteers and beat them with a stick. Who says America no longer exports anything worthwhile?
No, Sallie will pay off the ChiCom secret police to ship defaulting Chinese TTT debtors to the laogai (gulag). Once there, surgeons will harvest their organs...no anesthesia required.
Comrade Sallie will be paid or you'll be surrendering a kidney. It's entirely up to you.
No, Sallie will pay off the ChiCom secret police to ship defaulting Chinese TTT debtors to the laogai (gulag). Once there, surgeons will harvest their organs...no anesthesia required.
Comrade Sallie will be paid or you'll be surrendering a kidney. It's entirely up to you.
Whats up with the racist comments about Nigerians. Grow up already. Its no ones fault that profession has gone down the toilet. Blame the judges, large firms, and outsourcing venues.
Huh? who cares about Nigerians and why do you keep bringing them up 6:02, we are talking about law schools in China.
You can go back to sleep/coding now.
and then they will ship the corpses of these emasculated toileteers around the United States in the "Bodies" exhibit.
um . . . From the standpoint of document reviewers, this is a good development. It means that b/c the firm did their discovery on the cheap, they waived their priviledge. It would seem to imply that had they reviewed the documents individually, they would have had a better argument to assert their priviledge. It's easier to argue your mistake should be forgiven if you have performed your due diligence; namely looking at each and every document and didn't make your mistake b/c you were cutting costs.
Uhhh...there was no clawback. They abandoned it once they got extra time to review documents. Now please get back to reviewing my documents.
Great news for the temp community!
That should keep more work in NYC. The firms will need to keep an associate around to supervise the doc review.
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