Snuck out of work early today to attend a Barbara Ehrenreich book signing. I thanked her for dropping a reference to our blog on page 21 of her new book.
The most moving part of the evening was when some lady stood up and claimed that her brother had passed away after he couldn't afford a common cancer treatment. Barbara reminded everyone that roughly 12,000 people die ever year from preventable illnesses simply due to a lack of adequate coverage. She went on to provide an enraging description of certain pet spas and high end canine health insurance. It sort of reminded me of how Leona Helmsley reportedly left a cool million to her poodle, but treated her employees like absolute shit throughout the years. It also reminded me of how a Kirkland temp pushed himself so hard this year that he keeled over and died of a massive heart attack. His job, which worked him like a horse for twelve hours a day, failed to provide him with even the most basic of coverage. Instead, the firm pawned him to some low end temp agency that offered him a practically non-existent "shit" plan.
68 comments:
Maybe he will be reincarnated as Alfred Youngwood's dog.
Is it true Alfred Youngwood and Anita attend the same church?
Barbara on Colbert Report on Monday:
http://www.comedycentral.com/
colbertreport/videos.jhtml?
videoId=174872
Not only could Alfred Youngwood's dog handle the demands of document review, I'm sure Anita's dog could as well. I think the biggest crime in all of this is the absolute bullshit nature of attorney pay in America. This is an implication of capitalization in America. The temps are whining, but no attorney deserves the pay they receive, much less the losers at the bottom. So many people complain about the "fairness," but the simple idea that someone should be able to graduate a three year program (even if it is postgraduate--every dumbass goes to college nowadays) and expect $100,000 is absurd, especially if they don't want to work, risk, and accumulate their own client base! There will be no tears in my beer over temp attorney pay, because they have no real responsibility, obviously have too much time on their hands (see the whining that goes on here), and what do they expect? They have this mentality that existed a century ago of a college student is someone who is priviliged and gives it the fabled "old college try," a' la George Bush. Correct me if I am wrong, but college nowadays is not the elitist college of the 1950s, so neither is postgraduate work (lawschool). So the question is: what do you do--what are you worth? If this is about healthcare--they should have voted for Hillary, or perhaps Obama. At least they can hope to expect to wait in line with people who wouldn't complain about working in a basement, working next to people who "stink," or any of the other bitching that goes on. A Chinese partner has sex with a temporary slut--WHO CARES. Anita has figured out how to provide a service that is rewarded by the market--WELL GO FIGURE SOMETHING OUT YOURSELF. I have difficulty tollertating the whining when $25 per hour is great money, despite any educational debt that is incurred. Who doesn't have educational debt? Whine, Whine, Whine. Barbara Erelich should know the difference between this whining and those who work in the service inddustry for nothing, as she so eloquently describes in her book. What about, "I graduated from law school and expect to have a big house, late modeled car, etc."? You bought into a distorted view of reality, and should suffer, bitches! Tell it to the wino on the streetcorner who has punched holes in the drum to burn trash and keep warm while drinking wine--I don't give a fuck.
Check it out- Tom is recycling the same topics AGAIN AND AGAIN. Talk about jumping the shark.
If anyone mentions Anita again....
It's a message that bears repeating...don't go to law school, unless it is T14 or above. Going to one of these toilet law schools guarantees only misery.
Listen, I went to a top-10 law school and am now an associate at a big firm. You fucking people have no idea how miserable to be an associate at a big firm. You people see only the perks, and I do admit I'm well paid with a car ride home each night and good tickets to baseball games. But you have no fucking idea about the pressure I'm under. I work 90-hour weeks sometimes; even during "slow" stretches I rarely get home before 10 P.M. Sometimes when I get home, I get a call from my abusive boss to get the fuck back to the office; then I know I won't get home again until 5 A.M., if I'm lucky.
You think biglaw life is so wonderful? Think again! And since you're all so intent on closing the lower-tier law schools, you might want to think about closing the so-called top law schools, too. Or are you so blinded by envy and bitterness you can't see what I'm talking about?
Agreed - the practice of law generally sucks and biglaw sucks the most! But they compensate you for it. Other law jobs are equally bad, but pay nothing, so be grateful.
My advice is to start saving your cash and plan your exit from biglaw. That's what everyone does anyway. Now that you have biglaw on your resume, doors will open for you, unlike the vast horde of toileteers kicking around with few or no options.
Count yourself lucky, dude.
Does Anita work at biglaw?
The life of an attorney is generally miserable, but the pay makes up for it. Take the big bucks while you can!
This "profession" is complete dog shit. A lot of firms that post on my school's job board are between 40-60K and some say right up front no health. I have a summer clerkship where the only thing I'm good for is my free student westlaw account. I'm the only student, no gives me anything to do, they think I'm retarded. Been here about a month and no one even asks me where I go to school or has even tried to humor me with conversation. The partner in the office next to me is a nice guy, but he spends his whole day on the phone wheeling and dealing and will occasionally stumble out of his office and give his associates some shit work to do. I don't think any of them have seen the inside of a court room since moot court. They also don't even need phones because they have no client contact, it's all through the partners. Horrible! And these people are bright too Georgetown U and all top of their class. I gave a profession to go to law school...worse decision of my life! If only someone told me!
Anita on Intelligence of Temps:
TRAINING
It is very important to take the necessary time to present your attorneys with an overview of the case -- and follow that up with weekly meetings to respond to their questions and to provide feedback.
Do not undervalue the intelligence of your attorneys. Their understanding of the bigger picture enables them to think about the documents instead of mindlessly coding and makes them feel part of a team. The rewards are innumerable.
Imagine a partner asking you to write a memo, but refusing to tell you what the case is about or what you are trying to achieve.
LESSONS LEARNED
Using contract attorneys can be an effective way to tackle a large-scale review.
You will find that your best contract attorneys will respect you and will want to work with you on future matters, and will tell their colleagues who are looking for work.
And referrals from quality workers are almost always your best hiring bet!
Of course she thinks she is smarter than you stupid temps because she has a "real" lawyer job and the rest of you pathetic fools will be temping for years to come until you relaize you will never make it as a lawyer and become a lawn mover at a golf course where anita works.
suckers. you should have never gone to law school in the first place. you only went because you were not smart or creative enough to know what to do with your lives
well said, anita. if you find yourself watching reality shows or reading girly magizines chances are you should have never gone to law school. stupid temps.
ANITA
Yes, the law is a miserable profession! Get out while you are young and don't take out loans to subsidize law school, because if you are, it means that you are in the bottom of your class and will be subzidizing the chosen "stars" at the top of the class. Those who take out loans are chumps!
Do something creative and fun, don't go to law school!
Good going Tom! A mention in her book is something. Not enough of course, but it's a start. If we can keep the agencies' and lower tier schools' feet to the fire, maybe the bad publicity will eventually pressure them to change their ways. Not likely i know, but it's worth a shot.
The funny thing is that I wanted to go to law school since I was in high school and worked in the mailroom after school at a big city firm. Everyone loved me there because I wasn't a drop out gangbanger like my coworkers who got the job through their PO. I was just working a summer gig before heading off to college like many of them did, and many of the attorneys could relate to me and treated me with respect. They always held the job for me on breaks and kept in touvh...it was great.
Fast forward several years: Now with a JD from a TTT school and I yearn for my days in the mail room. I give anything to be debt free, collating the partners' checks and pushing that old cart through the halls. If that doesn't sum up this sorry ass profession I don't know what does!
The funny thing is that I wanted to go to law school since I was in high school and worked in the mailroom after school at a big city firm. Everyone loved me there because I wasn't a drop out gangbanger like my coworkers who got the job through their PO. I was just working a summer gig before heading off to college like many of them did, and many of the attorneys could relate to me and treated me with respect. They always held the job for me on breaks and kept in touvh...it was great.
Fast forward several years: Now with a JD from a TTT school and I yearn for my days in the mail room. I give anything to be debt free, collating the partners' checks and pushing that old cart through the halls. If that doesn't sum up this sorry ass profession I don't know what does!
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I think Davy Moore is Anita. Oh and Tom the Temp is a naive chickenshit wanker asshole.
yes , the legal profession is soft. the law schools didn't tell us. document reviewers lose their steam for life after a couple of weeks. associates have to kiss ass and work 70 hour weeks. no exercise. forgotten ideas of justice in a heap by the door.
what to do though ?? how about accounting ??
Read Barbara's book. The shit we have to deal with on a daily basis is a systemic, societal problem. I hear people in these legal sweatshops always discussing their "escape" strategy. The sad truth is that most people will have NO escape, esp with huge TTT Sallie Mae debt hanging above their heads.
you speak like you are forced to this work. it is optional, take or leave it.
looking for respect? don't sneek out of work to go to a book signing.
sorry tom, but this stuff is stale. you have lost your credibility dude.
Most people are stuck in hideous jobs, browbeating bosses, long hours and few benefits.
It's time to get out! Law sucks!
It's sneak, not sneek.
Some of us have children to support and non-dischargeable student loans/rent to pay.
It's obscene that we are working in smelly, crowded closets, while the firms, law schools, and agencies are raking in huge profits.
if you need a job just call the agencies and ask them to put you in touch with anita.
better yet, go to the constantine website and send anita an email directly. she would be more than happy to help.
Right, that's why we are beholden to the blood sucking agencies...we have no choice.
Will click for food.
It's a pretty sad state when you see a post offering 40-50K requiring two years experience and top academics and right below it is a job for a legal secretary starting at 40k.
You think Sallie Mae will give us a mulligan?? I think the whole profession is a blight on society, should be abolished and everyone go pro se.
anita once took tom to the movies after work. she pulled that old trick where she got up in the middle of the movie and bought a large bucket of popcorn, popped a hole in the bottom of it and put her penis through it and let tom eat out of it until he relaizes what she had done. but he liked it her buttery goodness. now they are married with future coders on the way. tom is due any day.
Hey 10:08, quit your bitchin. Us contract attorneys work 90 hours a week at a shit hourly rate, no time and a half and no benefits. Then we get summarily let go after a couple of weeks. You work 90 hours a week, get $150k a year, cab rides home, and all the benefits. Every contract attorney would take your job in a minute if it was offered to us.
2:41, Your comment is so over the top it leads me to defend big law associates, which I thought would never happen. I've never had to work 90 hours a week, I get time and a half after 40 hours, good health care, and a cab ride home. I've also had the bad jobs it sounds like you're suffering with. The trick is to treat others the way they treat you. If you're on a bad gig, leave for a better one when it comes along. You'll end up on jobs you like, or at least find tolerable, well before you care that you've been blackballed by bottom-feeding agencies, like Dine and Tower.
3:22, you sound like an agency or firm troll. For all we know, you might even be Joan King.
Please name one agency that doesn't black ball and isn't bottom-feeding?
Hey 3:31 try anita's agency
does viagra help EDD?
no, anita helps EDD. she sure helped tom.
I'd say Hudson is better than the agencies I've mentioned. De Novo is reasonably good, although their projects tend to end earlier than predicted. Look, none are good. If I knew I'd be in this situation after graduating law school and passing the Bar, I wouldn't have done it. But few in this field would suggest that Hudson and De Novo are as bad as Dine and Clutch.
Update Legal is pretty good, too. They get you a lotta jobs.
Update blows, see they are in Tom's Hall of Shame along with a few others.
anita blows, too
What's up with the Belgians(In Bev) stealing our beer(Bud)?
Hey 3:31 try anita's agency
4:49 PM
Is Anita's agency update? tom doesn't post about them anymore either. what's up with that...no anita, no update. Has Tomatita gone soft?
I think the folks that say all agencies are bad, have clearly worked through all of them and for some reason, with like 100 hundred agencies out there, these folks still can't find work. Is it the agency, I think not. Get a grip! Pick three agencies to work with and be reliable, I guarantee you will always be employe.when you start leaving one project for another, the agencies will no your game and will not employ you, thus, making you bitter and angry. this market is saturated with temps, bottom feeding doesn't happen in this market. and before you ask, I don't work for an agency. Hudson is the best agency I have worked with.
"well before you care that you've been blackballed by bottom-feeding agencies, like Dine and Tower."
"Update Legal is pretty good, too."
Hi, Update Legal!
Update Legal is THE WORST agency to work for. Their work sites are awful and gulag like, they are always calling around trying to low ball project rates, their recruiters are ugly busty ex-cheerleaders that will blacklist you for the smallest thing, they employ lazy good for nothing staff like Ernie who refuses to be bothered in the middle of his crossword and will bark at you if you ask him to turn on the AC in the stifling Update sweatshop room. Frankly, working a day for Update is worse than swimming through cow manure.
Here's a free hint: the Update Stepford Wives are so dumb that after being blacklisted you can simply send in a resume with a slightly modified name and they will call you!
It's actually the agencies and firms that chew people up and spit them out. As temps what the majority of us would like is something fairly stable, but the way they lie to you (repeatedly), jerk you around like cattle and make you work in horrible sweatshops just burns people out.
If there were no agencies, temps would have a lot better time of it and make more $$$$.
What are you talking about? It sounds like you work for De Novo.
De Novo sucks. Evelyn is the absolute worst. She is rude, nasty, and treats the temps like shit. Do a search for "De Novo" and you will see how the temps actually feel about them.
It's great that this blog is getting a lot of attention, but unfortunately it's causing a lot of temp agencies to come here to espouse how great they are.
The truth of the matter is that ANY agency is BAD for the temporary attorney labor force. They help bring down our wages, allow firms to divulge themselves of having to pay for our benefits, etc, etc.
Wake up, people!
8:54 - Yeah, you better delete your comment, De Novo. It was so obviously you! Kiss my ass, Evelyn! Get back to smacking around your temps.
"anita once took tom to the movies after work. she pulled that old trick where she got up in the middle of the movie and bought a large bucket of popcorn, popped a hole in the bottom of it and put her penis through it and let tom eat out of it until he relaizes what she had done. but he liked it her buttery goodness. now they are married with future coders on the way. tom is due any day."
please, please, please tell me you don't hold a law degree. asshole
Now that Tom is firmly entrenched in Anita's camp, I suppose we have no other alternative than to search for another champion. Either that or we all drop to our knees and worship Anita for ensuring that our kitchens will be well-stocked with supplies.
All hail the Lord God Anita.
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Denovo is a very good temp agency to work for. They offer free pizza on Fridays, transit checks, healthcare, 401 K, holiday pay, etc. I have found Sandrene to be a very pleasant and cordial person to work for.
Didn't De Novo just fire 27 people one day after hiring them? Fuckers.
For what it's worth, I have had a wonderful experience at Denovo. I love my coworkers, am respected by my bosses, and I am helping them do wonderful work by temping. I'd have trouble making this much money with my own practice, and I enjoy health benefits and will probably one day be a partner. I don't know what your problems are.
Hi, Sandrene!
Yes De Novo Legal canned 25+ reviewers just 2 days after they started work on a supposed "long term" project. De Novo is famous for burning through temps faster than Amy Winehouse through a carton cigarettes.
What a wonderful place to work, free pizza (like a 12 year old child) and the everpresent fear of being sent packing. Not to mention the unbridled pleasure of working in a sweatshop, sharing bathrooms with scores of fellow coders.
Yeah, De Novo Legal is terrible.
hey...David King got fired!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhA!!!!!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
oh god, it hurts!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
stop it! I...can't...take.....it!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
It's awesome! You losers keep falling for the 'long term project' line!! Got you all by the balls. All you need to hear are the words 'long term' and you come-a-runnin. Classic.
I heard that rumor about David King too. I don't know if it's true, but I sure hope it is. I guess I am officially now a miserable temp myself when I take pleasure in others' misfortunes, but in King's case he's so richly deserving of payback!
DK is no worse than any of the other "leads". They only wield power as granted by the firm. Once the firm's work is done, so are the temp leads. They will be dumped out on the street like everyone else.
Denovo's bathrooms suck. The plaster on the ceiling and the walls is stained and crumbling into pieces. It looks like a major water leak but no one does anything. The floors are a dark gray. I highly doubt they have been cleaned since the turn of the millenium. The toilet stall walls have graffitti from the Vietnam era, i.e. "Kill the Viet C____ ." Also there is toilet paper and paper towels scattered everywhere. Three stalls and three urinals are hardly adequate for 70 people. One "cleaning" a day is also inadequate.
When reading a blog with comments such as found above, I become weary. So weary reading comments from over-indulged American persons, who were fortunate enough to grade out, in order to at least be given a shot at doing well in the law. Sometimes, life is alot different than what they tell you in academia. But you know what, think of the guy/gal in Detroit whose only option is the production line at one of the failing automakers. Or, try working on the production line of U.S. Steel or like, the latter having done well recently. Try their 10 hour shifts. Certainly, they have unions for benefits. But, actually try doing the work...Please, you all sound like a bunch of spoiled brats. There always are the coal mines, if not auto or steel. Grow up.
"Certainly, they have unions for benefits."
Yeah, big difference, won't you say?
Yeah, and how much education do you need to work at a factory? Talk about comparing apples to oranges...
I didn't know you needed 7 years of higher education/lost income, and $180,000 in tuition payments to work in a factory?
You didn't? You also need to keep your CLE's current to work in a factory.
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