Ex-Toyota Lawyer Alleges Destruction of Evidence In Rollover Suits

"The story says Biller’s suit has 'electrified the plaintiffs bar, where some lawyers involved in vehicle cases have long voiced suspicions about foreign automakers withholding evidence.'"

http://www.abajournal.com/news/ex-toyota_lawyer_alleges_destruction_of_evidence_in_rollover_suits/

Outsourcing discovery work to India is a great idea. If you think foreign corporations are good at withholding evidence, just wait until you see what the LPO's do. Oh, I forgot: the ABA says that a 3rd world sweatshop factory is okay as long as one American attorney is "supervising" the work. Too bad that "supervising" attorney is off having a nervous breakdown!

The Outsourcing Cheerleader Crew

Someone sent me the following link from Susan Cartier Liebel, wanting me to respond to some hit job offered by an anonymous contract attorney criticizing the "victimization" mentality offered by this and the "Big Debt Small Law" blog.

Frankly, I see no need to respond to the Susan Liebel, Carolyn Elefant, and Lisa Solomon crowd. Responding and arguing with those hacks would only provide them with greater visibility to sell and tout their worthless books and online solo university seminars. This blog generates ZERO in terms of ad revenue, and frankly running it has become more aggravation than it is worth. Take from it what you like.

http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/2009/08/19/ota-response-to-atls-momma-dont-let-your-babies-grow-up-to-be-contract-attorneys/

"In case anyone fails to feel their full measure of shame over unemployment, there is an entire shame industry to whip them into shape: The career coaches, self-help books, motivational speakers and business gurus who preach that whatever happens to you must be a result of your own "attitude." Laid off and coming up empty on your job search? You must be too "negative," and hence attracting negative circumstances into your life. To paraphrase one career coach I encountered during my research for Bait and Switch: We're not here to talk about the economy or the market; we're here to talk about you.

Shame is a potent weapon, but it should never be used against the already-injured and aggrieved. Instead, let's turn it against the aggrievers: Shame on Ford and GM for putting all their eggs in the SUV basket and then laying off thousands. Shame on the CEO's who make eight-figure incomes while their lowest paid employees trudge between food banks. Shame on Congress for leaving us with an unemployment insurance program that covers only a little more than a third of the laid off."

- Barbara Ehrenreich

Plan "B" - Scrounging For Solo Work

"Tom--

I've got a good one for you--mandatory pro bono assignments. I just got off the phone with some bureaucratic drone who's about to stick me with one, so I'm fit to be tied.

I've been temping for almost nine years, but in order to keep my head above water, I also handle real estate closings, municipal court work and anything else I can scare up. In New Jersey this means I've got to have an office--not just a mail drop and a telephone answering machine. So like a lot of other attorneys I have a home office.

Here's the catch--if you practice law in New Jersey and you maintain an office, you're subject to being screwed by the legal establishment yet again by being assigned a pro bono matter, usually from the Family Part of Superior Court. Like a lot of attorneys in my position, I haven't been able to afford malpractice insurance for years. Plus, I haven't handled a family law matter in least 15 years. Not to mention the time I've got to take off from an assignment to meet with my client in this shotgun marriage and represent them in court.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the legal establishment is incredibly hypocritical about this. Law is the only profession with this type of imposed slavery, and the Big Law partners and corporate counsels never do their own pro bono assignments--they just buck them down the line to the junior guy on the totem pole. I know this for a fact because I used to work in a corporate legal department, and we juniors had to handle not only own pro bono assignments, but the Big Guy's, too."

Scam, Scam, Scam! Peak's Concordance Training Session

For contract attorney purposes, what you need to know about the Corcordance system can be taught to a blindfolded chimpanzee in about five minutes. So-called "career counselors" that try to take advantage of the unemployed by claiming that they are conveying knowledge that offers some kind of competitive edge in these difficult economic times is truly despicable. Please, do not pay a nickel to these bozos.

"Peak Discovery is offering a series of 'Concordance Fundamentals' training sessions. Solid knowledge of Concordance, the industry’s mostwidely used document review platform, can provide an advantage to Staff of Contract Attorneys looking to secure their next role in a challenging market. This one-day course, the first of which is scheduled for September 26th, 2009, will be facilitated by Chris Ricker, Peak Discovery’s Director of Project Management and a Concordance Certified SoftwareTrainer (CCST) and Concordance Certified Software Administrator(CCSA). The course cost is $199 plus $25 materials fee (50% less than competing courses). Course benefits:

• Achieve Concordance end-user certification
• Acquire a thorough understanding of the industry’s most widely used document review platform
• Gain advantage over other candidates when competing for Staff or Contract Attorney positions"

Slave Labor

"Bad enough secretaries and some receptionists make more than a lawyer, but look at this...they expect someone starting out with over $100k in law school debt to work for free...and sad part is they will likely get a stack of resumes!

Entry Level Attorney (Midtown East)

Manhattan Personal Injury firm seeks entry-level attorney. MUST be admitted to NY bar. Foreign language skills a plus.
Salary- there is no salary the first 3 months. After 3 months, the salary will then be $25k. You will get great experience and learn how to take a case from inception through trial. You will get to handle your own caseload. Expect trial experience within 9 months of start date."

Recession Red Tape Being Outsourced To India

http://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews/status/3452956163

The ABA Isn't Amused

Above the Law and even Ann Coulter seemed to have gotten a kick out of Law Is 4 Loser's new blog.

http://bigdebtsmalllaw.wordpress.com/

Apparently, the ABA isn't such a big fan.

"Wow, that didn't take long. I posted ONE link to "Big Debt, Small Law" in the comment section over at the ABA journal website and it was quickly censored and scrubbed. I was sent the following email from those jackals just minutes ago:

I gave you a pass when your post, with blog link, was on topic, but
you're now in the realm of spam and self promotion, which violates our
comment policy.
This and similar future posts will be removed.
Best,
Molly

Guess I'm too much of a "Legal Rebel" for our pals at the ABA, eh? Did you guys catch the pathetic video of the dork who's running this new "legal rebels" farce? He's about as "rebellious" as Ralph Malph from Happy Days the time he borrowed Fonzie's leather jacket and pretended to be a biker to lay some chick. It didn't work for him, did it?

The proprietor of this website (and his many followers) are the true legal rebels. We were saying this shit when these coddled ex-Biglaw pansies and Above the Law geeks were still in diapers."

Update The Moderation Policy?

"Hi Tom -

I am writing to you because someone posted a comment about me on your blog on the ------ ------ thread. It is the last comment. I know that the spirit of a blog is to voice experiences, gripes, etc. freely, and I'm not trying to censor your blog in any way. It's just that I'm a private person, and the thought of this circulating about me has kept me up at night. I am in the early stages of pregnancy, and, as you can imagine, I need to keep stress and anxiety to a minimum. I am asking you to please delete this comment. I don't know if you normally do this, but I am asking that in my case, you do. If you decide not to, please at least do not post this request on your blog."

The Upton Sinclair Of Temp Lawyer Hell

I just learned that anonymous poster "Lawis4Losers" has started his own blog. I have always admired this poster's writing style, but his most recent entry is nothing short of brillant. Please pass this new blog around to as many people as possible.

On Paul Weiss:

"At Paul Weiss, for example, they crammed 120 people into a basement room that NYC fire code rated for 80. This was in 2005. Like steerage passengers on the Titanic, we labored in the bowels of the building, right alongside the boilers and HVACequipment. Lacking air conditioning and adequate ventilation, many came down with colds that went untreated due to the lack of healthinsurance. A cockroach problem soon erupted due to the crumbs and food garbage strewn about the cellar floor, which was treated with multiple Raidroach fogger bombs. The morning after the exterminators finished, dead roaches littered our keyboards and even crawled, stunted but still living, from the floppy drives and servers!

We were paid $21 an hour, straight time, and required to work from 9 am to 11 pm seven days a week. Forbidden to use the firm’s lavish upstairs restrooms, they had all 120 of us split a pair of airplane sized-bathrooms that were on the Concourse level under the Rock Center, open to the public and a favorite bathing spot for the homeless. One affable homeless chap named “Bones” would use the lone toilet in there as a foot bidet, rinsing his diabetic ulcer in the excrement-caked shitpot and yelling “I’m in here motherfucker!”every time one of us coders needed to relieve himself. Most of us just went next door and used the Heartland Brewery’s bathroom (did I mention that restroom breaks of over six minutes had to be deducted from one’s timesheet? As a coder, bowel movements can quickly cut into the bottom line).

Paul Weiss also blocked the fire exits with box upon box of the corporate shit-paper that arrived daily by the truckload like grist to a mill. Had a fire broken out, we would no doubt have burned to death in a modern day Triangle Shirtwaist incident, engulfed in flames while helplessly beating on box-blocked doorways. To work there was to truly feel expendable, utterly worthless and really just downright sub-human. The partners should all be ashamed of themselves."


On Sullivan & Cromwell:

"The next stop on my vagabond coding career was Sullivan & Cromwell, that whitest of the white shoe firms. This dump has three levels of sunless, underground bunkers where the temp attorneys and their documents are warehoused, far away from the skyline corner offices where the serious shitpapergets pushed. It’s like those alternative communities of urban legend that one reads about online: the subway’s “mole people” and such. You are instructed by your temp agency pimp to meet in the lobby of 125 Broad Street at 9 am sharp, where you assemble as a group to be marched upstairs and “processed” like that busload of inmates from The Shawshank Redemption. Told to dress in a “suit and tie” for the first day, they soon march you downstairs to the dungeon where the “coders for life” toil in pajamas and sweatpants, chanting “new fish, fresh fish, we got new fish today” at the suit –clad newbies who are starting the first day of the rest of their lives. Many start openly weeping into their spiffy leather Perry Ellis portfolios, some even freshly monogrammed as recent law school graduation gifts. Many start bleating mindlessly for the mothers, returning to an infantile state as the overwhelming sadness and abject disappointment slowly seeps in. As I said, welcome ye to the first day of the rest of your life!

It’s not too bad there, after you get “on the beam,” as they say in prison. Sullivan is to disorganization, chaos, and complete systemic dysfunction what Elvis was to rock n’ roll: the original master. It’s a bit like that old Cold War joke: An American and a Russian are killed together and both go to Hell. The devil greets them fiendishly and says “Gentlemen, you have two choices. You can either go to American hell or Russian hell.” Curious, the American asks the Devil what the difference is. “In American hell,” says the Devil “you have to eat one shovel full of shit each day.”

“What about the Russian hell?,’ queries the Russian in his thick accent.. The Devil replies, “Comrade, in the Russian hell you have to eat two shovelfuls of shit each day.”

The American naturally chooses the American hell; yet tellingly, the Russian opts for the Russian hell. Two years later, they cross paths and begin sharing their experiences in eternal damnation.

“Comrade, you really screwed up big-time,” says the American. “In my hell I eat my shovel of shit first thing each morning, and do whatever I want to the rest of the day.” Satisfied, he gloats and scoffs at the hapless Ruskie, who replies: “My dear friend, it is you who choose poorly. In our Russian hell, half the time there’s no shovel, and the other half the time there’s no shit!”

So goes a document review project at Sullivan. Due to their colossal ineptitude, lack of common sense, and probably outright fraud, squads of coders arrive for the mandatory 14 hour “workdays” only to be kept idly waiting for hour upon endless hour as documents are loaded, clarifications are sought, software is configured, the moon rises in Taurus and Orion descends into autumn, etc. It’s rare to squeeze more than 45 minutes of actual coding time into a 14 hour day. Not knowing the Sullivan drill, many newbie coders turn down Sullivan gigs because the long hours rightly terrify them. But us veterans know the old “Clownshop” (as the temps call it) all too well. The waiting coders nap, play cards, vandalize the workstations and so on while waiting for documents and instructions that rarely arrive. Some even operate wire fraud scams and lotteries on the S&C computers, thus “double dipping” and making real bank. A cool Nigerian coder even once used the break-room hot plate to cook us all an authentic African ox-tail stew, which ended with a dessert course provided by raiding the partner’s pantry freezer and ripping off a case of ice-cream sandwiches that were meant for some lame Merrill Lynch client meeting or whatever.

Of course, the clients are billed regardless, since firms of this caliber are as immune to the ethics rules as Typhoid Mary was to disease. It’s always some solo ambulance chaser who ends up disbarred for screwing up a $1500 fender bender whiplash case, while Sullivan and the other white-shoe thieves rip off Fortune 500 client’s cash by the wheelbarrow load withtime-wasting make-work and pointless re-reviews of the same irrelevant documents. A few weeks at this place really removes any doubt about what the “practice of law” has devolved into circa 2009: a soulless, money-grubbing scam that is socially toxic, utterly pointless, and rife with insecurity and adolescent pettiness. Did I mention that licensed attorneys below the associate level are not even referred to as “attorneys” by the insecure dolts who run this glorified sewer? The sub-associate level lawyers are called “case analysts” and are essentially perma-temps, installed to babysit the coders and squeal on them like the “straw bosses” of 19thcentury coal mines. Chosen more for their ass-kissing and willingness to rat out slackers than any legal ability, some of these folks are notorious on temp message boards, like the dreaded geek “Clovester” and well-fed “Big Mamma.” Keep an eye out for them. Another SullCromscam is to fill the temp ranks with minority lawyers, thus tooting the “diversity” trumpet and looking good on paper to their corporate, hand-wringing whore-masters. Naturally, the partner-level ranks are as white as a wedding dress soaked in Clorox."

http://bigdebtsmalllaw.wordpress.com/

Lexolution's Southern Sweatshop

Lexolution is using a legal loophole to exploit desperate, unemployed legal workers, carrying enormous student loan debt and attempting to make a living somehow, because Lexolution DOES NOT PAY OVERTIME TO ITS WORKERS IN VIRGINIA and may not in DC – this is EXPLOITATION AT BEST AND ALL FIRMS DOING BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY UNDER THESE CONDITIONS SHOULD BE EXPOSED AND BOYCOTTED by their clients. Any firms outsourcing to foreign workers abroad should also be boycotted because they are taking legitimate jobs away from Americans. The laws allowing this continued exploitation must be changed immediately. PASS THE WORD.

In the heart of the confederacy and the slave capitol, you will be low balled and paid less than in the DC market always. You will never get $35 - $40 an hour, plus overtime down here.

To be avoided at all costs LeClair Ryan in Richmond, VA unless you are truly, truly desperate and can endure slave-like working conditions. Some allegedly brilliant, clueless idiot thinks people are more productive working 10 – 12 hour days if they are not allowed to talk, have no access to their cell phones (to view, answer or make any calls), and are limited to a 30 minute, unpaid lunch break in which to conduct any of their own personal affairs and eat a lunch when they are working through the regular business hours of all legitimate companies and businesses. If you are off the computer for more than a six-minute interval you are required to bill it administrative time, so if by law you are entitled to a fifteen (15) minute break for every four (4) hours you work (IN ADDITION TO YOUR 30-MINUTE LUNCH), how does that equate to being legal??? Furthermore, their database and computer systems are a complete disaster because they never seemed to work properly causing workers to do the same work over and over, or be aware of the latest changes (occurring every 5 minutes it seemed and if you happened to be out of the room at that moment, you were out of luck and doing the document review incorrectly and ever so slowly).

They have so many petty, juvenile rules you feel like you are back in elementary school where the teacher is watching over you every minute and admonishing you for the least infraction, like eating a non-candy item while sitting at your computer. There is no parking provided in the downtown area and you are strictly forbidden from entering certain areas of their offices (as if anyone wanted to go anywhere, but home once they arrived at this office). Their total disregard for the intelligence and professionalism of contract attorneys working there was made evident by the fact that they announced at the end of the work day when many attorneys had already left for the day that they would not begin working until 9:00am the next day, instead of the regular 7:00am starting time, so anyone coming two hours early (and many people did) they would not be paid and were forced to wait around without pay for two hours. Note that the firm did apologize for failing to notify Lexolution to call their people and inform them of the change in starting time --- great consolation to people who lost money, sleep and were enormously inconvenienced by that oversight!!! But that wasn’t the final icing on this cake folks, after being assured that all of the contract attorneys would be coming back to work the following day by a LeClair employee and relying to their detriment on that assurance, Lexolution emailed most people the very same evening and instructed them not to return to LeClair, to mail in their security card and that they would make arrangements to meet us to get any items we may have left at LeClair.

Scumbag Slave Driver Elli Gottesdiener Is At It Again

This time he is incognito.

This is based on communication from Eli Gottesdiener ( www.gottesdienerlaw.com ) based on a blind craigslist ad.

In subject line, he wants to know your school, your degree, your graduation date

Then Eli wants to know what you are doing, what you did at work, what your earning was (hourly or salary), and why the opportunity is appealing.

In follow up to this, he was silent on a raise timeframe, silent on benefits, and silent on O.T.

Salary starts at $20/hr. Work is in Brooklyn.

Obviously uninterested.

FirstLawJob.com Is A Scam, Scam, Scam

Hey Tom, a new company has opened to prey on the hordes of TTT losers who just took last week's NY Bar. There name is FirstLawJob.com and they spamming the job boards.

These scammers have been around in various mutations and forms since the late 1990s. Here's the deal: They tweak your TTT resume and cover letters a bit (like putting your Touro Sports Law Journal experience in boldface type), pull a 1996 Martindale directory out of a dumpster, and mail-bomb a bunch of marginal (and often defunct) shitlaw firms, many of whom haven't hired anyone since the Nixon administration. Of course, they've never actually gotten anyone a job, but the desperation and hopelessness of this market often lulls TTT grads into falling for this scam. They're a bit like the "after-scammers" who phone Ponzi scheme victims and claim to be able to recover their lost investments for an upfront fee. Smart move. After all, if someone was dumb enough to fall for the law school scam, why wouldn't they also fall for this "secondary" charade? This website was alive and well in 2006 when this year's crop of lemmings marched off to the NYC diploma mills. They all thought they'd "beat the system," and now are stuck in a lifetime of non-dischargable debt with no hope of finding ANY job, period. Ain't happening in this market.

Actually, the word "market" is a misnomer when applied to TTT grads, or even bottom half of marginally decent schools like Fordham. There is no non-biglaw legal "market" and hasn't been for years. All there is is hordes of desperately indebted losers begging for whatever gutter job they can scrounge, often under-bidding each other in the process. It's like a reverse auction: "I'll do no-fault for 35 K, 35 K going once, going twice...wait, I'll do it for 33 K. 33 K! Gavel bangs. "Sold!" One no-fault job at Melli Guerin to the 'Bozo grad in the red necktie for 33 K!"

The recent agency postings here calling for unadmitted 2009 grads are telling. These sweatshops want to exploit the false hope of the recent group of lemmings, lulling them into thinking doc review is a "resume booster" and shows initiative, etc. As the old saw goes, "if you're afraid of getting a rotten apple, don't go to the barrell. Get it off the tree. If they let anyone other than 2009 grads into this gulag, word would quickly spead about the dead-end nature of the job and kill morale like a pestilience.

We are at the end of times. Back in 2005, an unadmitted JD could toil in the Paul Weiss cockroach pit for $21 an hour + unlimited OT and $10 a day for food. Now, almost 5 years later, the same shitwork is paying $1 an hour LESS. Just you wait. There's nowhere left to stash these over-leveraged lemmings anymore, and a shitstorm of very pissed-off people are going to start speaking out more and more. You can't have 85-90% of a law school class unemployed and not expect some serious repercussions to follow.

American Bar Association Annual Meeting

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