Report Of Man With Gun In Northwestern Law Building

A Chicago TV station has spoken with a law student inside the building, who said that about 50 students were inside for a first-year lecture when reports came in of an armed man spotted in an elevator on the building's 11th floor. The man appeared to be carrying a gun in his waistband, the story says.

That's pretty much all the news out there for now. Northwestern officials have told everyone in the building to lock themselves in their offices, and the student who communicated with media via his cell phone reported that people are laying low and staying away from doors and windows. The student said people were "calm" despite the situation.

Law School Fraud - Georgetown Gaming the US News Rankings

"Well here's one way to boost your postgrad employment stats, I guess - presumably the fact that the university is funding these jobs itself doesn't count against them in the US News Rankings...

-----Original Message-----
From: Sophia Sim
Sent: Mon 1/25/2010 4:42 PM
Subject: short term alum position in Admissions

Dear All,

I hope things are going well with you. I'm contacting you to see if you are interested in a few newly created positions here in Admissions. We are looking for 3 recent alums to help us with the scholarship process from start to finish-this will involve responding to requests, reviewing several hundred applications, interviewing finalists and meeting with prospective students. This is a new hugely expanding area for us, and, frankly, we've been inundated with requests this year.

These full-time positions will begin 2/1, a week from today, and end around 3/12. The pay is $20/hour. If you are interested, please send me your resume as soon as possible at sims@law.georgetown.edu.

Incidentally, we received your name from OCS that you are still seeking employment-if this is incorrect, please let me know so that I can update their records.

Warm Regards,

Sophia"

NJ Shitlaw Wants your Wheels!

Check out this strange 30 K a year shitlaw ad from North NJ cragislist:


http://newjersey.craigslist.org/lgl/1569177492.html


I like how one "must never say "no" to where they are sent or why?" and also send him a photo or the make/model of your car. Things are getting mighty strange out there in shitlaw land as the desperation and saturation reach epic levels and the toilet schools keep cranking out JD's. Remember, it's less than 4 months until the class of 2010 get those precious sheepskins!

By the way, the pay works out to $14.25 an hour if you assume a 40 hour week. Where do we sign up!


L4L

Pro Bono Scam

As tuition skyrockets and law school diploma mills continue to blossom across the nation, American Bar Association President Carolyn Lamm has urged the organization and law firms to "think creatively" about how they might lead efforts to develop ways to employ lawyers hit by job cuts. Actually regulating the scam schools and the bogus post-graduate career statistics, and actually doing something about the endless supply of jobless graduates being pumped out into the job market is clearly off the table. The bloated law school administrators that sit on the ABA regulating committees will have none of it.

The ABA and the legal establishment have attempted to foster an illusion of an imaginary, nonexistent demand. The solo scam cheerleaders (most notably, Susan Cartier Liebel) are always trying to convince naive law graduates that there is some great untapped need for lower income legal services. She says this despite the fact that legal service organizations are inundated with the resumes of the thousands of unemployed lawyer grads who are willing to work for free. Even deferred associates and those short on hours are in a mad competition to "help the poor" and look busy.

It comes as no surprise then when I came across the following article published last weekend in the San Francisco Chronicle. Looks like Pillsbury Winthrop's pro-bono program has the city in quite an uproar. In a city with no shortage of homeless, the firm has been accused of using scorched-earth tactics to fight for the right of some scumbag to litter the city with 11 abandoned vehicles. On top of the litter and declining property values, the taxpayers have had to spend $71,320 to defend this matter. City residents have been pleading with the law firm to stop assisting with this vexatious litigation. "This guy is out of control," said local resident Ken Stewart. "It's unbelievable. We need some help on this." Perhaps, next time I head out that way, I could get this guy to park one of his vehicles on Carolyn Lamm's front lawn.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/23/BAA11BM6RJ.DTL

TTT

Sad Note

"L4L,

Just wanted you to know that I heard a sad rumor that a contract attorney passed away on the downtown NYC Juristaff gig. I am not aware of what caused the death at this point, but was told that for whatever reason he wasn't able to seek out medical attention soon enough. At this time, I have no information as to the identity of this individual. I will keep you posted if I learn anything else."

The Garden State's Rates Deflate!

This just went up an hour ago (1/21/09) on nj craigslist:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/lgl/1564000500.html


"Deflate the rate" comes to New Jersey! BTW, can anyone confirm that Barasso/Deloitte has cut the Westfield sweatshop rate to $25 for the incoming coders? Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse! Lady Barasso must address this immediately and reclaim the mantle of cheapest sweatshop operator in the Garden State from our new pals in Morristown!

This is great news for the Valvoline Dean Pat Hobbs of the infamous Seton Hall Unemployment Center. He's probably working the phones right now and loading Greyhound buses at Newark Penn Station to truck those grads up to Morristown, just in time to mention his "99% employment rate" to our pals at US News!

Do the math: 44 K a year tution at Seton Hall to scrounge for $25 an hour temporary doc review gigs with no health benefits or chance for advancement! Come on down.....

L4L

(By the way, this will likely be my last post as Tom is getting back from vacation soon and taking back the reins. It's been fun, coders! L4L

The "Swine" Group Pigs Deflate the Rate!

Our pals at The "Swine Group" aka EP Dine aka "Franken-Dine" aka "EP Slime" are hard at work "deflating the rate" with this new $25 an hour cattle call that needs 100+ bodies:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/1554510102.html

As predicted on this blog months ago, the new waves of recently-admitted lemmings will drive rates to shockingly low levels. We're reached the point where agencies are testing new floors for doc review rates daily, and don't doubt that they'll fill this job w/in hours. Don't be surprised if we see rates fall to the high teens or very low twenties by mid-spring. Remember, the NY Bar 1st Dept has a big admissions ceremony in January, and then in March all the out-of-staters head up to Albany for that swearing-in. The agencies are licking their chops at this new group of desperate, heavily indebted lemmings who will code like crazy and ask for more! We learned a couple days ago that a Hudson job that's happening in NYC right now is paying $27 flat and was filled w/in hours with admitted NY attorneys.

(Another rumor awaiting confirmation is that the infamous Deloitte/Barasso gig in Westfield NJ cut the rate for incoming coders from $29 to $25- can any T the T readers confirm this?)

We certainly hope that all experienced coders boycott this project. At that rate, you might as well drive a truck or wait tables and preserve at least a bit of your pride. Posts like the new Swine project really remove all doubt that we're in an ugly, bumpy race to the bottom out in doc-review land.

*UPDATE: We learned today at Tom the Temp that the $25 an hour Dine project is at Huron Consulting. Another agency, Synergy, is staffing Huron gigs at $33 an hour and have been for some time. Apparently, Dine is simply testing the bottom to see if they can steal a few more bucks from the coders and pad their already fat bottom lines.
L4L

Solo Cheerleaders say we're "whiners"

Came across this post on good old Solo Practice U's website:

http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/2010/01/11/dont-be-a-victim-of-the-victim-mentality/


You really gotta hand it to the solo cheerleader shysters and their denigration of anyone not swilling the $595 "Solo Practice U" Kool-Aid! Who knew that forking over $595 for a bunch of YouTube clips of fellow solo losers was the fast-track to success?

Fact is, American lawyers cannot compete with a continent full of unlicensed third-world "lawyers" who will cut, paste and code the same slop-work garbage as us for 1/100th the pay. It's like a baseball game where one side gets 3 outs and the other 15. You cannot compete on a playing field that unlevel. And lest we forget, LegalZoom has stolen most of the makework garbage like LLC formation and wills, while the terrible economy and unemployment make it impossible for DWI and other shitlaw quasi-criminals to pay even modest attorney fees.

And if solo practice is so lucrative and fufilling, why aren't these people out there doing it? By their deeds you shall know them.

L4L

Junior Associates in India Earn $8100 a year

Good luck competing with folks who pay no bar dues, student loans, CLE fees, and work hard for 8 grand a YEAR:

From Bloomberg.com (link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aBo8DnfekWZQ


(Bloomberg) -- Bruce Masterson, chief operating officer of Socrates Media LLC, asked his outside counsel to customize a residential lease for all 50 U.S. states in 2003. The firm's estimate: about $400,000. He rejected that price tag and hired QuisLex, in Hyderabad, India, which did it for $45,000.

``It was good quality,'' said Masterson, whose Chicago-based company publishes legal forms on the Internet. ``We've been working together ever since.''

Clients are pushing law firms like Jones Day and Kirkland & Ellis to send basic legal tasks to India, where lawyers tag documents and investigate takeover targets for as little as $20 an hour. The firms are reacting to a trend that will move about 50,000 U.S. legal jobs overseas by 2015, according to Boston- based Forrester Research Inc.

``The objective is to have only the most valuable people in London or New York, and the others in India, China or Columbus, Ohio,'' said Robert Profusek, co-head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Jones Day in New York, who sends low-end work to the cheapest locations and plans to open a document center in India. ``Lawyers are service providers. We are not gods.''

Companies with in-house legal departments in India include Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont Co., San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems Inc., and New York-based Morgan Stanley, according to ValueNotes Database Pvt. The Indian legal services industry will more than quadruple to $640 million by 2010 from $146 million in 2006, Maharashtra, India-based ValueNotes said.

General Electric

General Electric Co. sends about $3 million a year in routine legal work to its Indian affiliate, said Janine Dascenzo, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company's managing counsel for legal operations.

``India has very talented lawyers,'' she said. ``But it's a misconception that you can just send work there and it gets done. You need proper supervision and security.''

Kirkland & Ellis, the seventh-largest U.S. law firm, works with offshore attorneys at the client's request, said Gregg Kirchhoefer, a senior partner in the firm's outsourcing and technology transaction practice.

``I'm not an advocate of offshoring legal services, but having worked in this area for so long, I understand the value of the model,'' he said. Typically, clients hire a provider and Chicago-based Kirkland helps manage the attorneys, Kirchhoefer said.

Markup Disclosure

U.S. law firms are required under ethics rules to disclose markups on what they pay foreign attorneys who aren't licensed to practice law in the U.S. Such rules don't apply to legal work performed by lawyers admitted to practice in U.S. jurisdictions.

Traditionally, law firms pay U.S. contract attorneys $50 to $65 per hour and bill clients up to three times the fee. For work performed by associates at the law firm, firms typically bill clients about $250 to $400 an hour.

Armed with the knowledge of how little law firms might pay for offshore work, corporations can use the threat of cutting them out and sending legal tasks overseas on their own to force law firms to reduce fees.

``Law firms can earn more by using labor they can mark up without disclosure,'' said Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law in Manhattan. ``But clients are knowledgeable about costs, and they want to negotiate the markup on these charges.''

Trend

Not every law firm has accepted the trend.

``Some firms are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt,'' says David Perla, co-chief executive of Pangea3 LLC, an offshore legal services company based in New York and Mumbai. ``They see any competition as bad and they'll raise any issues as to why you shouldn't go offshore.''

Of the 10 highest-grossing U.S. law firms, seven declined to comment on outsourcing. Only one, Chicago-based Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, said it doesn't use the practice.

``I don't think law firms are ashamed of offshoring,'' Perla said. ``The firms that are having success with it aren't talking, because they view it as a competitive advantage.''

Of about 100 third-party legal services providers in India, clients give top marks to Pangea3 and New York-based Integreon Managed Solutions Inc., according to The Black Book of Outsourcing, a survey published in July by Clearwater, Florida- based Brown-Wilson Group Inc.

About 80 percent of Pangea3's clients are corporations and 20 percent are law firms, Perla said.

`In-House'

``Some firms are coming to us because in-house clients suggested it or pressured them,'' Perla said. ``Others want to come to the client first and offer a solution.''

Integreon, which provides legal services in India, the Philippines and Fargo, North Dakota, has long-term contracts with about 45 companies and 15 law firms, said CEO Liam Brown.

Law firms contribute 45 percent to offshore revenue, while corporate law departments contribute 36 percent, ValueNotes said.

Integreon recruits lawyers from second-tier law schools in India and managers from the litigation practices of firms such as New York-based Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Brown said. After training in India, managers relocate to New York or Los Angeles.

In India, legal education is based on common law, conducted in English, and requires two or three years of classes. The country produces about 80,000 law school graduates a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with about 44,000 in the U.S.

Offshore companies charge $10 to $25 an hour on low-end work and $25 to $90 an hour on advanced jobs. Junior Indian lawyers might earn as much as $8,160 a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with the $160,000 average salary for associates in major U.S. cities.

Janice D'souza, 26, a lawyer in Pangea3's litigation and research department in Mumbai, says she makes three times as much as she would at an Indian law firm.

``At an Indian law firm, generally your potential is not recognized at an early stage,'' D'souza said. ``Here it's talent- based. In the near future, I think I will be a department manager.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Cynthia Cotts in New York at ccotts@bloomberg.net and; Liane Kufchock in Southfield, Michigan, at lkufchock@bloomberg.net

Doc Review R.I.P.?

Can NYC doc review finally be pronounced dead? It's been months since any large projects have gone up on Posse List or craigslist, and the few projects we do hear about seem to pay abysmal rates ($25-$30/hr) with no chance for any OT.

Is anyone working out there? If so, post agency, rate, and expected duration below in the comments.

LA Times: No More Room on the Bench

Wow, wow, and just WOW!. Perhaps the hardest-hitting mainstream Op-Ed yet on the dismal state of the legal "job market." From todays Los Angeles Times:

The American Bar Assn. allows unneeded new law schools to open and refuses to regulate them. The government should consider taking steps to stop the flow of attorneys into a saturated marketplace.

By Mark Greenbaum

Remember the old joke about 20,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea being "a good start"? Well, in an interesting twist, thousands of lawyers now find themselves drowning in the unemployment line as the legal sector is being badly saturated with attorneys.

Part of the problem can be traced to the American Bar Assn., which continues to allow unneeded new schools to open and refuses to properly regulate the schools, many of which release numbers that paint an overly rosy picture of employment prospects for their recent graduates. There is a finite number of jobs for lawyers, and this continual flood of graduates only suppresses wages. Because the ABA has repeatedly signaled its unwillingness to adapt to this changing reality, the federal government should consider taking steps to stop the rapid flow of attorneys into a marketplace that cannot sustain them.

From 2004 through 2008, the field grew less than 1% per year on average, going from 735,000 people making a living as attorneys to just 760,000, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics postulating that the field will grow at the same rate through 2016. Taking into account retirements, deaths and that the bureau's data is pre-recession, the number of new positions is likely to be fewer than 30,000 per year. That is far fewer than what's needed to accommodate the 45,000 juris doctors graduating from U.S. law schools each year.

This jobs gap is even more problematic given the rising cost of tuition. In 2008, the median tuition at state schools for nonresidents was $26,000 a year, and $34,000 for private schools -- and much higher in some states, such as California. Students racked up an average loan debt in 2007-08 of $59,000 for students from public law schools and $92,000 for those from private schools, according to the ABA, and a recent Law School Survey of Student Engagement found that nearly one-third of respondents said they would owe about $120,000.

Such debt would be manageable if a world of lucrative jobs awaited the newly minted attorneys, but this is not the case. A recent working paper by Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt Law School contends that with the exception of some of those at the best schools, going for a law degree is a bad investment and that most students will be "unlikely ever to dig themselves out from" under their debt. This problem is exacerbated by the existing law school system.


Despite the tough job market, new schools continue to sprout like weeds. Today there are 200 ABA-accredited law schools in the U.S., with more on the way, as many have been awarded provisional accreditation. In California alone, there are 21 law schools that are either accredited or provisionally accredited, including the new one at UC Irvine.


The ABA cites antitrust concerns in refusing to block new schools, taking a weak approach to regulation. For example, in 2008 the ABA created an accreditation task force to study the need for changes, but saddled it with a narrow charter. In the end, it proposed only cosmetic changes and rejected out of hand the possibility of giving up control over accreditation, calling the idea not viable and "draconian."


The task force also raised the possibility that if the ABA gave up its accreditation authority, the Federalist Society, a conservative-leaning interest group, could take over that job. This is an intellectually dishonest red herring, likely injected to divert attention from the idea's merits. The Federalist Society would have no reason to do this because the technical, expensive accrediting process does not gibe with its mission, nor would the Department of Education be likely to give it such authority.

The ABA has also refused to create and oversee an independent method of reporting graduate data. Postgraduate employment information generally provides the most useful facts for prospective students to study in deciding whether to go to law school.


In many cases, the data that schools now furnish are based on self-reported information, skewing the results because unemployed and low-paying grads are less likely to report back. Law schools do this because they want the rosiest picture possible for the influential rankings given by U.S. News & World Report. Despite its ample resources, the ABA has rebuffed calls to monitor the schools to get more accurate data, calling the existing framework an effective "honor system."


Based on what happened with the accreditation task force, the ABA is not likely to force change; it is too intertwined with the law schools. ABA groups -- such as the task force, which was chaired by a former dean -- are stacked with school officials who have no incentive to change the status quo. This is why the ABA should get out of the accreditation business completely.



Unlike other professional fields such as medicine and public health, whose preeminent professional organizations do not have control over the accreditation of schools and programs, the ABA exercises unfettered power over the accreditation of law schools.


The American Dental Assn., the nation's leading dental group, offers a model for the ABA to follow. It accredits schools but assiduously guards the profession and has allowed respected dental schools such as the ones at Emory, Georgetown and Northwestern to close for economic reasons and to prevent market saturation. Such a move by the bar association would be unprecedented. Dental schools go even further to protect the profession's integrity by collectively boycotting the U.S. News rankings.


The U.S. Department of Education should strip the ABA of its accreditor status and give the authority to an organization that is free of conflicts of interest, such as the Assn. of American Law Schools or a new group. Although the AALS is made up of law schools, it is an independent, nonprofit, academic -- not professional -- group, which could be expected to maintain the viability and status of the profession, properly regulate law schools, curtail the opening of new programs and perhaps even shut down unneeded schools. The AALS has cast a very skeptical eye on for-profit schools, compared with the ABA's weak hands-off accreditation policies.


Although these would be unprecedented moves, they are necessary. The legal profession must be saved from itself.

Link to original here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greenbaum8-2010jan08,0,4457698.story?track=rss

A Year-End Snapshot of the job market

From "Adjunct Law Prof Blog"

Student loan debt is up and job expectations are down according to a year-end, informal snapshot of several sources. The online ABA Journal is reporting today that almost a third of all law students expect to graduate with more than $120k in loan debt. Over at Above the Law, editor Elie Mystal describes, in a column called "Debt: the Silent Killer," the effect $150k in law school debt has had on him since he graduated from Harvard Law in 2003. Since he decided he didn't like the practice of law after all, he calls the experience "a very expensive vacation that debt financed." The ABA president is urging Congress to offer law students debt relief.

On the employment side of the equation, the year that just concluded represents the worst period ever in BigLaw lay-offs with more than 12,000 jobs lost. The picture is brighter for more nimble, mid-size firms although even 65% of those surveyed still expect to reduce associate salaries in the coming year. And then there's this: "Associate Pay Cuts Here to Stay."

Perhaps for that reason, law students have changed their expectations about working in the private sector with more indicating a desire for (lower paying) public interest work according to the most recent Law School Survey of Student Engagement (and here).

This year's survey found that the percentage of law students who expected to work in private law firms dropped to 50 percent, down from about 58 percent in each of the previous three years. The percentage of law students who anticipated finding work in the public-interest sector rose to 33 percent, from about 29 percent in each of the past three years.

The findings "may indicate that law students are reframing their career expectations in response to changes in the economic climate that have affected hiring at many law firms," said Lindsay Watkins, the survey's project manager.

How will it all end? This article reminds us that we've been through a severe legal recession before and survived just fine - some even thrived. Whether circumstances exist now that didn't then (more law schools, more law grads, outsourcing, etc.) is still the big unknown.

Full link here:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/2010/01/a-yearend-snapshot-of-the-job-market-for-law-grads.html

L4L

*REMINDER: All racist/anti-Nigerian/anti-Semitic comments will be removed. Comments are being moderated before publication. So don’t waste your time- no one will see/read your racist gutter ranting. Get the picture? Thank you.
L4L

Let's give temping the "Frontline" Treatment

Frontline, the award-winning PBS documentary series, has recently run feature programs on the Madoff scandal, the financial/derivatives market meltdown, and other infamous swindles of late.

Yet it seems they’ve overlooked one of the biggest scams of all: the law school/student lending cartel. This festering cesspool is just begging to be pumped out. We have Dick Matasar of NYLS steering lemmings to a notorious student lender “loan shark” whose board he chairs, the obvious salary/employment fraud broadcast by the schools and the NALP, the total lack of jobs for new grads, tuitions increasing at 5 X the rate of inflation, and of course the ABA’s infamous 08-451 outsourcing opinion. Plenty of grist here for the Frontline scambusting mill.

Here’s the link to email Frontline your story idea:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/contact/

Make sure to forward this link to all your struggling friends. Just imagine the squirming TTT deans being confronted on national television with hordes of their pissed-off grads and held to answer for their patently bogus salary/employment brochures. Talk about must-see TV.

*NOTE to COMMENT POSTERS:

All racist/anti-Nigerian/anti-Semitic comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

Skadden Stiffs Bomb Scare Victims

Rumor has it that Skadden Arps has decided to screw over victims of the recent Times Square bomb scare incident. As you've probably heard, a building doorman reported a suspicious looking van without license plates to the NYPD, who quickly called in the bomb detail and evacuated all high-rise buildings in the area including Skadden Arps headquarters at 4 Times Square the day before New Year's Eve.

Skadden has apparently informed the coders that they will not be paid for the time they were out of the building due to the evacuation. This doesn't surprise us here at T the T, since Skadden is a notoriously cheap crew of shysters. They suffer from a major prestige defecit due to their "McBiglaw" reputation, and recently axed scores of long-time staff attorneys and paras without a moment's notice or a dime of severance. In these turbulent times, it's comforting to know that scumbags like Skadden haven't changed their tune.

L4L is watching the store

Hello out there in coder-land. Law is 4 Losers here and you there, wishing all a happy New Year and how ya’ be?

Tom is taking a well-deserved vacation and asked me to look after the blog while he’s away (don’t worry, he bought a round-trip ticket and has not defected to Honduras to escape Sallie Mae.) As you probably know, I recently updated my own blog Big Debt, Small Law (er, sorry for the long wait) and even scored a feature over at ATL:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/12/is_solo_practice_a_pipe_dream.php

As usual, the pro-law shills circled like a school of piranhas when a monkey falls into the Amazon. It’s simply amazing how many attorneys just 6 months into solo practice are clearing over 300 K doing shitlaw “estate planning” and breaking 7 figures with their books of Allstate fender-bender files, as the ATL comments state. Who knew? That’s not just “networking”, that’s hijacking the goddamned airwaves! Me thinks that Susan Carter Liebel must’ve had all hands on deck and manning their battle stations within minutes of the ATL post going up. Like dumping root beer down a beehive, scores of angry shills swarmed out with stingers locked n’ loaded, ready to attack all “losers” and venom them into submission. The few legitimate comments were likewise pathetic, with some Wilson Elser cut n’ paster bragging about his 76 K salary four years into the insurance defense racket and other assorted Kool-Aid burpers that don’t even rate a mention.

But enough about me. Here are some L4L doc review predictions to ring in 2010:

Rates will continue their downward plunge. Over the next three months, 15,000+ starry-eyed lemmings will “take the oath of office” and gain entry to the exalted bars of NY, NJ and CT. Since even the no-fault boiler rooms paying under 40 K now require a SCOTUS clerkship, Ivy-league pedigree and 10+ years experience, look for many new faces lining up at DeNovo, Lex-Pollution, Hudson, Update and the other pimp-daddies just dying to whore these virgins out for peanuts. The child-sex trade in Thailand will look benign by comparison once the agencies taste the sheer volume of fresh suckers signing up. And just imagine how bad the “training seminars” will be with squads of newbie gunners raising their hands every 30 seconds to ask if “we need to keep our eyes out for UCC 2-207?” and “will quantum meruit be a factor here?” and other bar exam-type “substantive” bullshit.

Worse yet, these kids are going to be clicking faster than the Morse Code operators sending Titanic’s distress signals. They haven’t yet learned that lightning-fast coding doesn’t lead to one being “discovered” and promoted to associate. No one is panning for “diamonds in the rough” on a doc review gig. Lemmings, the law school lottery was already drawn. Your ticket lost, so quit re-checking the numbers. Get over it and slow the fuck down.

I really feel for you “veterans” stuck doing Q.C. on these gigs. Get ready for reams of false-positive “hot docs” where a newbie thinks some corporate sushi order was really an encrypted top-secret message about screwing over shareholders. The “attorney comments” boxes are going to read like mini-Law Review articles for a while, maybe even with footnotes. Relax. Just give them time. Like a tire stuck in the mud, it takes a while for this pent-up legal energy to futilely “spin-off” before finally burying itself in apathy’s quagmire. As Red said in The Shawshenk Redemption, “these doc review gigs are funny, boys. At first you hate ‘em. Then after a while you get used to ‘em. Before long, you start to depend on them.” Indeed.

Look for time and a half rates to finally vanish altogether. 2009 signaled the chest pains for OT, but 2010 will bring the fatal coronary. With the desperation level currently out there, there’s simply no reason for any agency to pony up OT pay anymore. We’ve seen the last of the OT dodo bird. Its extinction is imminent. Hell, even the rates for foreign language gigs are headed straight downhill. A new trend by Peak and esp. Strategic is to post Posse List jobs with an “up to” qualifier, such as “up to $32 an hour” and such. What’s going on is that they’re seeing how many resumes they get and then keying pay based on the response rate. Anyone here remember the last time an agency called them as opposed to the other way around? Enough said. And don’t be surprised to see “junior level” projects popping up in the $16-$20 an hour range in 2010, and probably even lower. (Jursitaff is already testing these waters). Rumor is that Helene Diamond (Peak) and Sean Treadwell (Strategic) both took a real hit in 2009, and as such could only afford to have their Bentleys detailed every other week. Everyone here had better buckle down and get to clicking to make up the slack for them here in 2010.

Expect the market to remain tight and projects few and far between. New software and other “coder-bots” have taken quite a bite out of first-level review. The herd of documents has been drastically culled. And of course the ABA (American Biglaw Association) is hard at work in 2010 sending more licensed attorney work to the cheapest third-world serfs they can find, all while tooting the diversity trumpet like a “rusty trombone”. Their tune sounds a lot like a Cleveland Steamer.

Also look for conflicts and background check forms/processes to become even more invasive and demeaning. With the nefarious corporate behavior of the last 10 years now coming to light in litigation, Biglaw is shitting its pants and subjecting all coders to a virtual anal cavity search before placing them on project. The recent Synergy/Huron debacle with its 12,490 page conflicts forms and invasive requests for SS#s and private info is a trend we predict will continue. You can, of course, kiss internet access goodbye forever. Even SullCrom pulled the browser plug about 3 months ago from all the basement workstations.

BTW, you SullCrommers better mind your P’s and Q’s, because Big Mamma’s Xmas stocking was lighter than usual this year. Paul Weiss already cleaned house and slashed scores of staff attorneys and paras, and SullCrom will be monkey-see, monkey-do once they catch 09’s profit per partner numbers at Paul Weiss. “Big Mamma”, if axed, will first swallow the recently re-opened Burritoville across the street before stampeding thru lower Manhattan and climbing the Woolworth Building a la King Kong. Shit could get ugly real quick.


Keep the horror stories coming, coders. It’s a brand new year…..

Your pal,
law is 4 losers

PLEASE NOTE: All racist/anti-Nigerian/anti-Semitic comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

Assault at Labatoilet?

"Apparently Labaton & Sucharow has come up with an unusual incentive system for its junior hires in this benefit bereft market: The right to assault & hospitalize even more junior hires. This Kapo- Kapitalist system was put to the test when one of the recent hires: (name to be confirmed) sent a fellow attorney to the emergency room with a concussion today. The cause of this treatment by this belligerent barrister was that someone asked him to turn down the volume on the game function of his iphone, during one of his infrequent visits to the work area. More on Mr. (name to be confirmed) as/if he develops; will he be arrested, deported or just plain promoted?"

Merry Christmas From Harris Beach LLP

Figured I’d pass this along. I know it was only three contract attorneys and the firm isn’t a big player, but I just was dumbfounded by the fact that they called today to tell us the project is over. The firm is closed today. It couldn’t wait until Sunday evening. Or even early Monday morning?

Merry Christmas, eh?

"As I’m walking back into my apartment this afternoon, I heard the final few rings of the telephone and the answering machine turn on. A staff person from the attorney temporary staffing agency I’d been working for these past few months was leaving me a message telling me that the project I had been working on at Harris Beach PLLC on Wall Street was over effective immediately. The firm’s current advertisement hook is 'Lawyers you’ll swear by. Not at.' How funny. Real professional too. Well, I had a few choice words for those attorneys today, that’s for sure. It’s unconscionable to call someone on Christmas Eve, when the law firm is actually closed, to tell them that their job is over effective immediately. Great timing. Wonderful way to usher in the Christmas holiday. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, right? It couldn’t wait until Sunday evening or even Monday morning?"

http://laidofflawyer.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/bah-humbug/

Happy Holidays From Quinn Emanuel

"Here are a few tales from the holiday season at Quinn Emanuel:

We all joined Quinn on an up-note. We were told we would be direct hires making $55/hour plus overtime and operating on California's generous overtime rules. The project was to be run by a heavily made up (think Jersey Shore) cheerleader and a crooked-nosed lurch from Fordham.

All went swimmingly for a week. We got our steady diet of indignity, but as it was served with a healthy dose of money, who were we really to complain. And so it carried on a week until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when they gathered us all in a great big room to tell us that our pay had been reduced by $19 an hour, cheers, and have a great Thanksgiving. Also, you no longer work for Quinn, you work for a woman at Strategic Legal with a herpee on her lip. Oh, and a baleful "sorry" to those who had canceled their holiday plans, but our work wouldn't be entirely necessary this weekend as they planned to increase our hours later.

And so they did. The week after Thanksgiving was up to sixty hours. The week after that was unlimited, but do not bill too much lest you get tired. The apoplexy and abject managerial failure obtained in the instructions doled out assiduously by the Cheerleader in a flurry of daily emails reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld's 'snowflakes.' In these emails were a delightful mix of perfect reversals in instruction with the necessary admonishments about how we should have known the entire time what she was thinking (though she didn't give us the production requests because drooling assholes like us wouldn't get such high falutin language); warnings blasted without even a scintilla of irony when people worked fewer than fifty hours the week after Thanksgiving about failing to live up to what we 'had agreed' to do; and perhaps my favorite, an email in which the Cheerleader (I'm sure to appease Lurch) lectured us children on the moral quagmire of billing while shitting. I was so shocked by the last bit that I forwarded it to a few friends with jobs at other firms.

To make the season bright, I get word today that the project looks to end Thursday. Christmas Eve. With no warning given either to those of us on the project since the Great Rate Cut or to those that started yesterday. What the fuck is this job I've got. I'm so grateful I couldn't have made plans for Christmas, seeing as I'll likely not be working after all."

Knee-jerk Positive Thinking Is A Mental Disorder

In her new book "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America", social critic Barbara Ehrenreich lays out how an epidemic of postive American thinking from the Iraq War to the build up to the recent financial collapse has led to misery and brought us nearly to the brink of economic collapse.

Ehrenreich recently noted that, "two weeks ago, I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at a meeting where people who were about to be laid off told their stories. A woman next to me said that when her unemployment insurance runs out, she'll live in her car. Then, another woman said, 'Well, we have to remember to be positive, and that means don't watch the news, don't read the newspaper, just concentrate.'"

There is no shortage of postive thinking delusion when it comes to the law school scam. The Wall Street Journal for example did a front page story not long ago questioning the integrity of the post graduate career statistics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. When it comes to delusion, facts and statistics apparently don't matter. Just last week the ass clown career center dean of the law school (Graham Sherr) gave a presentation to the unsuspecting 1L's in which he stated, "there are more jobs than there are of you, but you have to shun bitterness; bitterness is ugly." He then proceeded to demonstrate how positive delusional thinking would somehow reach out and magically bend the supply curve in the legal marketplace. Apparently, it worked because several minutes later the same fraudulent, puffed up career stat numbers that were criticized in the WSJ piece magically appeared on the overhead screen.

Labaton Suckaroo - Scrooge Of The Year

"Dear Tom,

I nominate Labaton Suckaroo for the Scrooge of the season award. I worked for them at their offsite Merrill Corp hellhole earlier this year and I blogged about the infamous Blondie who was the team leader at the site. I managed to find something else, but I have some friends who are still working on the same Countrywide project back at Labaton’s headquarters downtown. They related the following to me: Labaton promised their temps, who they made short temp attorney employees, benefits after six months of service. Last week, they were called into a meeting on their six-month anniversary and told by a nasty personnel troll that they would not be receiving their paid vacation that had accrued or be paid for company holidays, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, for this year. Some of these short term attorney employees had already planned vacation days over Christmas and got it approved, but now were told that you are not getting paid for it and that you are not getting paid for the company holidays either, and it’s too bad if you made plans. Lousy Labaton postponed all benefits until 2010 in order to avoid paying their employees for Christmas.

You can imagine what this has done for morale in a situation where they expect their short-term attorneys to build a plaintiff’s case in a multi million-dollar lawsuit against Countrywide, which was acquired by Bank of America. This is not mere document review. They expect their ex temps to do substantive work for $32 an hour flat while temps who are doing the same work, but representing a co-counsel on the same case at Labaton are making $45 an hour. Also, they recently blocked Internet access because the sleazy Guliani type COO came down and observed a few people on the Internet; apparently the same greaseball was instrumental in stopping Christmas pay.

Well, I guess Labaton Suckaroo is following in the great tradition of other ambulance chasing plaintiff firms like Paul Weiss and Milberg Weiss. I suggest you also put Labaton Sucharoo in your hall of shame. I know that they are very conscious of their image, as Paul Weiss was when you embarrassed them before, and they do monitor this blog. Thanks for providing this forum to expose the hypocrisy and abuse of these toilet law firms. I know that your blog does make a difference; Blondie almost got fired last time.

All the best!"

"Synergy"

Hey Tom, a large project is gearing up with Synergy, a new gang of pimps in the doc review ghetto. Rate is $33 flat for 40 hours. Miserable does not begin to describe the situation. The incompetent old hags from Aronld & Porters DC office are running the "training gulag."

First you have to fill out a 12,590 page conflict form listing every firm, matter, and case you've handled since being admitted to the bar, as well as the name of your first grade teacher, blood type, and scores of other irrelevant and personal info. They have been bouncing the forms back again and again for even the smallest typo or discrepancy. Apparently the case involves Avon. Let me tell you, those Arnold & Porter hags sure could use some - they should lay it on like drywall spackle and then sand off the excess.

Anyway, only 2 days into training they already cut 1/3 of the 50 coders for "failing" a pathetic doc review test (maybe they're taking lessons from Lady Barasso). Now they're in scramble mode to replace them ASAP- so all coders beware! Stay as far away from this shitshow as possible- the in-house counsel and Arnold & Porter will be breathing down your neck like it was Alcatraz. The coder/straw boss ratio is like 2:1. I'd rather ride around on a garbage truck than push paper with these devils. A & P obviously have zero experience running this size review- I'm half tempted to write the Avon CEO and let them know that their "counsel" have their heads up their asses (or are their heads their asses- hard to tell!)

A Law School Carole

When you get a chance, you just HAVE to check out this computer generated cartoon that will be featured in the National Law Journal on Monday. While I got a kick out of the ghost Ralph Marley, the shadow of the (still alive, but might as well be dead) former law student who used to rent Steve's apartment and now does document review somewhere in New Jersey, my favorite scene has to be that of the Ghost of Law School Past, one of the most hauntingly disturbing and hysterical things I have seen this year.

Scroll through the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-_wDwmOQ1U

Here's the article, including commentary from the vile crap diploma school deans and useless ABA:

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/14/spotlight-on-esq-never-writer-also-an-animator-a-latter-day-loyola-2l/

More Lexploitation

Earlier this year we told you that "Nora Moo Moo" (no, not King Kong) would be arriving in Los Angeles. Well, she has arrived and those previously nice California rates are beginning to plummet:

"Here is a Lexploitation posting on Craigslist. I know because I received the same e-mail directly from them, although they also mentioned that there will be no paid parking parking ($60/week).

On a positive note, Providus is staffing a project at 34/hr."

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/lgl/1500640581.html

Another E-Discovery Shin-dig

"Hey Tom, Did you see this? Let's Gate-Crash the E-Discovery Shin-dig!‏

Listen to some of the podcasts! We have Diane Barasso, slave-mistress of Barasso, and the Panega-3 outsourcing crew! Sounds like quite a shindig."

Learn how to most efficiently downsize and outsource your legal work to India, followed by a presentation by Lady Barasso on how best to torture those Americans remaining through "non technology solutions designed to maximize efficiency, including ways to accelerate the review teams." I am curious as to what "non technology techniques" Lady Barasso has in mind to prod the teams along, especially when she oversees one of the most stifling, demoralized, low paid review camps in the NY metropolitan area. Maybe she will give a lesson in her infamous churn and burn mass firing techniques.

http://www.ediscoveryevent.com/main/?utm_campaign=MPPosse&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=exacttarget.com&utm_content=home&utm_term=discount&MAC=IUS_POSSE_#1

Matasar's Junk Bonds

In the unregulated Wild West fantasyland of the American Bar Association, you now have a dean of one of the most overpriced law schools in the nation (who has jacked up tuition 5x faster than inflation over the last 10 years) serving as the head of the Board of Directors of a private student loan financing company. Put this together with the fact that many of the bonds sold off into the ABS market by this financing operation are now going negative, and you have one fishy situation. Lucky for the investors in the FFELP trust, the American taxpayers will be on the hook for 97% of the principal and accrued interest AND PENALTIES in many of these garbage loans.

Thankfully for us, several reporters are interested in looking into this seedy situation, while the ABA sits back and promotes outsourcing and "how to get ripped off while setting up a solo practice" promotional blogs.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fitch-Affirms-Access-Group-bw-809064258.html?x=0&.v=1

Snubbed By The "ABA Journal Blawg 100" This Year

Despite winning our category last year, it looks like we weren't recognized by the ABA editors this year. I guess our Congressional letter writing campaign and our nationwide call to defund the organization didn't go over too well.

Regardless, I urge everyone to vote AGAINST the "Strategic Legal Technology" blog for Prism Legal under the tech category. Thanks ABA for honoring an Indian outsourcer in one of the worst job markets for young lawyers EVER.

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/third_annual_aba_journal_blawg_100

Another Angry Letter To A Law School Dean

"Dean Hiram Chodosh
Dean Reyes Aguilar

S.J. Quinney College of Law
University of Utah
332 S. 1400 E., Room 101
Salt Lake City , UT 84112

Dear Reyes and Hiram,

Gentlemen, on your school’s materials, it states that 98% of graduates from the Class of 2008 were employed within 9 months of graduation. And, according to the representatives from your school, this is based off of 100% response rate to the graduate survey.

The same material also claims that the median starting salary is $89,021 for the Class of 2008. Is this counting private and public employers? Is this also counting those graduates who are working in non-law positions? Does this median figure include those working as retail and insurance salespeople, school teachers, clerks, and research assistants?

Lastly, the school lists a starting salary range of $42,000-$215,000. So, does this mean that not one single graduate from 2008 found a job making less than $42,000? I find this incredibly hard to believe – isn’t there a large oversupply of lawyers and JDs in the U.S. ? Since your school publishes and presents these figures to attract more applicants, would you be willing to submit these figures to an outside, independent audit?"

1 Hour Notice

"This is my first MAJOR gripe about doc review in about 3 years. In July about 60 people were recruited by Lexolution to do a review for Dechert. The review initially went well. We did our job, had no complaints from the people upstairs and then all of a sudden we were told to pack our stuff because the project will be suspended until at least next week. We were given 1 hour notice on the eve of thanksgiving week! Some people actually need to prepare to take their belongings (e.g. tupperware, mugs, dinner, ipods, wires, etc.) since we practically lived there anyway and were all under the impression that the project was going to last through December

Its clearly obvious where we rank on the totem pole but they should've had the decency to give us more notice than 1 hour. To add insult to injury, we may also not qualify to file for unemployment until we find out whether in fact we are officially unemployed. We were told that we should know by Wednesday whether we're coming back. What a load of crap this is!

Of course, I'm not surprised that we were let go right before thanksgiving. After all, its not as if Dechert has any respect for social standards and to them we are a dime a dozen anyway. But at least have the decency to give us more notice than 1 hour! It is noteworthy that we were all let go on a Friday. Ya think this was planned in advance?

It just goes to show that there is no fraternity among the legal profession, nor are there any social boundaries. For the first time in my life, I'm thankful we have a penal code. Who knows, if murder were legal they would probably set the whole case room on fire just to avoid letting us have our unemployment benefits, which by the way, is not nearly enough to get by."

Return Of The Eunuch

BLAST FROM THE PAST, THE EUNUCH IS BACK!
"'The Eunuch' is back in the general population. I heard through a friend that he is on the Countrywide project at Labaton as a temp making a whopping $32 an hour flat. Apparently he is no longer with Anita's shit law firm. Also, I heard that he is trying to impress at Labaton and become a project leader. He does this by copying and pasting large portions of the document in the Attorney Comments field of the coding sheet thereby hoping to impress; of course, this dumbass provides no relevant comments of his own. But from what I hear, it doesn't take a lot to impress on the Labaton project. The Eunuch and Labaton: What a perfect duo!"

BLAST FROM THE PAST - http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/2006/01/anita-and-her-sidekick.html
http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/2006/02/hey-heyyo-yo-sidekick-has-got-to-go.html

A Happy New Year's Surprise: Unemployment Benefit Extensions Set To Expire By End Of The Year

Readers of your blog should note that the recent unemployment extensions do not apply to everyone. This is especially important for those laid off after July 1, 2009, as we go into the holiday season when temp hiring may slow down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19unemploy.html?_r=1&hp

Blacklisted By Lexolution

Wear it as a badge of honor. The arrogance and greed of those shysters is so great that they think they are immune from 19th century fire and labor code regulations.

"I just walked off a LeClair Ryan document review gig. Although the fact that I was thankfully offered a better paying job at another firm and by another agency, the work conditions at LeClair were so ridiculous that I probably would have left anyway. Some of the random activities prohibited at this jokehouse: wearing earphones, making phone calls, text msging, doing anything with your phone, having a non document review related conversation with anyone near you, etc.

Despite promptly notifying my rep, I still was graced with a bitchy phone call about how unprofessional I am. Oh, I almost forgot, 15 dollars an hour. Parking not included.

I imagine I'm now blacklisted from Lexolution, but I'm so bitter I couldn't care less."

An Open Letter To Dean Richard "The Slimeball" Matasar

"Tom:

Attached is a copy of an email I sent to Richard Matasar at New York Law School. I'm forwarding it to you because I thought you might be interested in it, given your recent post on your blog about Access Group and Matasar.

Thanks and keep up the good work with the blog."


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Subject: Letter from an '02 almunus
To: rmatasar@nyls.edu

Dear Mr. Matasar:

My name Is . I am a 2002 graduate of New York Law School, and I am admitted to practice in both New York and New Jersey.

I am writing to encapsulate and memorialize my disappointment with both you and New York Law School in general. I'm terribly disappointed with how my legal "career" has played out in the seven years since I graduated, and I was shocked and outraged to hear that you concurrently serve as Dean of NYLS AND as Chairman of the Access Group (a CLEAR conflict of interest that should be addressed by the ABA and New York Bar Ethics Committee).

In short, my NYLS degree is not worth the incredibly high price tag that I paid for it, using student loan funds I obtained from your Access Group. I was unable to ever obtain a permanent legal job that would pay me enough to both service my student loan debt and put food on my table. This was not for lack of trying; I utilized Attorney Resume and paid top dollar to have my resume written and gain access to almost 1,000 law firms' contact information, only to be rejected by EVERY firm to which I sent my resume. (That's correct: almost 1,000 REJECTIONS - both affirmative rejections and "trashcan rejections," where they didn't write back. Not even ONE interview.)

I contacted the NYLS "Career Services Department" in 2003 (in quotes because it's not really a Career Services Department, but a farce). They apologized that I was having problems and directed me to a link on the NYLS website to TEMP AGENCIES, under the guise of "Legal Recruiters." "Lots of our graduates do Contract Attorney work to hold them over until they can find permanent employment," they said. Little did I know what "Contract Attorney" work entailed, how horribly and disrespectfully I'd be treated, and how I'd ruin even the slightest chance I'd have to secure a permanent job with the albatross of "Contract Attorney" on my resume. But this was supposed to "hold me over," as per your "Career Services" department's assertion.

Since I was desperately in need of income in order to eat and service my debt to your Access Group, I contacted the temp agencies and was soon put to work for approximately $30 an hour. The conditions were reminiscent of a Third World sweatshop; there were over 100 "attorneys" stuffed into a dingy, poorly ventilated basement that was infested with cockroaches! And there were an inordinate amount of NYLS graduates on this job; I don't have an exact number, but I would estimate at least 15 or so.

This project lasted approximately three months, at which point it ended and I registered with several other agencies. I quickly was placed on another project that was worse than the first one, at a very prestigious downtown firm. We were shoved into a sub-sub basement, surrounded by mountains of dusty and dirty boxes, and made to review the contents of these boxes. Now I have no aversion to getting my hands dirty, but this was ridiculous, given the abuse we sustained at the hands of our supervisors. I won't go into more detail, but it was a terrible experience. And, once again, there were and inordinate number of NYLS graduates working with me.

These temporary jobs continued for five years. For five years, I bounced from one temporary job to another, some lasting for a few weeks, some lasting almost a year. No opportunity for advancement, no respect, no benefits (or at least benefits that were too expensive for me to afford, given I was being soaked by the Access Group each month and had other bills to pay.) Then the economic crisis of 2008 happened.

I completed my last (and possibly worst) temporary project in November 2008. Since then, I have been unable to land another temporary project. That's right, Mr. Matasar: I have been unemployed for ONE YEAR!! For one year, I've been collecting unemployment benefits and struggling to make my student loan payments to your Access Group.

In the past year, I've been frantically trying to find work, to no avail. I've sent out hundreds of resumes, to no avail. I even have an interesting story for you:

A college friend of mine works for Cognizant, a mobile communications technology company. Upon hearing of my plight, he asked me to give him my resume so he could forward it to his friend in the legal department. I hesitatingly did so, knowing in my heart and mind that I would be quickly rejected and laughed at because of all the Contract Attorney experience listed on my resume. (It has been my experience that Contract Attorney experience is a quick way to get your resume thrown into the trash in record time. I've heard several interesting justifications for this, including that Contract Attorney experience is an indicator that the candidate "didn't really want a permanent position." Meanwhile, Contract Attorney work was the ONLY work I could get that would allow me to earn enough money to survive and pay my debt to THE ACCESS GROUP. Can you say CATCH-22, Mr. Matasar?)

My prediction came true: my friend called me a few days after forwarding my resume and told me his friend in the legal department determined that I "didn't have the skill set" they needed. My friend pressed him to define exactly what he meant by "skill set," and he said the following (my friend actually took notes):

1) New York Law School is a joke, a farce. They don't even consider NYLS graduates for attorney positions. He might be able to get me an interview for a paralegal position though, but it's a long shot. (Mr. Matasar. I AM A LICENSED ATTORNEY, NOT A PARALEGAL!! I SPENT OVER $140,000 TO OBTAIN MY J.D. FROM NYLS AND I'M ADMITTED TO PRACTICE IN TWO JURISDICTIONS!!)

2) Contract Attorney work is GARBAGE. It's document review and can be done by "monkeys." It's not substantive legal experience, and is indicative of my not wanting to get a permanent job. (Meantime, I couldn't get any other work, as I've said. My friend even told him this, but it went in one ear and out the other.)

3) There was no way my friend's friend could forward my resume to his superior without looking foolish and being repremanded for wasting his superior's time.

So, Mr. Matasar, there you have it. I spent top dollar, which I borrowed from your ACCESS GROUP, to get my J.D. from NYLS and pass two bar exams, only to be shunted aside, marginalized, and humiliated by the legal industry. I am on the verge of bankruptcy and as of next month, I will be unable to continue making payments on my ACCESS GROUP student loans. I plan on writing a letter when the next payment is due, explaining that I didn't get what I paid for and was mislead by NYLS's job statistics prior to enrolling (NYLS misleads potential students with employment numbers - you include temporary Contract Attorneys as being fully employed at large firms, which is not the whole truth), and I'm suspending my payments. I am prepared and willing to face the legal wrath that will occur when I default, and I see it as a golden opportunity for me to expose both NYLS's fraud and your unethical conflict of interest

I plan on expressing my outrage at your conflict of interest, namely that you are concurrently the Dean of New York Law School AND the chairman of the Access Group. You thus have a VESTED INTEREST in continuing to mislead NYLS students, convincing them to take on huge amounts of debt from your ACCESS GROUP, which means you personally reap a double benefit. It's not right, and it's not fair. I can't believe you think this conflict is acceptable. It's so wrong, so unethical, and it needs to be addressed on a much bigger level than this email.

Sincerely,

Fool Me Once

I received the following email from several ticked off people this week. If you have followed this blog for any particular length of time, you would know that a project offer from SkaTTTen is like receiving a vow of fidelity from Eliot Spitzer, or a promise from Barack Obama that taxes will not be increased on the middle class.

"Hello,

I wanted to update to let you know, with my deepest regrets and with Skadden’s deep regrets, that the project has now been postponed indefinitely. If anything changes, I will let you know as soon as possible. Clutch Group and Skadden both apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I hope we have the opportunity to staff you on a project soon. Keep me updated as to your availability. Have a great weekend.

Elle

Recruiter
ClutchGroup
Smart solutions. No borders"

Did Hell Just Freeze Over? Never Mind

I almost dropped to the floor when I read that the ABA (the American Biglaw Association) was actually confronting reality and addressing the issue of crushing student loan debt head-on. When I actually read what they were proposing, however, it didn't take long to realize what they were really up to:

"The move would help the private loan providers, too, by helping borrowers to pay off their loans when otherwise they might default, Lamm added. 'The [private loan providers] should like this plan because otherwise there is a bankruptcy bath waiting in the wings,' she said."

It seems like Richard Matasar and his crony ilk in the Access Group are in over their heads and need a bailout. With the recent creation of the Income Contingent Repayment plan (ICR), what we would essentially be doing by converting private loans into federal ones is socializing the risk of worthless TTT law degrees and putting on the backs of future American taxpayers millions of dollars in guarantees in worthless triple rated "TTT" junk bonds. I say no way.

What we really need:
1. Create transparency and standardization in the publication of law school post-graduate career statistics.
2. Reallow private student loans to be discharged under the federal bankruptcy code. If Access Group can't underwrite credit worthy loans, they should go out of business.
3. Disallow law school deans from serving as CEOs of private lending companies. Clear conflict of interest.

That is all.

http://www.theposselist.com/2009/11/11/aba-proposes-law-student-loan-relief/

The "Distinguished" Legal Profession

At BYU, a law student shows up to class donning full military garb. In NYC, a distinguished Harvard grad tries to torch a church containing the remains of several 9/11 victims using teddy bears as kindling. In a certain document review dungeon that shall remain nameless, disgusting creatures fornicate with each other in filthy basement stalls. Across town, a legal staffing agency hungry for a profit neglects their due diligence and staffs a project with a sexual predator. When heading off to work in the distinguished profession of law, don't forget to bring your mace!

Happy Halloween

Or, for those in the Sullivan & Cromwell basement, just another Saturday in the office.

The Hudson Goon

Steve the program manager from Hudson who was in charge of the Cadwalder project is a true piece of work--while he was training us he was condescending, arrogant and few times during the privilege log review when he found himself lost he lashed out at us by saying: "you are the ones who will be doing this, not me." His level of nastiness was so apparent than even the associates at Cadwalder looked at each other and kept sending texts to each other in apparent disbelief.

His arrogance was met with utter silence.

The Return of "Lily"?

"I would just like to let you and your readers know that Hudson is trying to staff a long term project at Hughes Hubbard and Reed again. I don't know if this is for the Vioxx cases that didn't settle or a new case of the same magnitude. I also don't know if they will be reopening the offsite plantation. The Eggman was canned a while back, but Lily is still around."

For those newbies fresh out of law school who haven't had the privilege of running across Lily, you are in for a real treat:

"For those who don't know, 'Lily' is not her actual name. Her real name rhymes with Lily and I will use this psuedonym to protect the guilty.

Anyone at HH knows who she is. She is a grotesque 300 lbs, and her physical deformities are utterly beyond description. Her best friend is a bag of cheetos, and her fat, mangled fingers are often coated with their orange powder. She drives her slaves (this is the slang for 'managing' temps or 'contract attorneys') offsite in a basement in New Jersey. I believe there may be windows, but I have not been there myself to verify this fact.

Lily does maintain a presence in the New York office, rather unfortunately, and we see her rear her ugly head from time to time. Probably just taking orders from some non-equity partner in charge of the firm's various doc review projects. The sole purpose of this woman's existence is to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of each slave, and to make their miserable lives as horrible as possible, all for $35hour."

Welcome to 2009! Same Lily, much lower rate!

http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/2007/04/lily-hughes-hubbard-horror.html

"Let Them Eat Cake" - The Great CLE Scam

"Every day, I get at least one email from the New York City Bar, almost always offering some expensive for-pay CLE program. Yesterday, I received an email titled Better hurry up last chance to register for CLE class! This reminds me of an Indian tout on the street trying to hook you to go into their shop to spend some dough. So much for the illustrious image of the Bar with their grand office on West 44th Street with plaques of all their famous members (100% from the big law firms of course).

I have accepted at this point that the New York Bar will never do a thing to help my career and that they will give a license to anyone who will pay their unconstitutional annual fees. But they could spare us these desperate messages for CLE money. And with it, their usual veiled threats about what happens if you don't pay for CLE and you will be disbarred.

Howard Miller, the new big firm head of the California Bar, said that his contribution will be to force more pro bono work on California lawyers. California has 225,000 lawyers and has very high bar testing and annual fees. So they throw another burden on the funeral pyre of all their thousands of unemployed lawyers. While Miller says, "Let eat cake". Since he is living off their millions in fees."

Juristaff

Tom,

Just an update. I am on that "junior" level document review that pays $23 an hour. Ironically, not one person on here is junior. Oh, well. Check out this email we received today:

"Please pick up the pace. They are expecting you to do about 80 docs an hour and all of you are less than half that. Changes will be made soon if this does not change asap."

What a dump this place is. Every week half the project leaves. We drew a little graveyard with tombstones and the grim reaper on it. Soon, it won't be able to hold all the contract attorney dead.

Paul Weiss: The Cartoon

Check out the following work from Kate Scurfield, an amazing cartoonist from England who amazingly captures the hell of the Paul Weiss basement. Thank you to the "Jobless Lawyer" blogger who posted this and pointed it out.

http://joblesslawyer.com/cartoons/101209-humor-print-1-document-review-monkeys/

The New York Bar - "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas"

"Tom, the biggest issue in the New York bar association is whether to admit ex-cons. Since they admit non-J.D. foreigners and allow outsourcing, why not ex-cons?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/03/08/new-york-sets-a-high-bar-for-convicted-felon/

Incredibly, the New York bar presented this to the newspapers as their having such a high standard, since New Jersey went ahead and admitted the ex-murderer.
Most of the people writing on the blog said he made one little mistake and should be admitted.

The New York bar will admit anyone. Despite their marble statutes and supposed grand traditions, they are all about collecting (high) fees. It's the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas that is not in Texas (even Texas has higher standards).

I once worked on a project where months into it one of the 'lawyers' was found not to have been admitted anywhere. Last bar exam, the New York bar boasted a 91% pass rate. Basically, anyone at all can be a lawyer in New York. The State Bar of California boasts on its website the constantly increasing number of lawyers. Last year I checked it was 200,000."

Paul Weiss Axes Staff Attorneys

Above the Law is reporting today that Paul Weiss is conducting a series of quiet layoffs in their staff attorney program. One befuddled tipster reported, "some of these staff attorneys have been there for seven and eight years and they are not even offering severance." Cry me a river. What do you expect from a bunch of despicable human rights violators who conduct mass retaliatory firings after workers contact the media about cockroach infested work environs and atrocious working conditions? After 8 years, Paul Weiss has thrown you out like a piece of trash, just as you have been complicit in treating countless souls like disposable trash throughout the years. Welcome back to the temp pool!

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/paul_weiss_staff_attorney_layo.php

Job Plunge

While there appears to have been a recent flurry of activity in the temporary document review job market, the overall American job market continues to deteriorate. They always say that an uptick in the temporary job market is a leading indicator of good things to come. Let's hope so, and pray that the red line doesn't continue to plunge off the cliff.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/comparing-employment-recessions.html

Recovery?

"Tom,

Just wanted you to know that I started a large scale project today. It's the De Novo project in NYC. It's packed to the gills with over one hundred coders. Everyone seems to be in good spirits and thankful to be back at work. In fact, I think many of us are suffering from post-traumatic stress. Whether it was spending months unemployed wondering how we were going to feed our families, or having the fortitude to put up with the "gansta gang" at Sullivan & Cromwell which was oftentimes the only show in town, we have been through a lot. Let's hope this recovery is sustainable."

Labaton Suckarow Update

Here is an update on the Labaton project. I just want to make the point, again, how greedy these law firms are. They want all the rewards but none of the responsibilities for hiring attorneys directly. They get business from government entities and have licenses to do business in NY, but yet none of the laws that protect workers' rights are applicable because we happen to be attorneys. It is only in the USA among western countries that this would be allowed to happen because the idea of good corporate citizenship is anathema to these greedy bastards.


HAPPY YOM KIPPUR FROM LABATON

Labaton which hired a bunch of attorneys for its Countrywide project some months ago and paid them $32 flat per hour with absolutely no benefits announced that the firm will be closed for Yom Kippur and there will be no pay. How wonderful! I am all for respecting each others' religion, but I draw the line when it takes money out of my pocket. If you wish to take the day off, enjoy, but why should a company consider it okay to close down on a religious holiday, not a federal one, and screw their Countrywide "employees" out of a day's pay. Labaton, you suck. You are cheap.

One of the named plaintiffs in Countrywide is the NYS Comptroller, so you Labaton think it is fine to get business from a government entity, operate in New York City and then hire attorneys for a long term project while giving them no benefits whatsoever, and then to boot, impose a religious holiday on them. What the hell is wrong with this country? No wonder that it is so fucked up. It is one thing to get screwed by an agency, but you Labaton made us your employees. You want to pay us the minimum by cutting out the agency's take, and then you bill the client God knows what for our services, all the while providing no benefits in return. We can't even get paid overtime because of the bullshit professional exemption in NY. The cleaning people have more benefits and rights than we do.

Labaton if you had any decency you would pay us for Yom Kippur, if just to create goodwill, but of course you are too short sighted and cheap to do that. Instead you continue to operate your sweatshop, provide no benefits to your "employees," bilk the client for as much as you think you can get away with, and have a nasty bleached blonde police the caseroom in the hope of finding somebody eating a banana at his or her desk; I think that bleach has leaked into whatever little brain she has. Please deliver me from this hellhole.

More Elite Click Monkeys

In Chicago, only top tier, top 1/3rd of the class, former biglaw associates with 2+ years of litigation experience need apply (products liability associates preferred!). Unreal. Game over.

"Counsel On Call is currently interviewing attorneys with at least one year of solid electronic document review experience for a contract assignment in downtown Chicago. Must have worked as a litigation associate in a large law firm 2+ years. Experience with products liability litigation strongly preferred. Full time, requires a three month commitment. Top tier school and top 1/3 of class required. Please e-mail resume to julie.lehrman@counseloncall.com."

Tower Legal - $18 per hour

"Tom, your website is awesome. it is very informative and funny. im a recent nyc tier 1 grad awaiting admission to the bar in ny and nj. i got a call from tower legal staffing offering me $18 per hour, since it is ajd/paralegal project. I declined. She pressured me telling me that it is the going rate for unadmitted JD's. I assumed she was lying, but either way, I felt it was exploitative, since my cleaning lady earns $15 per hour with zero education and zero student loans to pay off. I just thought I would share this with."

Unfortunately, she wasn't lying. JD rates (for those few that are lucky enough to be offered work) continue to fall through the teens, and admitted attorney rates are dropping to as low as $23 an hour straight time. The situation is certainly exploitative, as we discuss on here ad nauseam. Trying to support oneself on twenty bucks an hour, after taxes, student loan payments, and non-subsidized health insurance is nearly impossible. Furthermore, the work is oftentimes unsteady, the agencies are increasingly engaging in bait-and-switch techniques, the positions are truly dead-end in every sense of the word, and the working conditions are many times less than ideal. Welcome to hell.

Dupont, Pioneer In Legal Outsourcing Slammed For Discovery Fraud

It looks like the Dupont Corporation was recently slammed by a Florida judge for allegedly providing inaccurate and misleading discovery responses. If the plaintiffs' attorneys really wanted to have a field day, they should examine the cadre of unlicensed foreign nationals that who are currently reviewing discovery documents by the sweatshop load.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/judge_strikes_dupont_defenses_in_benlate_case_due_to_fraud_on_court/

Document Review Elite

Tom,

Saw this posting recently for a 'top tier' document review project:

"Compliance LP is staffing an immediate document review project in Washington, DC. We are seeking recent '09 law review graduates or graduates from top -tier law schools, awaiting bar results. The project will require 50-60 hours per week for 5-8 weeks at a competitive rate with OT.

Interested and qualified candidates must be conscientious, posses a strong work ethic and be eager to wok in a professional working environment. Document review preferred, but not required."

Apparently not even document review is low enough for those of us from bad law schools anymore.

The ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar

Don't expect clear and transparent post-graduate employment statistics anytime soon. This committee is a complete and utter scam. It is literally packed to the brink with members of the law school industry cartel. Although the Section's bylaws mandate that only 50% of the council's seats be occupied by law school deans, faculty, and administrators, it is quite clear that the other half of the board is populated by lapdogs who are clearly not disinterested. A Harvard 2nd year as the representative voice for the entire national law student body?

Dean of New England School of Law: Vice Chair;
Dean of Univ of Montana School of Law: Member;
Deans of Hastings, Miami, American, Washington Schools of Law: All Members;
Harvard second-year law student: Student Member;

The committtee on its website brags that "in order to acheive its goals of improving the quality of legal education, character and fitness assessments, and bar admission standards, the Section works closely with the Association of American Law Schools, and the Access Group..... among others." In the past year and a half, the Section has granted provisional approval to the Elon, Charlotte, and Drexel Schools of Law, and has granted full approval to the Florida A&M and Western State University Schools of Law. They have also granted acquiescence for the scam school Ave Maria to get up and move across the country, and have also removed Golden Gate and Whittier Schools of Law from probation. The committee is also mulling the idea of allowing certain of these scam school to do away with the LSAT, and has put out a proclamation declaring that swine flu is a bad thing. No word from them yet on the fraudulent and disingenuous marketing materials put out by many of these law schools, reports which have recently surfaced in a large number of recent mainstream media articles.

Although it was announced last month that there was a vacancy on the committee, and while it would be nice to have the perspective of a working class lawyer on that board, good luck achieving that in reality. For one thing, in order to be eligible to serve, you are mandated to pay dues to the ABA criminal syndicate. Actually reaching the board is another thing entirely. The rules say that, "the president of the board will activate the process in the Section Bylaws to fill a vacant seat." The "Section Bylaws" are a complex, byzantine set of regulations that probably haven't been revised or read since the 19th century. In reality, the seat will in all likelihood go to someone who the chair picks out of his preferred rolodex. Even if a member could be chosen who could adequately represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of working class lawyers out there, he/she would be so out of place that it wouldn't even be funny. It would be like a drunk transgender stripper showing up to a Southern Baptist Convention.

I am sure that the other ABA committee that put out that ridiculous "let's ship all the legal work to India" opinion is the same way.

The Push For Better Job Information For Incoming Law Students

Professor William Henderson is the lone responsible voice in a pack of ivory tower theives. Indiana is lucky to have him. In NY, we are surrounded by such low life scumbag "educators" as Dean Matasar, Joan "King" Wexler, and the Valvoline Dean.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/aba_should_publish_better_job_info_for_naive_law_students_prof_says/

Don't count on sensible, independent law school employment reporting coming any time soon. As Professor Henderson so accurately notes, "Regarding jobs in private practice, how many are working as contract attorneys? Nobody really knows, and the issue is not on the section's agenda. If these data are published, some law schools would probably go out of business.”

More importantly, as an astute commenter to the NY Times article noted yesterday, "It should be noted that the ABA leadership is composed of big law lawyers whose firms benefit greatly from the oversupply of lawyers because it allows the big law firms to pay rock bottom prices for the huge numbers of temp doc review attorneys they hire for large cases. Of course, these same firms then turn around and bill their clients top dollar for the same temp doc review attorneys that they are paying the lowest possible wages to. It is a win win for the big law firms. The fools who have been defrauded into persuing a law career wind up as debt and wage slaves for the benefit of big law and the banks who have offered the wage slaves loans backstopped by the government." In that vein, we have ShitStaff Staffing Agency offering this morning a pathetic, benefitless $23 an hour rate. The misery goes on.

Lock The Law School Doors

Great article.

Love the description of the Joan King (see tab on right) phenomena:

"Take, for instance, the employment statistics posted on the Web sites of three low-ranked law schools in New York City, the country’s biggest market for legal employment. All three advertise that 45 to 60 percent of their 2008 graduates who reported salary information are making a median salary of $150,000 to $160,000.

Now, of course there must be some way of slicing and dicing the numbers to yield that magic result. But what happens, in practice, is that prospective degree-purchasers enroll in these $43,000-a-year programs believing their chances of landing that Big Law job are about one in two. Tempting odds."

ABA utterly out of touch:

"The American Bar Association, which continues to approve law schools with impunity and with no end in sight, bears complicity in creating this mess. Yet a spokeswoman, citing antitrust concerns, says the A.B.A. takes no position on the optimal number of lawyers or law schools."

A whole future generation of low wage sweatshops coming down the pike:

"Meanwhile, as job opportunities abate, law school matriculation rates rise unchecked. Each year, the number of students who enroll at one of 200 law schools approved by the American Bar Association inches closer to 50,000."

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/hold-for-tues-pm-another-view-lock-the-law-school-doors/