The End of the the Contract Attorney Era: By Court Mandate

We have discussed Robo Lawyers in the past and how e-discovery conducted by computers will impact the market place for contract attorneys (a.k.a. document review attorneys).  It's my feeling and perhaps the general consensus that contract attorney jobs will dissipate gradually with the ebb and flow of the free market.  Attorneys in India are cheaper than our lawyers, who are heavily laden with the burden of student loan debt.  Then, once clients get the memo that much of contract monkey work can be done by computers, sans attorneys altogether, document review "opportunities" will eventually disappear altogether. However, although covered in 2011, the change did not seem imminent.  After all, it takes a long while for the legal market place to catch up to technology, or so I thought.

Welcome to tomorrow.    Judge Peck of the the Southern District of New York court mandated robo-attorneys for document review--because it's cheaper.  I have practiced in Federal Court and this type of "innovative" idea could catch like wildfire--and spread from one Judge's chambers to the other.  Let's determine how many jobs this type of case would have created.  Apparently, the issue in the case is as follows:

Whether Publicis Groupe compensated female employees less than similarly situated males via salary, bonuses, or perks; precluded or delayed the selection and promotion of females into higher level jobs held by male employees; and carried out terminations or reassignments when the company was reorganized in 2008 that disproportionately impacted female employees.

 I'm thinking this type of case would have provided work for 25 or so contract attorneys.  So, thanks for putting 25 young, starving and possibly homeless contract attorneys out of work, Judge Peck.  I know, it's not his responsibility to make sure that young attorneys are working.  But it's also not his responsibility to make watch the litigants' pockets.  Next he'll be looking at the attorney's bills and deciding whether the work is administrative or legal in nature before the check is cut.  Unless, of course, the legal fees are awarded to the Plaintiff---which could actually be the case here.  Then that does fall within his duties as a judge.  Whatever.  That's not the point.

Litigation is pricey and that is part of what makes the machinery of the legal system turn as it does. To usurp that premise by dictating methods of discovery is... should I say... reversible error?

Let's see what happens. Run, don't walk, away from contract work. It's no place to be when the ground splits open beneath your feet.

Moral of the Story: The government always finds a way to intervene, i.e. ruin, the free market.

Night Shift! Something to Aspire To...

From: "Andrew D. Rider" <arider@hirecounsel.com>

Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 13:37:41 -0400

To: Andrew D. Rider<arider@hirecounsel.com>

Subject: Hire Counsel is Currently Staffing a Night Shift for Admitted Attorneys in Westfield, NJ

Hire Counsel is Currently Staffing a Night Shift for Admitted Attorneys in Westfield, NJ – Due to NJ Transit Schedules candidates will probably have to have a car.

Project Details:

• Location – Westfield, NJ
• Start Date – Mid April
• Duration – 4 to 6 Weeks
• Schedule – 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM
• Rate - $29.00 per hour
• Project Type: Document Review - relevancy and privilege issues

Project Requirements:

1. Bar Membership – Any US Jurisdiction
2. Availability – 4 to 6 weeks and not have vacation/travel plans during the duration of the project (Holidays and a day here or there will not be a problem)
3. Experience – 6+ previous document review or litigation experience is preferred

How to Apply - READ CAREFULLY

Simply respond to this email (please do not change the subject line), attach your resume as a MS Word file (even if you know we have it already), and indicate that you meet the requirements listed above.

What Happens Next?

When we receive your resume and email indicating how you meet each of the requirements listed above we will review the resume and call you if we believe there is a good potential that you would be selected.  Once we have spoken to you and obtained your permission we will send the resume to our client.  Once we hear from them we will let you know if you were selected for the project.  We will not send your resume ANYWHERE without your express permission to do so.

Why am I receiving this email?

You are receiving this email because you have previously registered with Hire Counsel and our records indicate you are interested in temporary projects in the New York area.  If this is no longer the case please let us know by reply email.

How to remove your name from our list:

Simply reply to this email but CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE TO "REMOVE ME"

Sincerely,

Andrew

Andrew RiderManaging Director, Administration & Account Management

Hire Counsel575 Madison Avenue, Suite 3000
New York, NY 10022

phone   646 356 0550 fax     646 356 0565
arider@hirecounsel.com
www.hirecounsel.com

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The Bottom Falls Out: Welcome to World of Robo Lawyer

Everyone knows that there is a hierarchy of legal jobs.  Big Law is at the top of the pyramid as the aspirational goal for many attorneys.  Mid-sized firms, public interest and government work is mixed in the middle.  Near the bottom is Shit Law Solo Work--which can be gratifying, but hardly pays the bills.   Somewhere below that is contract work--the last resort for many attorneys.  The gigs pay less than they used to, the work is mind numbing and repetitive, and the hours are horrendous... but it is the fall back when there is nothing else out there to do.  Like now, for example.  I actually worked on two contract gigs before becoming a Solo, and I swore I would rather be homeless than have another bout of the flu--brought on by the close, germy, dirty, tight and stuffy work environment.  I actually got the flu 3 times in a 4  month period: stomach, regular, regular.

Thousand of attorneys in New York Shitty live off of contract gigs, hoping to hide out until the economy improves.   Some have made careers of it.  Actually, to many, it seemed like the only healthy part of the legal industry--since Big Law was favoring contract attorneys over first year associates to do the grunt work of document review.  Then the ABA OK'd Indian Lawyers doing the same work for pennies on the dollar.  We thought that gutted the industry.  But now, contract work stands to be eliminated altogether with  the advent of a new discovery software that actually analyzes legal documents.  Yes, it thinks like a lawyer--batteries not included.  The article is short, so here it is:

When five television studios became entangled in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit against CBS, the cost was immense. As part of the obscure task of “discovery” — providing documents relevant to a lawsuit — the studios examined six million documents at a cost of more than $2.2 million, much of it to pay for a platoon of lawyers and paralegals who worked for months at high hourly rates.

But that was in 1978. Now, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, “e-discovery” software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. In January, for example, Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, Calif., helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000.

Some programs go beyond just finding documents with relevant terms at computer speeds. They can extract relevant concepts — like documents relevant to social protest in the Middle East — even in the absence of specific terms, and deduce patterns of behavior that would have eluded lawyers examining millions of documents.

“From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out,” said Bill Herr, who as a lawyer at a major chemical company used to muster auditoriums of lawyers to read documents for weeks on end. “People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don’t.”

Yes, lawyers are the grocery store cashiers of the 00's, the bank tellers of the 90's and the factory workers of the 80's...  We're being replaced by computers.  Could this be the first white collar job to fall to new and innovative technology?  And we thought the service sector was safe.  Terminator is becoming more real to me every day.

Thanks for the tip, Reader!

Are Contract Attorneys Entitled to OT?

Everyone who has worked as a contract attorney knows the difference between 'straight time' and 'OT.'  Lately, law firms have been opting for straight time, meaning that you are paid the same rate--no matter how many hours you slave away.  Contract attorneys seem to accept this because they are professionals and not permitted OT under the law, or so they thought.  Well, if you feel differently, you may want to contact Moshe Kopliwitz.  He begs to differ with the 'straight pay' method of payment:

Lawyer Sues Firm for Failing to Pay Overtime 

By JOHN ELIGON
A lawyer is suing his former New York-based employer, alleging that the law firm violated federal labor laws by not paying time-and-a-half for overtime.

In a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, the lawyer, Moshe Koplowitz, said that the firm he did temporary work for, Labaton Sucharow, did not pay him at a higher rate when he worked more than 40 hours in a week.

Mr. Koplowitz worked only a few months at the firm because he was hired as a temporary employee, and he sometimes worked more than 50 hours a week, said D. Maimon Kirschenbaum, the lawyer who drafted the complaint.

Mr. Kirschenbaum said that federal law required employees paid by the hour to receive one-and-a-half times their regular pay for every hour over 40 hours worked in a week.

The suit seeks to become a class action, and Mr. Kirschenbaum said he believed that Labaton Sucharow was not the only firm that underpaid its employees.

“People are afraid to bring these kinds of cases because they don’t want to be blacklisted,” Mr. Kirschenbaum said. “I would hope people use this as a wake-up call to get the money that’s clearly owed to them.”

A spokeswoman for Labaton Sucharow said late Wednesday afternoon that the firm had yet to receive a copy of the complaint and needed to review it before commenting.

Go Moshe!  I hope you win.  And contact D. Maimon Kirschenbaum if you want to join the lawsuit.  There is power in numbers.

Temporary Jobs, Document Review and a Decent Rate.

Any contract attorney will tell you about the glory days of yesteryear, when food was on the client, car service drove you home and rates were $45/hour plus time and half for OT.  After the crash, rates dropped into the teens, you could walk your butt home and OT was impossible to come by. In fact, your hours were capped at 40.  So, now rates are hovering between 25 and 32, with all sorts of caveats like "big firm experience" and experience in patent litigation.  Temp agencies, and Big Law through them, has their picks of the best, brightest and most experienced to conduct temporary document review projects at bargain basement prices.  It's obviously Big Law's way of getting the associates that used to work for them prior to being laid off, for less than $30/hour.  It's a great deal for the legal industry, and a shitty deal for the associates that are now doing mind numbing document review in the basements of large law firms in notoriously hazardous conditions, shoulder to shoulder with other contract attorneys who are likewise numb to the world.  But at least it doesn't require effort, which is freeing.
So, a BIDER tipster sent in this email, from a temp agency in New York that seemed promising based on the subject line: New Short Term Project - 35/hr.  So, at first, I'm thinking--what's the big deal?  That's actually an improvement over rates that I've seen, heard and read about. But then I continued to read on... and WHOA.  Mind you, this email was sent to contract attorneys in New York:

Hi,

Let me know if you would be interested in this new project.   Please read below. 

Four attorneys needed for approximately two weeks to handle intake matters with the firm's clients. Hands on experience in family law, general litigation matters, immigration and criminal law needed.  Attorneys need to be members of the state bar association in good standing in either California, Florida, Ilinois or Washington.

Responsibilities include consulting with the clients on the phone (from one of the states above), generate a memo and perform initial file management and communication/coordination with the firms managing partners in the respective states.

Pay rate approximately $35 hrly. depending on experience.

Does this strike anyone else as slightly odd?  This sounds pretty substantive, as well as specific as hell as to what your qualifications need to be.  Bizarre to be asking a bunch of New York attorneys to be barred in random other states.  And what do you get if you're this rare needle in a haystack with the perfect combo of being barred in Illinois, living in New York, with experience in immigration and criminal law?  You get to be paid a mere $35/hour (or maybe less) to do real work, i.e. speaking to clients?!  Looks like a law firm should be hiring an associate, rather than hiring a temporary contract attorney.  But the free market dictates that contract attorneys are cheaper to hire, so why hire a permanent attorney?  Well, I have many friends that are contract attorneys and they are very professional, but there are plenty of walking disasters masquerading as contract attorneys out there.  I hope the living incarnation of PigPen from Snoopy comes walking into this firm, so they will rethink taking hiring contract attorneys over a permanent employee--from my fingertips to God's Ears.