My Attorney Blog

I’m not trying to get religious but I just want to draw an analogy (maybe it’s a bit of a stretch). Ever heard the phrase – “there are no atheists in foxholes”? Well then similarly, there are no atheists in Temp Town. If you’re not one who can comfortably rely on a degree of positive faith that a project will find its way to you again after your current project is over, then you will likely be under frequent and persistent anxiety in the contract attorney world.

With Contract Work Just Learn To Embrace The Fact That It Is Unpredictable

Contract legal work is very fickle. There is very little durational or job description guarantees. When an agency submits you for a project and promises you 2-3 months work of solid work, the duration terms frequently and do change depending on project conditions. I’ve had 3 month projects turn into 1 week ones, and even a 2 month assignment drag into a 9 month mess. It all depends on the project activity.

This is just the trade-off and essence of contract work. Law firms and corporations hire contract attorneys for short to medium duration assignments because it is more cost effective than retaining a fleet that might not be needed for long durations due to unexpected or indefinite work flow.

When I first started doing this work, I used to always gripe and blame the agencies for falsely advertising and misleading me into taking on a particular assignment that ultimately turned out to be significantly shorter than was originally projected, meanwhile forcing me to give up other opportunities. I think there are a few tricky agencies that do try to inflate the expected hours and duration to snag a few contract attorneys for project submission, but on the whole, I’m not certain that even agencies really know just how long a particular project will last. You should always try to take an agency’s duration estimates with a grain of salt. Don’t nail down irrevocable vacation plans based on their estimations because these type of details tend to waiver. Some agencies are bigger inflaters than others – if they tell me the project will last 2 months, that’s essentially code for 3-4 weeks. If they announce a one month project, be prepared to be there for only 2-3 weeks. It takes some getting used to but the more contract experience you have under you belt, the better your B.S. detector gets.

But It’s All About Knowing That There Will Be Something For You After Your Current One Is Over

As for my expectations of where I’ll end up after the project is over, that is all up to faith – but it’s not blind faith. It’s based on my own previous experience and knowledge about the condition of the market. From my past experience I know that projects are almost always available but that sometimes it may take a few days or a few weeks longer to roll from one into the other. There is no sense in flipping out or panicking when the project is finished. Hopefully you had prudently saved up enough funds to carry you over during periods of downtime and have wisely filed for temporary unemployment benefits to cushion the momentary financial hit. Don’t fret so hard because a project will come knocking soon enough. There is always something going down in lawyer central. Even during recessive periods, there will always be some form of business or legal activity happening in the D.C. metro area.

If you feel like you are waiting around for a long while, take the time to interview and register with the multitude of smaller legal staffing agencies that are popping up everyday. The small fries want to earn your business too so give them a chance by speaking to them during your down time. I’ve found that smaller agencies tend to be more customer oriented than the big agency conglomerates. Of course, faith and expectation only applies to big contract attorney cities like Washington D.C. and New York. Contract legal jobs and projects are not as plentiful or predictably present elsewhere.

In this contract attorney business, we all pretty much work for ourselves. There is some loyalty in the sense that if you have a good working relationship with your agency, they may give you the heads up about an upcoming project quicker than they would offer the same information to another contract attorney. But the bottom line is we move from project to project like nomads, chasing the next available assignment, and loyalty is only a means to an end. My sense is that most contract attorneys will stay loyal to the project so long as it is still ongoing and continues to provide a living wage and working benefits. But when the project is near its last legs, or when the working benefits are curtailed or non-existent, there may be a feeling for some that the time to bail is near.

It’s Important To Stay The Course and Not Bail

There have been times I’ve been staffed and ended up stuck on a bad project. Maybe the hours were too short, overtime was limited, internet usage was banned, with no meal reimbursement, and under stifling working conditions. In those type of situations I have seriously given thought to leaving the project mid-stream for another one. My advice is, don’t do it! Projects don’t last forever and they eventually will end.

Ditching an assignment before it is over is a sure fire way of getting on the staffing agency and law firm’s bad side and could and likely will result in you becoming permanently banned from working with them ever again. Many contract attorneys like to overlap their projects seamlessly and may try to jump ship before it is over to catch the next project before it sails. Once again, don’t do it. The damage you’ll do to your working reputation isn’t worth it. This is not just for contract attorneys, the same goes for anyone in any profession. Do you think any client would be pleased if the person they hired left them in a lurch the moment a better assignment came along?

I have known people who became blacklisted from certain agencies because they left their project before it was over. Don’t expect to hear from the agency again anytime soon about upcoming projects if you do that. They will likely remove you from all future project consideration. Of course, the blacklist is agency and law firm specific. You can easily go work for another agency and law firm, but because the contract attorney world is so small, it is likely you will bump into the same law firm again in the future and find yourself regretting that you burned that particular bridge in the past.

Try to maintain good working relationships. I know there are some bad assignments out there with working conditions akin to that of working in a sweatshop, but from my experience, only a handful of projects are really that bad.

In the event that you do burn an agency by jumping ship and you find yourself blacklisted. Given the passage of time, it is sometimes possible to get back into the agency’s good graces. Remember, they need you for staffing purposes just as much as you need them for job leads. You just have to convince them by apologizing and assuring them that it was an isolated incident that won’t be repeated. Some agencies have been known to take people back. Just don’t make it a systematic practice.

I’ve been hearing quite a few gripes from other fellow contract attorneys about legal staffing agencies that rarely respond to or reply to phone calls and e-mails. I’ve had the same experience with a few agencies so I know how they feel.

Particularly when you are between projects and you’re trying to get aboard another assignment, it’s easy to become frustrated when the agencies give you no love. Some agencies are worse than others but I won’t name any names for now, but I’m sure we’ve all compiled our own lists of agencies with bad “customer service”.

But I will give credit where credit’s due. In my opinion, Update Legal has always had an excellent track record when it comes to contract attorney attention. Tom the Temp up in New York City seems to dislike their New York operation but I personally have no problem with how Update Legal runs their D.C. office. They’ve always returned my emails and phone calls, even when they didn’t have any assignments to offer me. I think it’s excellent form the way they are so prompt in getting back to their contract attorneys who are often deservedly anxious about finding employment.

I Try To Return the Good Favor

Of course, in return I always try to reply back to the good agencies whenever they e-mail me to check if I’m available for a project. Even if I’m already on an assignment, I think it’s common courtesy to write back to let them know my current status. In this business, maintaining good relationships is important. I know some people will say the agencies don’t care about their contract attorneys and that it’s all abut the money. In many ways it is always about the bottom line, but remember, many of the staffing agency recruiters used to be contract attorneys themselves. They’ve been through the contract attorney system. If you treat them with courtesy and professionalism, they are likely to return the favor.

There are a few agencies that will ignore you regardless if they are not currently staffing anything, so as always, individual experience will vary from person to personality.