My Attorney Blog

Notwithstanding any perceived stigma or downside from performing temporary attorney work, there is a general perception that contract attorneys have the potential to make a lot of money within a relatively short period of time because they can work overtime hours. Yes, I think for the most part that’s true.

In a healthy job market when projects are plentiful, making a six figure income or more a year is not only possible, I would go as far as to say it is a likely occurrence. Of course, it would depend on your ability to successfully roll from one project to another. Even after factoring some downtime and gaps in between, a lucrative temp income is not out of the question.

The current recessive job market we are experiencing makes it more difficult to roll, but hitting six figures is still a very reasonable target. It simply may require more agency networking and persistence. Because the market’s a bit tight right now, you can’t passively wait for project announcements to be posted on the listservs. You need to take active initiative to bug the agencies and remind them of your availability on a routine basis.

Concept of Contract Attorney Pay As Fast Money

Interestingly, I have heard some refer to contract attorney pay as “stripper money” - categorized as the type of significant money that can be earned within a very short period of time through tasks that supposedly don’t lead to any future professional enhancement. I might disagree a bit about the latter part of that statement, but the first part is frequently true. Because most contract attorneys are paid overtime wages of time and a half for hours worked beyond 40, we are capable of earning a significant amount within a short period of time. It all depends on how many hours you are willing to put in.

I’ve worked a wide range of hours and personally have no problem with the varying project hour availabilities, but I know many contract attorneys who absolutely embrace and demand long hours. Long billable hours means more overtime and massive overtime can lead to big bucks. Many temps are frequently disappointed if not very upset when hours are cut back as such rollbacks greatly affect their bottom line.

Working 100+ Hours

I’ve had my share of long hours before and let me tell you, working that long is not easy. But at the end of each week, the resulting jackpot paycheck that greeted me was always worth it. Just don’t expect to accomplish much at home during those extreme hour weeks - this includes laundry, family time, sleep, and even personal grooming and hygiene for some people.

At the start of this year, I worked on a project that offered virtually unlimited office hours. Dinner was reimbursed up to $25 and transportation costs were covered. Working conditions were decent, associate supervision was reasonable, and internet access was not restricted. A few contract attorneys and I were separated from the main pack due to room overflow issues, so we essentially ended up with our own private room.

The members of my little posse all worked very long hours, and we took turns encouraging each other when energy and morale was low. Because our food expenses were covered and the office hours were so long, I essentially lived there for several weeks straight. I worked 5 weeks continuously, 7 days a week and racked up nearly 100+ billable hours each week. Needless to say, that one month span was my most successful contract attorney experience to date in terms of financial payoff.

I’m sure I contributed many productive hours for the client. It wouldn’t have been possible if the working conditions were oppressive. It was only possible because the agency and law firm created a commendable working environment that was ideal and conducive for extended hour work.

Extreme Hour Projects Are Rare So Take Full Advantage

There were times I wanted to just go home, but I knew such ideal overtime-heavy projects were not easy to come by so I made the effort to stick it out for the long haul. When you are on one of those kind of projects, you really need to maximize the opportunity. You have the potential to earn more than 2-3 months worth of income within a single month’s time. Contract attorney work can be occasionally unpredictable so when you have the chance to work and earn a lot of overtime in such a short burst of time, it is in your long term interest to stay the course.

I’m sure everyone has similar war stories of working those long hour projects. I hope they were good experiences.

I’m sure we all took foreign language classes when we were little. I myself took French. If I could go back in time I would have told myself not to take French. It’s not a more elegant language and besides, no one in the United States speaks it. Take Spanish instead - it’s a lot more useful.

When it comes to learning a foreign language, conventional wisdom is that you take classes in a language that is popular and spoken by many. After all, what is the point of language if you can’t find anybody to communicate with?

However, in the world of contract attorneys, conventional wisdom doesn’t always apply. So you know French and Spanish and want to do foreign language document review. Well guess what? There are plenty of individuals out there who are fluent in those two languages as well and can perform the same translation skills as you can. That is why when it comes to foreign language projects, the demand for the more common languages isn’t as high as that of the more obscure languages. Obscurity in this case doesn’t mean that no one in the population speaks it. It just means of all the fluent speakers, fewer of them are actually attorneys.

Supply and Demand Means Big Money For Asian Languages

Now if you really want to become hot commodity, you’ll need to dive into the more obscure languages - languages like Swedish or Norwegian. However, the pinnacle of in-demand foreign languages is fluency in one of the Asian languages, such as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. If you are a native speaker and can reasonably perform legal translation in those languages, you are good as gold. The current market rate for contract attorneys who can perform Asian language document review is $50-55 an hour, with a whopping $75 per hour for overtime. It’s simple supply and demand. There are simply relatively very few contract attorneys that can speak or read any of the Asian languages. Legal staffing agencies would love not having to pay such a high rate, but they know that they wouldn’t be able to recruit any Asian language contract attorneys otherwise.

Learning a new language is difficult and the task of learning Chinese, Korean, or Japanese is probably even more insurmountably difficult. But some of you may already have a basic background or foundation in a language other than English. If you do, I encourage you to brush up on your reading comprehension and translation skills. You will be increasing your marketability not only for contract attorney projects, but also improving your employment prospects should you decide to ultimately pursue permanent employment.

For those of you up to the task, I’d suggest that you start taking classes at a local college or even performing self study through an online course like Rosetta Stone. The language skills you acquire will likely pay dividends in the future.

As I mentioned previously, the current market rate for non-foreign language contract attorney work in the Washington D.C. area is $35 an hour with time and a half for overtime. However, I’ve noticed a few projects out there trying to convince contract attorneys to accept a less attractive flat rate with no overtime. While the flat wage rate is slightly higher at around $38 to $42 an hour, you are deprived the overtime benefit of time and a half, which is how contract attorneys usually make the bulk of their money.

An interesting issue that I’ve been wondering about is whether some of these flat rate agencies and law firms are violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by not providing its employees time and a half compensation for time worked beyond 40 hours.

Does FLSA Require Contract Attorneys To Be Paid Overtime?

I’m not attempting a complete legal analysis but my understanding of FLSA in the matter boils down to the following. Under the FLSA ,workers who are not otherwise exempt from the statute are guaranteed the right to overtime pay, or time and a half for every hour worked beyond the normal 40 hour work week. For white collar workers such as attorneys, three basic tests determine whether they are exempt from FLSA overtime requirements. If they fulfill the three basic tests, they are exempt and thus not required to receive overtime pay. If they are not exempt, they are eligible for overtime.

To be exempt from overtime, contract attorneys must satisfy the following tests:

1. Salary Level Test - Firstly, employees earning less than $23,600 per year ($455 per week) cannot be exempt. Average contract attorneys are almost certainly exempt since they are likely to earn more than the threshold.
2. Salary Basis Test - Secondly, employees must be paid a set salary and not an hourly wage in order to be exempt. However, the FLSA actually excludes lawyers from this requirement, and thus lawyers may be considered exempt even if they are paid hourly.
3. Duties Test- Thirdly, a worker cannot be denied overtime pay unless his or her duties are primarily administrative, professional, or executive in nature.

My Opinion

I think as an initial matter, contract attorneys are not independent contractors, since we are at-will employees of the agency or law firm that employs us.

Under the tests outlined above, I believe contract attorneys are exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA. The only question regarding overtime exemption is the third duties test of whether contract attorney work is considered professional in nature. Can we really consider document review work to be professional in nature and not merely clerical? I submit that it is. While document review does not entail mind blowing legal skills to say the least, it does require understanding of legal procedure and terminology. The legal skills and analyses required are dependent on the type of project and on the level of expected interaction between contract attorneys and managing associates. As contract attorneys, we support the project and oftentimes may be called upon to provide our legal opinion to the team and draw upon our prior experience, e.g. discussing privilege claims issues.

Additionally, as licensed professionals, we are also subject to all applicable standards of practice and conduct while on the job. Therefore, even if it is document review, it constitutes the practice of law and ethical violations such as over-billing could lead to bar sanctions.

Thus, while I don’t believe contract attorneys are statutorily required to receive overtime compensation, I do note that it has become common expected practice for document reviewers to be paid in such fashion. Currently, I don’t think there is industry consensus about whether contract attorneys are exempt from overtime requirements under FLSA. How the overtime compensation trend got started I’m not sure, but most contract attorneys today request overtime compensation and agencies predominantly oblige. I think law firms and agencies agree to pay the extra overtime now for competitive reasons rather than legal obligation. Like some commentators have pointed out, we are a finite resource.