It’s Time For the Wage Rate to Increase
The average contract attorney market wage rate in Washington D.C. is currently $35 an hour with time and a half for overtime. It’s been stuck at $35 for several years now and I think it’s time contract attorneys sought a higher wage rate.
In 2005 the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law issued its opinion requiring contracts attorneys working in D.C. to be barred. This caused the prior variations in wage rate to stabilize at the higher $35 an hour for D.C. barred contract attorneys. However, since then, there has been little change or forward progress.
The recent appearance of new legal staffing agencies in Washington D.C. brings hope that this might lead to some needed changes. Smaller staffing agencies that are not as well known, such as Palmer Legal, have recently been heard offering their contract attorneys higher wage rates ($38) to better compete against the bigger agencies. I am not sure if this is their new approach but there has been at least one recently advertised project that they were staffing in which they offered the higher wage rate. Newcomers such as Solomon-Page Group have also been offering slightly higher wage rates as well. I think it would be very prudent to seek them out. They want to better compete and we should certainly encourage them. When the staffing agencies compete, contract attorneys win out.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Contract attorney rates have definitely been stagnant over several years. But I think the goal for many contract attorneys should be in seeking a full-time position or in venturing out on their own, rather than maintaining a co-dependent relationship with staffing agenciesthat do not provide opportunities for growth. As law firm costs rise, the best staffing agencies of the future will be not only those who offer the highest hourly rates, but those who are able to create added value for clients, by training contract attorneys in substantive areas of the law, reimbursing contract attorneys for CLE, and sending more contract attorneys on projects abroad.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I have wondered whether these agencies that staff antitrust projects know or have fully thought out how it looks when everybody in the same market is charging the same price for a service.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I’m being asked to do work that requires document analysis as well as analysis of regulations with deadlines for project meetings every week. I don’t mind pitching in when needed, but this is a lot more stressful than than sorting through documents and no one is even hinting that I might be paid more for more challenging work.
Anyone else have this problem?
October 16th, 2007 at 12:03 am
If you were assigned to work in a team leader role, that might be a bit different.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
No, Amanda’s not talking about privilege review and it doesn’t sound like she’s any team leader. Sounds like Amanda needs a bump up in her hourly rate. The longer you’ve been doing it the more likely, you will receive it. I would suggest that you talk to your agency.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
No, what I have been doing is most definitely NOT priv review. I was taken OFF the priv review team to do different work with different people on the project, although I went back to priv review for a bit to help meet the deadline.
It started with a couple of easy document searches, but has progressed to a regular diet of research and analysis of documents to support this or that point, or to help develop points or develop questions for depositions. The projects end with a memo, which have been well received by the firm’s attorneys, including the partners on the team. I’ve done a couple of routine document-handling projects, and I may go back to coding for a while, since a new cause of action has been added to the complaint.