My Attorney Blog

Projects come and go but it’s always a bummer when they end unexpectedly. I think as much as contract attorneys like to convince themselves that the project might go on and on for months or years, the reality is that many projects don’t last past 3 months, although some do. Many frequently end all of a sudden when you least expect it, so it’s best to be prepared for the inevitable.

But perhaps you’ve already laid out your financial projections based on the durational estimates given to you by your staffing agency. Haven’t you learned anything? These agency projections are frequently inaccurate and can’t be relied upon. Learn to trust your own instincts and the whispers you hear from the daily contract attorney rumor mill instead. To be ready for the unexpected but inevitable end, have a game plan to ride out the expected gaps between legal assignments. I’ve learned a few possible options and pointers after months working in the Town Town grind.

You May Want To Consider These When You Are Between Contract Attorney Projects:

1. File For Unemployment Benefits Right Away – The second the project is declared to be over, file for unemployment benefits immediately. Even if you plan on seeking another project right away, you never know for sure – so it’s best to file just to be on the safe side. In D.C. there is a one week waiting period before your unemployment benefits kick in so it’s better to file earlier than later. The maximum $359 pretax you can currently receive in benefits per week goes a long way in helping you take care of unavoidable expenses like rent and mortgage. Don’t miss out on your entitlement.
2. Interview With Agencies You Haven’t Registered With – It’s important to diversify your staffing agency portfolio. Don’t just limit yourself to the brand name agencies like Update or Ajilon/Staffwise, but branch out into the smaller firms like Delta Group or Solomon-Page. Remember, not all agencies have an equal hand in staffing specific projects so it’s always best to maximize your contacts.
3. Search For Contract Projects – I recommend mass emailing all of your favorite staffing agencies to ask if there are projects currently available or if there are any planned projects in the pipeline. If you’re already registered with the agency, there’s no need to draft a fancy email, so just get straight to the point – what you’re looking for and when you are ready. I suggest emailing or calling daily if you’re adamant about rolling over right away.
4. Search For Full Time Permanent Positions – If temp life is no longer for you, you can start your job search during your down time. Good luck, it’s an extremely tough market for attorneys now due to the over-saturation of law students and law schools.
5. Take On A Few Pro Bono Cases – Have you considered taking on a few pro-bono cases with the DC Bar? It’s an invaluable way to get real world experience in legal practice, particularly if there’s a field you’ve always wanted to enter.
6. Brush Up On the Law Or Learn More About Another Field To Increase Your Skill Set – Clicking away daily at your computer station, your legal skills will inevitably start to get rusty. It doesn’t hurt to take some time brushing up on the legal basics again. I always read my bar magazines, and enjoy tracking legal developments in the news and following legal blogs like the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.
7. Register A Domain And Create Your Own Professional Self Promotional Website – Most attorneys are notoriously slow when it comes to math and computers. That’s probably one of the reasons why we all ended up choosing to attend law school. But if you ever intend to start a solo practice or perform some type of legal practice, it doesn’t hurt to start up your own professional website. At the very least you should try to reserve your chosen domain name before someone else of the same name does. Most attorneys use their own name in the domain address with “law” following it, e.g. johndoelaw.com (which interestingly is still available at the time of this writing). I suggest reserving your domain name and hosting it using popular internet registration sites like GoDaddy or DreamHost (the one I use), but there are many others.
8. Chill, Relax, and Enjoy Your Time Off – I personally use the time I have off between projects as my built-in vacation time. Rather than rolling over immediately I occasionally like to take a few days or weeks off to unwind and rest my carpel tunneled right wrist from all that clicking. It’s one of the many curses and blessings of contract attorney work – although we don’t always get to determine exactly when we have time off, we have the luxury of having longer voluntary time off gaps throughout the working year.

Pouring on the incentives is how placement agencies entice contract attorneys to submit themselves for hard to staff projects. I can always tell when the agencies are having a hard time filling a law firm’s staffing order. The job forums and listservs will be silent but then suddenly explode with an urgent flurry of post traffic with calls for contract workers. The posts will come from different agencies, all attempting to staff the same project and recruit the requisite number of contract attorneys for project submission before their competitors can. When agencies start touting their referral fees and project completion bonuses, you know they are getting antsy about losing the project to some other staffing firm. This is when contract attorneys should swoop in to snag the goodies.

Referral Fees and Working Bonuses Generally

Referral fees vary but are generally around $100-250 per attorney that you refer and takes on an assignment. The newer and smaller agencies tend to offer higher referrals since they need to find ways to steal workers from the big boys. Some of the larger, more established agencies like Compliance prefer to keep their referral policies intentionally fuzzy. If you ask Compliance about their referral rates, they will give you some spiel about how they don’t have a blanket referral fee and usually only give out referrals for certain projects. I find this case by case referral policy to be much too subjective and prone to nonpayment. I hope they will eventually adopt the more transparent referral policies that most of the other agencies offer.

Along with referrals, most agencies also offer billable hour incentive bonuses to encourage you to work more. The policy specifics vary but after you’ve worked a certain number of hours, usually around 400 on average, you are entitled to an 8 hour bonus payable at your usual wage rate ($35 an hour). Most of these bonuses are not automatically paid out so you’ll have to take it upon yourself to actually request them.

Actually Getting the Agency To Fork Over the Bonuses Is Easier Said Than Done

Although agencies like to advertise their referral fees and bonuses when soliciting for contract attorneys, they usually prefer to keep mum about their policies once you are on board. Bonuses are generally not paid out unless you specifically request them so it is your own duty to keep track of your referrals as well as your hours worked, based on the cumulative information found on your pay stubs. Thus after you’ve surpassed the requisite hours, be sure to alert your agency of your entitlement. It’s all part of the contractual bargain made to you when you took on the assignment, so you’re entitled to it. Don’t miss out!

Not all agencies are so ambiguous on this matter. I have to give credit to Special Counsel for their speedy payouts. I’ve referred attorneys to them before and they’ve always paid out very quickly, mailing me a check on the spot even though I wasn’t staffed on a project through them at the time.

Other agencies like Ajilon-Staffwise and Hudson require you to be currently staffed with them at the time of request before they will hand you your referral or billable hour bonus. I fail to see the logic behind this requirement, other than to make it harder for people to get their entitled referral/bonus checks. Don’t be so cheap, legal staffing agencies. We help stock your supply, so the very least you could do is provide the promised compensation rather than reinforce the money grubbing reputation many contract attorneys have of the legal staffing agencies. After all, it’s a symbiotic relationship and we need each other in this contracting business (at least until someone figures out a way to cut out the middle man).

So your project is over…or you are trying to get onto a temporary lawyer assignment for the first time. You’ve been calling all of your legal staffing agencies every day inquiring about available projects but they never seem to return your phone calls or e-mails. Welcome to Temp Town my friend. It happens all the time and drives even project-seasoned grunts like myself nuts. When I first started out a few years ago, I always worried excessively when agencies failed to return my calls or neglected to offer me any updates about project availability. Over the months, I’ve learned to develop a thick skin and a better understanding of why some agencies choose to ignore their bleating contract attorneys.

Why Are The Agencies Showing You No Love:

1. You’ve Been Blacklisted – This is the worst case scenario but it happens more frequently than people think. There is temporary blacklisting and then there is permanent blacklisting. Temporary banning occurs if you commit an act such as bailing on a project, but can manage to later come up with a relatively credible excuse. The agency may be initially loathe to submit you for further projects but may reconsider in a few months or so, particularly if the market picks up and they are strapped for workers.

   Permanent blacklisting is bad news. This means you’ve done something that has really pissed the agency off or demonstrated that you are an individual that cannot be trusted to handle the duties and responsibilities of the position. Perhaps you severely inflated the hours you worked or you walked off the assignment without a valid excuse. Usually it has to be extreme for the agency to permanently ban you.
   

   If you’ve been blacklisted, you might not know it for certain but you are likely to never hear from the agency again either through email or phone. They will simply ignore your inquiries. My advice if that happens is to try to get back into their good graces, particularly if it’s an agency that frequently has a lot of good projects. Try to reach a live rep and explain your story with a convincing explanation. Even seemingly permanent blacklistings can be reversed with some fancy verbal spins.

2. There Are No Projects Available – If there are no contract jobs out there, agencies have no incentive to call back because there is nothing to report. Since there is no financial gain to be had, some may choose to ignore the hordes of people calling in when things are slow. There is always something going on in Contract Attorney Land, but not all agencies have an equal hand in it. It all depends which agency was able to successfully bid out the competing staffing firms. That’s why I recommend registering with a wide range of agencies – so you can maximize your leads and chances.
3. You Are Not On the Agency’s Preferred Short List For Regular Assignments – Some agencies have a short roll of regular permanent temps they frequently work with as they have built up a good relationship over the years. When the market is slow and projects are harder to come by, agencies will usually turn to their own internal lists to fill staffing needs before blasting out an all public bulletin request for applicants. To get onto the short list you have to butter up your agent over time and become friends.
4. You Do Not Keep In Touch With Them Often Enough and They’ve Forgotten You – Staffing agents get bombarded with e-mails and calls daily. Here’s one way to look at it – think of the agency as the parent, with a few hundred screaming babies representing contract attorneys. Mom can’t attend to all of the babies at once. If you really want her attention, you had better learn to drag your diaper over there to tug at her pant leg or scream louder than the other toddlers. So, bug the agencies persistently but cordially.
5. You Are Not Telling the Staffing Agent Which Project You Want To Be Submitted For – Like most employers it makes their job much easier when you tell them exactly which project you want to be a candidate for. Rather than taking the easy route of asking them to submit you for any project, rise to the top of the pile by telling them exactly what you want, e.g. “I want to be submitted for that project down in Fall Church that no one wants,” for example. Or, “please submit me for the project requiring an accounting background because I have the necessary degree qualifications.” I recommend scouring the job forums, the Yahoo Contract Attorney Groups, Craigslist, and the PosseList for leads and then contacting the agency staffing the project in question with directions to submit you for it.
6. Some Legal Staffing Agencies Focus Mostly On Permanent or Lateral Hires – One notable example would be Kelly Law Registry. They are a big name in the legal staffing world but I’ve rarely seen them staff a contract attorney project. Inquiries for contract attorney positions are likely to go unanswered with similar agencies as well.