Comments on: Why Do Some People Reject Priv Log Work?

By: mwj4c

mwj4c — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:09:38 +0000

Doc review or diligence is one tiny f*%#@ part of the whole process. There are stomach-acid generating moments that contract attorneys are, take your pick, lucky enough or unlucky enough, to never see that are the final product of the legal profession.

Basically, judgment calls that have fiscal and, more importantly, moral echoes to the clients’ on whose behalf those calls are made and the lawyers that make them.

I’m a 6th year associate at an AmLaw 100 Firm. We have a screaming need for bodies for the volume of work we have.

The problem is that the job requires a lot of hours in the chair and a lot of responsibility. I gather from this thread, that none of you want either.

That’s fine.

But realize that that’s your choice; it’s not a bias in the system.

By: Edward Smith

Edward Smith — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:15:01 +0000

uhhmmm….not to be rude, but I think you’re idiots. The only way you enforce even an offer of rate differentials for various levels of work is to have a spine and refuse to accept lowballing pay. You’re GIVING them free labor. The person who wrote the initial blog note is a “super temp”???? LOL…please–obviously, you like giving away your labor b/c it makes you feel warm and cuddley inside that you’re a ‘professional’…you sound like a taken advantage of pansy who has fed into every law school/firm/agency line. Very sad. The people who refused were ABSOLUTELY right…the only thing that would temper that is if they faced unemployment and the priv team would be running a little longer. Keep in mind children, you’re not associates or employees of the firm—you were contracted to perform a job that consists of providing an hourly product…and you are AT WILL employed. The new job is that, a new contract…it is not an obligation, it is completely right to demand more pay for more work.

By: How Much Do Contract Attorneys Make In Terms Of Wage Rate? | My Attorney Blog

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:39:14 +0000

[...] Experience - Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, contract attorney work consisting of mainly document review does not require substantial legal experience. However, for those of you with more years of document review management experience, you may have more opportunities to be assigned to the privilege review and quality control team. Keep in mind that although it’s sometimes negotiable, usually you aren’t offered any extra compensation for the higher level work. That’s probably why some people avoid second level or privilege review work. [...]

By: TechGirl

TechGirl — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:30:32 +0000

In short, the reason has nothing to do with being unprofessional, or being a slacker. The reason is a lot of contractors do not want to be saddled with a task where they will be blamed for letting a privileged document get through. Although someone is supposed to review the privilege review team, namely a staff attorney or an associate, too many times I have seen contractors blamed who have not been reviewed.

The other part is that often first-reviewers do not like to do privilege work at all. Personally, I find it quite boring and I have been on several privilege review teams. My choice is the QC team and usually they hang around a tad longer depending on the substance and length of the review. I find it much more interesting to find patterns in errors and removing them. And, yes, there is usually some science to the errors.

The other part is that often privilege review teams have unusual characters or personalities. Sometimes, you do not want to be sitting in some room with a bunch of odd folks for any length of time. I’ve had that happen and it was not a rewarding experience. It was utter hell!

By: Maxima Rnj

Maxima Rnj — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:09:25 +0000

I agree with your criticism of people who turn down offers to remain on the project. However, there is one related issue that I think needs to be raised. Some of us are foreign language specialists who are paid a premium for our skills. When a project runs out of foreign language documents earlier than expected, one should not be expected to stay on for a lower, “English only” rate. I know of at least two projects where this has happened and caused friction among the firm, agency and contract attorneys.

By: Temp Partner

Temp Partner — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:08:28 +0000

I’ve been on many projects where the associates and even partners treated us like true professionals. The contract attorneys on the project were genuinely engaged in the assignment and wanted to turn out the best product possible. It’s true, professionalism begets professionalism.

By: Joe Miller

Joe Miller — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:11:28 +0000

The issues you raise are so interesting. I think that what happens to temporary attorneys is that many of us begin to buy into the idea that we are at “the bottom of the barrel” and so we give up. As you said, this is the absolute wrong thing to do.

In many ways, people conform to the labels and stereotypes which are assigned to the groups to which they belong–whether they be ethnic groups, professional circles, religions, etc. But I think that many of us, like you, work hard to reverse the stereotypes that are assigned to contract attorneys, or at least to resist conforming, in a spirit of optimism, as oppose to the pessimism that threatens to cripple us.