More signs of bad times in Temp Town

I got an email a week ago (sorry for the delay, kids, but I work for a living) from The Posse List advertising the following project:

We are staffing a review starting Monday 11/11/13. Need resumes & responses ASAP. Details:*Pay rate $30/hour; overtime possible*Estimated duration: one month*Must be DC barred with privilege review & log experience*In DC near MetroPlease send resume ASAP to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and include any time/days off needed in the next month.  Please note MONDAY in the subject line. Thank you. 

 Anybody see anything wrong here? Pay seems to be in line with the market (in other words, low). Short project with vague possibility of overtime -- standard. Listing posted on a Friday for a start the following Monday, forcing folks to really scramble to a) get their resume in and 2) rearrange their lives for the following month or so on the uncertain possibility that they might get put to work for a while on this project. And, yeah, it probably will only last two weeks.

Wait a minute -- let's revisit that pay issue. They want DC barred, but won't pay more for it? Sure, most veteran temps are DC-barred these days since the 2005 DC Court of Appeals advisory opinion that suggested contract attorneys must be members of the DC Bar. It isn't binding, but most law firms try to stick to it, and DC bar-required projects since then have usually offered a little more money than any-jurisdiction-bar projects. Not always, but usually.

And they want privilege review and privilege log experience? No offense, but most temps I know are not qualified to do privilege reviews or privilege logs. Those are skills and expertise that are acquired through experience and study, not mere graduation from law school. Most junior associates I have worked with don't know enough to do good privilege review or create a privilege log -- yet those are the morons usually put in charge of such things. Nonetheless, this requirement purports to seek people with above-average skills and experience, yet offers to pay them what is at best market rate for regular document review? Fuck that.

You want to know what's really sad? They probably were able to staff the project with a bunch of desperate people who were afraid of facing the holidays unemployed. Maybe some of them fudged on their privilege experience to help them land the gig. These are not good times in Temp Town.