Temp elevator antics

This blog is supposed to be about life in Temp Town, chronicling the lives of temporary attorneys in the nation's capital. That's how I make my living, after all, so I should know something about it.

Alas, temps bore me, and they bore most other sentient beings, as well. I've written about most of the things that I have found interesting about temps, and so am reduced to awaiting interesting interludes that just happen. Fortunately, two occurred just this week, both involving elevators.

I thought I had mentioned this before, but a couple searches of the blog indicate that I have not, which surprises me. So I'll mention it now. Contract attorneys are roughly 351 percent more likely than the average person to wait for an elevator standing with their nose two inches from the crack in the center of the door. When your elevator opens, if you work in a building with contract attorneys working there as well, when you elevator opens, there will be a dorky-looking person standing there in the middle of the doorway, less than inches from where the closed doors were seconds before.

By the way, they also will think proximity equals right of way. When I ride the elevator on any project, I always stand back from the door because I know that when it opens, a temp waiting for the elevator will be standing there, nose mere inches from the outer door. You don't want to be too close to that. So today, when I took the elevator back to the workspace after taking a break, I stood back.

Good damn thing. When the elevator arrived at my floor, the door opened and I started to step forward to leave the elevator. Had I been at the door instead of a couple steps back, I would have run right into the temp who was waiting with his nose practically pressed against the outer doors. As it was, he apparently felt that because he was closest to the door, he had the right of way and promptly attempted to rush onto the elevator before I had a chance to exit. This shit is so common in Temp Town that I didn't even flinch -- I stepped forward, didn't deviate course and made sure he took a shoulder to the chest. Hey, I'm a dick. What can I say? I'm sure he didn't learn that maybe you should let people get off the elevator before rushing on, but I ain't a teacher.

The second elevator-related incident today was actually a new one for me. When I was leaving for the day, another temp was already in the elevator lobby, waiting for an elevator. When one arrive, she walked on first, and I followed. When I got on the elevator, I noted that she was too busy face-down in her smart phone -- doubtless smarter than her -- to be bothered with pushing a button to let the elevator know what floor she wanted to go to. I gave serious thought to pressing a totally random button and getting off the elevator to let her go whereever, but in a moment of weakness, I pressed the button for the lobby. Sometimes I disappoint myself so.

Hey, I'll work for $466 an hour

The Posse List was kind enough to share today a story from eDiscovery Daily Blog, which has been following the case In re Citigroup Inc. Securities Litigation. The case is noteworthy from a contract attorney standpoint because of the rates the plaintiff's firm tried to charge for contract attorney work in arriving at a settlement figure. The firm tried to bill an average rate of $466 per hour for contract attorneys. You know, this job might not be so shitty if they paid me that much. Of course, they don't, and it looks like the plaintiff's firm won't get away with it.

Apparently, there is a class-action reform activist involved in the settlement hearings, which makes me happy because all class action settlements give the plaintiff's firm a shitload of money and the actual plaintiffs get fucked with no lube. There are some stupid incentives in our legal system. In any event, eDiscovery Daily Blog reported this:

One shareholder objected to the lead counsel’s billing practices, claiming the contract attorneys’ rates were exorbitant.Judge Stein carefully scrutinized the contract attorneys’ proposed hourly rates “not only because those rates are overstated, but also because the total proposed lodestar for contract attorneys dwarfs that of the firm associates, counsel, and partners: $28.6 million for contract attorneys compared to a combined $17 million for all other attorneys.” The proposed blended hourly rate was $402 for firm associates and $632 for firm partners. However, the firm asked for contract attorney hourly rates as high as $550 with a blended rate of $466. The plaintiff explained that these “contract attorneys performed the work of, and have the qualifications of, law firm associates and so should be billed at rates commensurate with the rates of associates of similar experience levels.” In response, the complaining shareholder suggested that a more appropriate rate for contract attorneys would be significantly lower: “no reasonable paying client would accept a rate above $100 per hour.” 

Holy shit. They tried to bill $466/hour for contract attorneys? Wow. Even in New York, temps don't make much more than in DC. It's a shitty job there, too. Apparently, the judge in this case recognized that:

Judge Stein rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the contract attorneys should be billed at rates comparable to firm attorneys, citing authority that “clients generally pay less for the work of contract attorneys than for that of firm associates”:

“There is little excuse in this day and age for delegating document review (particularly primary review or first pass review) to anyone other than extremely low-cost, low-overhead temporary employees (read, contract attorneys)—and there is absolutely no excuse for paying those temporary, low-overhead employees $40 or $50 an hour and then marking up their pay ten times for billing purposes.”

Jesus H., please pay me $40 or $50 per hour. I don't give a fuck how you mark it up. But yeah, yet another example of firm fuckheads trying to get rich on the backs of contract attorneys. Usually, they get away with it.

Contract attorneys bore me

Not gonna lie, the project I'm on -- 5 people, at the firm, waiting for the ax to fall on this zombie swordfish -- is not good blog material. I don't know why you're here, but things are about to get different. What I find is that if I wait for my project to provide good material, I post maybe once a week. This is a disservice to my readers. If I knew who my readers were, I probably wouldn't like them -- let's face it, most of them are contract attorneys -- but they are my readers and I must give them a reason to come here, even if that reason is only to see their fellow contract attorneys abused. As an aside, I believe that most of my readers are the "good" contract attorneys, the ones who are conscientious and work hard, try to do it right, as opposed to, say the Bridge Troll. So don't be surprised if not all my posts have to do with contract attorneys. It could just be shit that occurs to me while doing contract attorney work, which technically qualifies under the "Actual Temp Thoughts" category, so if you don't like it, refer to the title of the blog.