All good things gotta come to an end

They cut us to 40 hours, as I mentioned before. I can't live on 40 hours, so reluctantly I sought a project with overtime. My current project probably will go back to overtime after the New Year, but I can't spend probably. Monday, I'll be starting another project that offers as much as 87 hours per week. I can't do that much, living so far away from DC, but I figure I can hit 75 or so and still catch Packers games on Sunday. That's the way this business is: try to find the project that best suits your needs. The agencies and firms aren't loyal to you, so you can't get caught up in a false loyalty to them. Take care of you. This project was good, but, like the song says, "all good things gotta come to an end:"

I guess this new gig won't suck any worse than any other

Seriously, it will be better than most, because we can get 20 hours of overtime. Alas, the project hours require us to work 5 hours on the weekend to achieve that. Only supposed to go three weeks, so I guess I can give up a Saturday morning a couple times for that long. Lots of people I don't know in the crowd -- about 25 of us, and I know 1, although a second person acts like she knows me. I guess she might. At least we have internet access. This should take me into September, when this should heat up again, so that's a good thing. Guess we'll see. The swordfish is on the loose!

Wonderful. The guy trying to kill our industry seems to be winning in court

I discussed this ignorant fuck here, but a federal appeals court just reversed a dismissal of this dumbass temp's lawsuit trying to get overtime from a law firm I have worked for and a temp agency I have not worked for. This putz's suit is based on the theory that document review is not the practice of law and could be done by chimps and, therefore, he is not exempt from overtime. What this stupid fuck apparently does not realize is that, if he wins, document review will be done by chimps, and they won't be asking for overtime. If this isn't the practice of law, then there is no reason to require that anyone doing it be a lawyer. Wages will plummet toward minimum wage and the requirement for a J.D. will disappear, forget about bar admission. Yeah, if this guy wins, we're all fucked.

Alas, he's not the only dumbass temp trying to kill our industry. This might be a shitty way to make a living, but it's the one we have in Temp Town. And this guy apparently wants to hand the job to folks formerly restricted to jobs that only require a high school diploma (like my plumber, so don't take that the wrong way. My plumber makes far more money that I do and would never be stupid enough to do this kind of work. But the stupid shits down at Starbucks with a bachelor's in gender studies or something equally useless would be happy to cut my wage in half and take my job if this fuck wins.)

Unfortunately, he appears to be winning. The federal 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a decision by a district court judge in the federal Southern District of New York (the suit was filed there because the law firm is based in New York and, while the work was done in North Carolina, the plaintiff figured he could get a better ruling in the more liberal New York federal courts). The district court ruled that the plaintiff, David Motherfucking Lola, failed to state a claim, granting the defendants' motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)6, which requires that a complaint at a bare minimum state a cognizable claim under which the court is empowered to grant some form of relief. That's a pretty low standard.

The 2nd Circuit didn't say David Motherfucking Lola -- and, to be fair, I have no idea what plaintiff David Motherfucking Lola's middle name is, nor do I have any idea whether he has ever engaged in sexual congress with anyone's mother, and I am inclined to doubt that he has done so with his own mother -- has a winning claim here. They simply said that, if he's right about what he claims, he might have a claim. The standard on a 12(b)6 motion  to dismiss is whether the plaintiff -- David Motherfucking Lola, who might not be having sexual congress with any actual mothers but certainly is fucking the mother who supports all of us in Temp Town, which is to say, temporary legal employment -- has stated in his complaint, assuming everything he says in his complaint, no matter how stupid it sounds, is true, enough to support a claim that is entitled to legal relief. If you can't write a complaint that withstands a 12(b)6 motion, you should either find another line of work or at least find a client with a better claim It's a low standard.

That doesn't mean that David Motherfucking Lola, who, the more I think about it, might still be a virgin and so is not a motherfucker in any sense of the term except that he is fucking our Mother Industry, Temp Town, has a claim. As someone who has been doing this for a while, I can tell you it requires legal judgment. It doesn't require you to be any damn good at it, as anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, but the work requires legal judgment. No matter what David Motherfucking Lola says. And if Motherfucking is not David Motherfucking Lola's middle name, I apologize.

Yeah, the gig finally started

So, what is supposed to be a high-overtime, short-duration job finally started yesterday. Yes, it was supposed to start last Monday. On the other hand, the other high-overtime, short-duration job that was supposed to last until this new gig started plotzed about a week early, which just reminds us of Rule No. 1: they're lying. Honestly, they often just don't know, but they feel like they can't tell you they don't know, so they're lying, but it often isn't malicious, but merely ignorant. On the other had, just as often, they really are lying, and it really is malicious, so Rule No. 1 still applies.

Anyway, we started the new project yesterday, and worked today, and I got to drive home in a mini-blizzard, so that was all fun. It looks like we'll get a couple weeks, maybe three, out of this, with good overtime. On the other hand, who knows? Anyone who does is lying to us about it.

Remember Rule No. 1

The period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is usually a shitty time to try and find a project in Temp Town: there just aren't any. This year, there have been a surprising number of projects posted. And in those posts over the last few weeks (including one that posted today), the job advertisements brought us four of the agencies favorite lies about overtime. Rule No. 1, first mentioned here and codified here, tells us these are lies because, of course, they're lying. If you read the statements carefully, you realize they aren't lies in the strictest sense, but merely intentionally misleading. Not sure that's any better.

The first example happened to the wife of a friend of mine. The job was advertised as a 50-hour project. These days, when almost all projects are limited to 40 hours a week, 10 hours of overtime is pretty good. The same agency, at the same time, advertised a 40-hour project starting at the same time. Naturally, my friend's wife applied for the 50-hour project. When they brought her in for project orientation, the project was 40 hours, not 50. She protested and was told that, oh, we already staffed the other project, so we're giving you a spot on the 40-hour project. Because there actually was a 50-hour project, she just wasn't on it, maybe the agency wasn't lying and it really was already full. Or maybe not and they were staffing the less desirable project first to ensure it got staffed, knowing they would be able to find people easily to work a 50-hour project. So maybe not lying, but certainly hiding the ball.

That's more of a bait-and-switch type lie, though. The other three postings included statements that imply you will get overtime when, in fact, you won't. The first: "X$/hour + OT." Sounds like overtime will be available, right? Nope. It just means that if you work more than 40 hours, you'll get overtime rates -- time and a half. But you won't be working more than 40 hours, so it doesn't matter.

The second statement is similar: "X$/hour, OT possible." Also very deceptive -- no overtime is promised, but it is "possible." That is always true because, obviously, there are more than 40 hours available to work in any given week. You just won't be working them.

The last one is possibly the most heartbreaking: "X$/hour, 40 hours at first, client may add OT later." Sure, they may -- the client "may" do anything it wants, because the client is signing the checks. But the client isn't going to add OT, because they almost never do. If clients need the work to go faster, they add bodies, not hours, because it's cheaper. You're a widget, suckah!

They're definitely keeping us guessing

Having been put under a 40-hour cap Monday, yesterday the firm expanded the hours to 8 am to 8 pm for yesterday and today, plus 9-6 Saturday and Sunday. No word on how much this will carry over to next week, but suddenly we have overtime again. Because they told us Monday they wanted us here roughly 8 hours all 5 days, most folks weren't working the full 9.5 hour window. I was, because I was planning on being "sick" Friday and take 2 hours of sick time, take the day off. As a result, I am the only person already in overtime. Not sure how I feel about working this weekend, although Rule No. 2 argues for coming in at least some on both days. Anyway, because we probably won't have overtime next week, I guess I better take it. We obviously can't count on any kind of consistency here.

Nothing good can come of this; Update!

Got an email yesterday from The Posse List (it's a free listserve that posts jobs for contract attorneys and occasional news about the industry -- I've mentioned it a lot before but will not link to those posts. Suffice to say every contract attorney subscribes) about a legal case that absolutely fucks contract attorneys with respect to overtime. Frankly, the whole thing makes me want to track down the plaintiff and beat his ass. Dude may have single-handedly killed time-and-a-half for overtime in document review work.  While the decision is by a federal district court and is binding only in that district, it reinforces the trend that is seeing many firms already paying straight time for work over 40 hours -- no overtime bump. Firms and agencies might have been waiting to see if temps would settle for being fucked out of overtime in exchange for still working, but this dickwad gave them legal precedence:

In a case that helps clarify what discovery-related activities constitute the practice of law, a federal judge in Manhattan has told a group of contract attorneys performing document review for a major law firm they are not entitled to overtime pay because they were engaged in legal work.
Summoning professional and ethical codes of North Carolina, where the attorneys worked, Judge Richard Sullivan determined that document review rises to the level of legal practice — irrespective of its complexity or the legal credentials of those performing it. The application of legal judgment, Judge Sullivan said, is not a prerequisite for an activity to be deemed “practice of law.”
The September 16 ruling comes in a collective action brought by David Lola against Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, and Tower Legal Staffing under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In dismissing the suit, Judge Sullivan could precipitate the failure of similar challenges by other groups of contract attorneys suing for overtime. Document review, the menial form that requires only tagging materials for responsiveness if they include certain predetermined keywords, is not legal work, they contend.

This fuckwad made the stupidest argument you can make: that law firms hire people with law degrees to make decisions that a fucking chimp could make:

Lola sued Skadden and Tower Legal Staffing in July 2013 arising from work he performed for Tower over the course of 15 months as a contract attorney in North Carolina. Although Lola is a licensed attorney in California, he is not licensed to practice in North Carolina or the Northern District of Ohio, where litigation involving a Skadden client necessitated the review work.

Lola performed elementary review that consisted entirely of identifying search terms appearing in documents, marking those documents for responsiveness, and, occasionally, redacting materials according to protocols Tower and Skadden provided. He earned $25 per hour working 45 to 55-hour weeks. His fellow contract attorneys received similar wages, with no hike in pay for hours worked in excess of 40 per week.

Document review is not rocket science. It isn't even high school biology. It's pretty fucking easy. However, it still involves, at least theoretically, legal judgement. Sure, most temps don't actually exercise legal judgement -- and I think we know now where Mr. Lola falls on that scale -- but no one should ever be doing this work under the standard that Lola seems to have applied -- "I see a search term, the document is reponsive." The seach terms are broad and drag in many documents that are junk. The job actually requires that you understand what the document requests -- whether they are issued by the government, such as in the case I am working on, or by a private party in litigation, such as seems to have been the case for Mr. Lola -- are looking for and mark the documents accordingly. Anyone who argues that this requires no legal judgment is 1) a fool who doesn't understand what legal judgment involves and b) a fool who wants his job to be given to a high-school dropout because no legal judgment is involved and therefore the firms don't need to spend extra money hiring somebody with a law degree.

I've posted about a similar suit before, but this is the first I've heard of one of these suits reaching a decision. Naturally, this decision can be appealed, but I have to believe the plaintiff isn't rich and might not be able to convince his lawyers to continue this dumbass quest. [Update: The same lawyers are involved in both cases, so they might have an agenda that encourages them to pursue this further, regardless of the plaintiff's financial status.] Also, I would sure hate to get an appellate court decision on this that would be binding in even more states. Right now, the decision might only be binding in North Carolina (where the work was being done) and maybe New York (where the suit was filed). Don't want to see that expanded by a lost appeal. I would like to assume that this guy is a lawyer and thus smart enough to realize when he is getting his ass kicked in court, but I have no evidence to support that theory. So there's that.

So what we have here is a guy who never read the Federal Labor Standards Act, which makes it pretty clear that folks who do jobs that require professional judgment are exempt from overtime standards. Attorneys fall into that category. To argue that temp attorneys aren't exempt from overtime laws is to argue that firms don't have to hire temp attorneys, they can hire anybody. Stupid argument, unless you are so tired of Temp Town that you are willing to kill it completely to get out. Wouldn't it be better to just get a job somewhere else? Really.

So is this decision all bad? No. It might make it easier to get out of Temp Town, but not because Big Law will look at temps resumes and say, "Hey, this guy has been doing document review as a temp. That's the practice of law -- let's hire him!" It could be helpful for a temp who wants to move away from here, though. Say you have a temp who started temp work right out of law school, does that for five years here then decides to go back to whereever.  Most state bars will allow a lawyer to waive into the bar without taking that state's bar exam by paying a fee if the lawyer has been practicing law for a certain number of years (depending on the state). Now, at least, a temp can point to a court decision that says, yeah, this guy has been pracdticing law.

Mostly, though, this is probably bad for temps, at least with respect to overtime pay. I suspect more and more firms will offer straight time -- no time-and-a-half -- for projects that call for more than 40 hours per week. Maybe that will result in more projects that offer more than 40 hours per week -- a big problem in recent years has been that so many projects are capped at 40 hours, which is no way to make a living. Maybe it will result in a higher base rate. I wouldn't bet on either of those outcomes, though. I suspect that most projects will still be capped at 40 hours, and those that aren't will be much less lucrative.

My God, it's worse than Saturday night in Chicago!

Another 50 people got whacked from the project tonight. Even by Chicago standards, that's a lot of people getting whacked in one day. Also, turns out the 40 people who got cut the other day were actually 80 people -- the 40 I knew about, and another 40 from a different review location a few blocks away. Took awhile for the news to trickle over to where I am. That makes 130 people cut this week, roughly, and leaving us with about 300. I told you it was a big project. Anyway, this is definitely end of days, so I will go ahead and predict that nobody is still working on this project past Thursday. Come August 1, we'll all be gone. It was a good run, but it is coming to an end.

Hard to complain, what with the bunches of overtime we got over the last six weeks. Market still looks busy. Hope that's still true in a week.

Benefits? I'm sorry, we don't provide benefits

Several people on my project have applied for sick time recently. The District of Columbia passed a law last year that forces employers to give sick pay to employees under certain circumstances. The agency for which I am currently working, apparently without thinking about it very much, adopted the city statute as its sick-pay policy. The relevant part of that  statute and policy reads as follows:

•    Employers with 100 or more employees must provide 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 37 hours worked, not to exceed 7 days (56 hours) per year.
•  To be eligible, an individual must be employed by the same employer for at least 1 year without a break in service over 6 weeks, and has worked at least 1,000 hours.

Personally, I got screwed a few months ago by the 1-year employment requirement. While I have been working for this agency for most of the last three years, I worked for another agency for about six weeks in November and December 2012. Sorry, not eligible.

The project I am on, however, has been going since October 2011. While I joined it in January 2013, a pretty good number of people have been on this project for nearly two years. Obviously, they meet the one-year requirement.

Alas, this is a 60 hours/week project, so many people on this project are working overtime. (I can't say "most," but I'll talk about that in another post. Needless to say, I am taking as many of the available hours as I can, and hit 60 most weeks.) Imagine the surprise of several people recently who have been on this project for more than a year who had their sick time turned down. They, apparently, missed a little nuance in company policy, which reads like this:

·               While the policy is intended to prevent and protect employees from the loss of regular income when missing work for illnesses, it is not intended to provide additional or supplemental pay over a standard 40 hour work week or 8 hour day. For example, if an employee has worked 40 hours between Monday and Thursday of a week, sick pay cannot be used pay to 48 hours per week if Friday is missed due to illness. However, if a contractor has worked 36 hours between Monday and Thursday, we will allow 4 hours of sick time to be used if the absence on Friday is for one of the reasons covered by the policy. Unless a job explicitly guarantees a work week of over 40 hours, 40 hours (8 hours per day) will be considered "regular pay" for all contractors.

Just in case you're wondering, no project "requires" overtime. It is available, period. What this policy does -- and the policy was not written until about a week ago -- is ensure that anyone on a project that has overtime hours available will not be able to utilize sick time if they are working the overtime hours available. In other words, the people who are accruing the most sick time by working the most hours won't be able to use any of that sick time. Got it? I'm not sure why the agency would want to write a policy on sick leave that discourages working overtime -- which I think makes the agency more money and certainly is the only way for temps to make a living -- but that's what they are doing. Obviously, most temps want overtime and will work those hours, even if it means they can't take sick time. Doesn't mean they feel warm and fuzzy about the agency that makes it impossible for them to get sick time. Note to agency: Don't pop off to me about a benefit you claim to offer that I can't get because I work too hard, fuckhead.

Yeah, and agencies wonder why we don't trust them. I guess it's because they never miss an opportunity to fuck us.

Nobody said this was easy

Metro had yet another of its regular failings this morning, delaying my arrival by about 45 minutes. I remarked to a temp I know that this would make it difficult, but not impossible, for me to hit 60 hours this week. (That's the upper limit on this project, and remember rules 2 and 3). His reply was pure temp wisdom:

"60 isn't for sissies."

Words to live by. Yeah, I plan to hit 60 again this week. Remember Rule No. 2. And Rule No. 3.

Is this asshole trying to kill our industry?

Short answer -- yes. This story comes to me via The Posse List, but American Lawyer is involved, as is Above the Law, which gives us the complaint. Basically, some New York asshole (but I repeat myself) is suing a law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan, and a temp agency I've never heard of, Providus, because he didn't get overtime for hours worked over 40 hours a week. His argument is that his work is so routine that he is not an exempt employee under the Federal Labor Standards Act. Here is a link to the case pleadings. American Lawyer describes the suit this way:

In his suit, which claims Quinn and Providus functioned as "joint employers" under the FLSA, Henig says he received an hourly wage from the defendants and generally worked 57 to 60 hours each week. Henig alleges he was paid his regular hourly wage for the hours he worked in excess of 40 hours each week, as opposed to the one-and-a-half times that amount required under FLSA overtime rules. (The complaint does not specify how much Henig was paid per hour.) 
Henig's complaint claims that he, and potentially others, are due any unpaid wages with interest along with liquidated damages and attorneys fees. Kirschenbaum says his hope is that lawsuits like Henig's can open the door for more claims to be brought against firms by contract attorneys seeking additional overtime pay. "The law firms bill significantly for this work. And, so, you're charging $250 [or] $300 an hour for a contract attorney's work—it's not such a hit for you to have to be paying him $45 an hour for his overtime instead of $30 an hour," Kirschenbaum says.
The complaint notes "the extremely routine nature" of the work Henig performed during the six weeks he spent doing document review for Quinn as the reason why he is not exempt under FLSA rules, which provide exemptions to overtime rules for a range of employees—including those whose jobs require "advanced knowledge." 

This guy is slitting our throats, and he doesn't even know it. Or he doesn't care. Contract attorneys should want to be exempt from overtime regulations. More and more projects are going flat rate, paying a little more per hour but not paying time and a half for overtime. It is getting to be the only way to get an overtime project, the way the trend is going. Contract attorneys are exempt from overtime requirements because our work requires a professional degree and professional association membership (the bar). If we are not exempt from overtime requirements, it can only be because no professional degree or membership is required. This asshole is pushing that argument, albeit unwittingly.

This stupid fuck is saying an untrained shit could do document review. Unfortunately, he's right. The fact that computerized document review is becoming more popular and prevalent only bolsters that argument. Well, if that is true, we're out of a job. Firms won't have to hire attorneys to do document review, they can either use computer programs or just hire Joe Shits off the streets. Either way, we're fucked. This is a class action suit under FRCP Rule 23 -- it's only the Second Circuit, but it could become an ugly precedent.

We really need this guy to lose, and badly. Unfortunately, I don't think he will. Run, do not walk, to the nearest exit from this occupation.

Complacency kills

Rule No. 1 of Temp Town is, they're lying. Rule No. 2 is, if they put money on the table, take it, because no matter how long they tell you the project will last, refer to Rule No. 1. If you tell yourself you don't need to get to 60 hours this week because you can do it next week, it means next week the cap will drop to 40, you won't get any overtime and you will be what we in Temp Town like to call "Fucked." So if they tell you that you can work 60 this week, you do it. You do it even if they tell you you can work 60 next week and every week, and that the project will probably run another year, maybe two more years. They are telling us all of these things on my current project, but I don't believe them, which is why I busted my ass this week to get to my 60 hours. Refer to Rule No. 1.

As I got in early each day this week and left late, I could not help but notice that the sign-in sheet -- a lovely, archaic device whereby we indicate what time we arrived, what time we left and how much of a break we took, kind of like a 19th-century time clock -- indicates that almost no one on this project is getting anywhere near 60 hours a week. There are maybe a half-dozen of us. Out of more than 50 people, I would guess that only about half are even getting over 50 hours a week. The person who turned in his/her timesheet before I did when I left tonight only did 28 hours this week.

My first and only reaction to this is, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!?!?!?!?!? If you leave 10 hours a week of overtime on the table, that is almost $500 a week you won't earn -- close to $25,000 a year. And that's if you believe the project will last that long. If you believe, as I do, that every project ends next week and that you will sit home for a couple weeks before landing another project, you're going to want that $500. So go get it.

Other folks on the project have told me that, yeah, if it were just a 4 or 5 week project, they would work every hour available for those 4 or 5 weeks, but this project is going to go forever. On the one hand, the project has been going for about 18 months, and all indications are it could go another 18 months or more. On the other hand, it might not. Which way are you going to bet? Me, I'm a slave to Rule No. 2, and I never forget that Rule No. 1 hangs over us like a sword. Looking at every project like that doesn't promote a warm, fuzzy and secure feeling, but it keeps food on the table. The folks on this project are in a dangerous rut. If they turn out to be right about how long the project will run, I will be a lot more sleep-deprived than they are. I also will have about $25,000 more to list as gross income on ext year's tax return than they will. Fair trade.

Like a rolling stone

I jumped projects today, and, frankly, I feel pretty good about it. The awful project had actually added 10 hours of overtime, which made it at least financially tolerable. The freak show was still a little tough to live with (Stevie Nicks to my left, Jabba the Hutt behind me, and the child of Jabba and Stevie also behind me) but at least there was overtime. I've moved on to a project where I can get 20 hours of overtime, which makes a lot of shortcomings easier to bear. It is, for instance, a no-internet project. This could be tough. But it might last two years, and it has lots of overtime, so I guess it's a wash. Money, not love, conquers all. At least in Temp Town.

Take it while it's there

Normally, I am not one to leave money on the table. If there are hours available, I work them. Most temps do (though by no means all). This project has been a little different lately. Last couple weeks, we've had a 60 hour cap, which is no big deal, since 60 hours is pretty close to the perfect project under normal circumstances. Two things make this one not normal, though. First, we don't get time and a half over 40 hours. We get a good rate, and the gross at 60 hours matches what it would be at what is right now the standard rate with time and a half over 40. Still, when those hours over 40 are at the same rate as before, the incentive is lower.

The second factor is more important, though, and much more limiting. We are capped at 10 hours a day. To get to 60, you have to work at least one weekend day, and that assumes you got in 10 Monday through Friday and are willing to completely kill one of your weekend days. Thus far, I have not been so willing. I was planning to go in today, but instead I slept until noon, went and saw The Dark Knight Rises and then cooked General Tsu's chicken and watched Zombieland. Not gonna lie - enjoyed it a lot more than I would have working. Would the extra money be nice? Yes, but I gave up 50 percent less than I would have at overtime rates. Not sure why firms and/or clients don't realize this. If they let me get 60 hours in five days, they'd get 60 hours out of me and end their project sooner (meaning, of course, cheaper). Shortsighted.

Exit strategies?

For the first time since I have been doing this kind of work, I am hearing people talk about exit strategies. I don't mean finding another law job -- people always talk about that. In the past, though, people were willing to keep working in Temp Town because the money was good. But that was when the rate was $5 an hour higher than it is now, and 60-hour projects were the norm. There weren't any jobs short of associate at a big firm that paid that much, and nobody in Temp Town was landing an associate job. They either already had and for whatever reason lost it, or they never were going to land one. Sorry, hard fact, end of story. So, good money, low stress, lots of work, what's not to like?

Two of those three elements have largely disappeared. The money is no longer good -- a 15 percent drop in base pay is not part of the roadmap to prosperity. Neither is the complete disappearance of overtime, which is what always made this work lucrative to begin with. Occasionally projects will offer 10 hours of overtime, but it is becoming increasingly rare. The old days, when projects with 80, 90 or 100 hours a week were not common but nowhere near unheard of, are gone. So now what?

Well, people are talking about getting out. They're not sure where they would go or what they would do, but most are talking about leaving the area and leaving the legal profession (to the extent Temp Town actually is part of the legal profession.)

I think that might be premature, but it is hard to fault people for thinking that way. I plan to hang in for a few months, as I believe that there will be a lot more merger activity if Obama is not re-elected. Four years ago, I thought that merger activity would drop off, but be replaced by federal investigations of varying sorts. Alas, Barry's boys never really demonstrated the competence to generate investuigations in the volume that would keep our industry going. Spare me the ideological arguments, the cold facts are these: merger activity died, and investigations did not replace mergers as the prime source of work.

I think mergers will make a comeback if Romney wins, but I know a lot of people are not betting on it. The new business model seems to be more bodies, fewer hours. I recently was offered a project and when I asked about the hours, the response was, "Are you kidding? Nobody pays overtime anymore."

That's not quite true, but it's close enough. The question, then, is this: Will overtime as a routine matter ever return? I don't know.

Gig confirmed . . .

. . . and, naturally, something better comes along. Overtime vs. none, of course. Not confirmed, though should be tomorrow. Both start Thursday, which raises the ever-present dilemma -- bail on the first-offered, less-attractive project, or no? And how? Family emergency? Obviously, you can't tell the truth. Equally obviously, you have to wait until the second one is confirmed to take any action at all except to follow through on the first one. Other people do not live like this, at least not on a week-to-week basis.

Is this industry dying?

Sure, recently I've posted a little bit about stuff that has nothing to do with the world of contract attorneys. I never promised I wouldn't do that, so I have no problem on that front. If you have a problem with this, please refer to the title of the blog.

Right now, though, I feel the need to discuss whether the industry in DC even remains viable. There are a lot of reasons to think the answer is no. Let me explain.

A few years back, we were worried that overseas review sites would take document review business away from DC. The truth is, it did -- a lot of projects went to India or the Phillipines, and still do. Nonetheless, that didn't kill the local market. Didn't help, but we hung in there.

Other, cheaper states as sites for projects were the next threat. Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina were going to take all of our business because they could offer the same benefits as overseas sites with better oversight -- U.S. JD lawyers and lower rates than the DC-New York markets. For clients with a reluctance to trust overseas attorneys (even though all of them would be barred in the U.S.) hiring attorneys in Ohio, North Carolina or West Virginia seemed like a better alternative to hiring attorneys in India. 

While we seem to have survived that trend, as well -- sure, projects are going to cheaper states, but we seem to get enough projects to get by -- it is not at all clear that we will survive the next trend: DC projects with cost-reduction. This is the one that will kill us.

Clients are driving the latest trend, as opposed to document review firms -- or e-discovery firms, as they prefer to call themselves -- and that is not good. When the agencies were driving the cost-cutting, it still meant they were trying to keep the business. Now, the cost-cutting seems to be driven by the clients, the companies buying the service. Because these companies see no benefit in overtime pay (paid by them), they are big-time in favor of more bodies, shorter projects and no overtime. The problem for contract attorneys, of course, is if we can't get overtime, we can't survive. How long will it take for this to blow up in everybody's face?

Do they want us to quit?

I think the answer to this question is no, but with a qualifier: they don't want us to quit, but they don't care if we're happy. The "they" in this case is the law firm and/or the client of the law firm. We are in a no-overtime zone, which in this business is slow starvation. Even if you're getting a good hourly rate, no overtime means you have to pick and choose which bills get paid each month. Maybe if you're single in a cheap-ass apartment you can survive, but what you save in rent under those circumstances you make up for in extra ammunition. In any event, no overtime is not a desired situation, and that's where we are, hence my unhappiness.

Naturally, law firms will find a way to make it worse. On Thursday before New Year's -- in other words, with only one day left in the week -- the firm where we're working let us know that we might be shut down early on Friday (12/30). Or maybe not. They couldn't decide. But the timing was such that if you had not loaded up on hours early in the week, you would not even be able to get your 40. Needless to say, only one person had loaded up. It requires long hours to do so, and long hours feel like too much sacrifice if there is no overtime payoff at the end of them. Ten hours a day sounds like plenty under those circumstances. Well think again, putz.

So when did they finally .let us know whether we had to go home without hitting a 40-hour week? If you had 2 hours before they sent us home" in the betting pool, you win.

You can't always get what you want

In this business, overtime is king. A 40-hour week is slow starvation, and the more overtime, the better. It's like union work without the dues and thugs. Merit doesn't matter, but if you put in the hours, you get paid. Any union pukes out there who don't like that characterization need to look around. Think you're better at your job than the guy next to you? Who fucking cares? You get paid the same, unless you work more overtime. So don't cry to me, Argentina. But I digress.

Yesterday, the firm told us that they would be expanding the hours, adding two hours a night. That's a good boost if you can take it all, since even just weekdays that's 10 hours a week extra at time and a half. This is a good thing. So, not surprisingly, Ice Queen (the old bag fucking with the thermostat) utters an excited "Yes!" Nevermind that she comes in an hour after we open. And, naturally, she left that night, not at our new closing time of  10, not at our old closing time of 8, but at 6:40. And she didn't come in at all today. For some people, the mere prospect of extra overtime is enough. They apparently don't have to actually work it to get excited about the potential for extra money. I will never understand temps.