The Legal Sweatshop Award

Irony is the spice of life. I see it everywhere. Last month, law.com listed Paul Weiss as its 2006 Litigation Department of the Year. Noted for their deft strategy and dogged work, Paul Weiss was noted for steering its clients through some pretty turbulent years. In terms of their public-interest work, Paul Weiss was noted for its victory in defense of the Santa Fe Living Wage Ordinance, which will likely have widespread implications on other living wage campaigns throughout the United States. Ironically, when it comes to the way in which they treat their own temporary workers, it's Tom the Temp's belief that their record is less than satisfactory.

For a short while, I actually temped at this firm. The conditions were horrific. There were about 15 of us -- half former biglaw associates/half recent graduates -- packed into a small, windowless conference room. It appeared as if the room had previously served as a supply closet. Every morning, in order to reach our workspaces, we had to climb over one another. At my workstation, I wasn't able to extend my arms, nor was I able to lean back, as I would have pressed up against those working around me. Because the review was paper-based, throughout the day boxes upon boxes of discovery documents would pile up around the room. In an emergency, things could have gotten dicey. Talking was forbidden. A heavy-set paralegal would periodically come around and bellow out in a deep, baritone voice to do, "more workin' and less talkin'." Like a child, you had to sign out to use the restroom. Additionally, if you arrived to work more than a half an hour late, you would have been required to go home for the day. Stalinism prevailed, as people were constantly being fired for speaking out of line. One day, a middle-aged woman, who had recently been laid off from her in-house job, broke down in tears.

After a few days in this hell-hole of a job, I just had to get out. I hopped off the project. The agency wasn't pleased. Late one night, I received an angry call from the agency recruiter demanding to know, "How could I?" Like an un-housebroken puppy who had just urinated on her new carpet, she demanded to know, "How dare I leave the job!" I was forever after placed on the agency's blacklist.

I am not alone in my assessment of this project. In the last couple of weeks, I have received numerous e-mails and reports detailing the harsh work conditions that temp attorneys face at this particular firm. Here are just some of the comments:

"We have to use a public, concourse-level bathroom where homeless people bathe and groom, there was a roach problem recently from other people leaving food/crap in the basement, so the place stinks of roach spray/bombs and there's Combat roach motels all over the place"

"basement, mice, falling ceilings"

"it's an utter hell-hole"

"The computer monitors are circa 1989 and the tubes are going bad, so the docs are hard to read as the type/fonts are blurry"

"the worst of the worst in terms of temping"

"it's like working at a construction site"

"Exits are blocked with boxes, wires and workstations"

"$21 an hour for both admitted and non-admitted attorneys"

"There is no internet because they don't trust us and no cell-phones because we are in the basement"

"Weiss pulled a real Bait & Switch - 2 days after I started they bumped the mandatory weekday hours from 9 a.m.-8:30 p.m. to 9 a.m.-11 p.m! A fourteen hour day!"

"Weiss is the most miserable place I have ever worked at and I have had alot of blue-collar jobs"

"bathroom filthy and inadequate"

On behalf of Chuckles the Chicken, Tom the Temp now presents Paul Weiss with the Temp Attorney Legal Sweatshop Award. Congratulations!

{Tom the Temp's award is based on his own personal opinion, relating to his own first-hand observations and those e-mails and reports that he has received from those who also have temped there.)