Overtime

"Lots of 'professionals' get worked really hard when they are young, often by people who are not planning to offer them career long employment. One way that some professionals have compensated is by claiming overtime benefits. Others got unions, or profit sharing."

-- Kay Sieverding

Sullivan & Cromwell's Work "Pit"

While conditions at Sullivan & Cromwell have greatly improved since the opening of additional floorspace, some unfortunate souls may still find themselves being thrown into the notorious S & C "pit," as it is commonly known. Yesterday, someone sent me a picture of the pit. As horrifying as it was to look at, in order to protect the identity of the photographer, I promised that I wouldn't publish it.

"This is C2 at S&C, 120 Broad St.

I may have underestimated the size of the room, but not by much (looks perhaps 24x20). As I stated, 5 tables, 4 attys apiece, then two other people. Needless to say, there were no windows, and the stink of rotting garbage was overpowering some days - the trash can was to the left, just outside the frame.

We tolerated this for nearly 5 weeks. As for perks, we got free coffee, fruit and cookies (limited amounts; no cars, meals or consideration. Hours were very restricted --capped at 50, I think. Someone was fired for coming into the room 5 minutes before the 9:30 starting time. There was no cellphone reception on that level, and I felt that if the building were ever evacuated in an emergency, no one would bother notifying us."

Giving Someone a Widgie

Below please find a new widget I have created for the blog. Feel free to click "copy me" (which can be found when you mouseover the widget's title bar) and embed on your own site or blog. (Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.)

Thanks to Thomas Swartz, Esq. for the tip.

Scammie Mae

Scammie Mae and these exploitive sweatshops that feed off her swarth of destruction need to be stopped.

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Recent law grad:

I wish they had wined and dined me before they fucked me with these loans.

One student loan company took university financial aid directors on a junket to Disney World. Another paid $500 to be placed on a school's list of recommended lenders. And others showered tequila, wine and golf outings on college aid officers.Those were among what Senate investigators called illegal enticements from loan companies to university officials to drum up business, according to a nearly 600-page report issued yesterday.

The report offers the most detailed evidence yet that lenders offered perks to colleges with the explicit goal of persuading schools to steer students their way. Some employees described the arrangements as quid pro quos. The revelations came as Johns Hopkins University agreed to pay about $1.13 million to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo (D) into the school's financial aid operation. Previously released documents from the Senate investigation show that former university aid director Ellen Frishberg accepted more than $130,000 from eight lending industry companies during her tenure. Johns Hopkins, which has denied wrongdoing, agreed in the settlement to have its financial aid practices monitored for five years by the attorneys general of New York and Maryland.

Frishberg is the focus of a criminal and civil investigation by Cuomo's office. The review could result in charges of fraud, bribery, conspiracy or all three, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Frishberg did not return calls seeking comment. The Senate findings are the latest disclosure of questionable financial arrangements between lenders, universities and regulators in the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry. "This investigative report demonstrates that inappropriate marketing practices, conflicts of interest, and back-room deals are found all too frequently in the student loan industry," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the education committee, which conducted the investigation, said in a statement. "The findings underscore the urgent need for systemic reform in the student loan system."

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Another story. You often hear many similar tales of desperation down in the bowls of the document review basement:

I made a mistake and had two children without being married. Single mothers like me are vilified in this culture anyway, but I wanted to be different so I went back to college when my daughter was 2. I graduated law school in 2003 and passed the bar a year later. I financed my entire education with student loans. I had to take the bar exam twice so I took out a sallie mae law student loan to exist and support two children while i took three months off to study. When I finally passed I couldn't find a job and I have been living pretty much by the skin of my teeth for four years now. My beef with Sallie Mae is the fact that my student loans have already increased by $20,000 in the past three years. I have explained that I have no job and no steady income and offered to pay a smaller amount than the $450. they were demanding a month (as much as my rent). I said I would try to pay $150, to just pay something, but they turned their noses up at that. After going around and around, they were willing to give me a deferment, but you have to pay for it, a $150.00 "processing fee". I told them that I receive food stamps, which is pitiful enough, but they don't give a crap and call me probably 8 times a day, as well as harrassing my mother, my cosigner, who is 76 years old and lives on her social security. And are they rude. I try to keep in regular contact with them because I intend to someday pay them back, but everytime I call them or answer their calls their people are so shockingly rude it makes my heart pound.

Peek-A-Boo Games

"Pillsbury Winthrop's D.C. office recently held its sixth annual Summer Associates Research Challenge. Last Wednesday, three teams gathered in the firm’s library to see who could answer 40 legal questions the fastest and most accurately in 90 minutes or less. But here’s the rub: no Google, no Westlaw, no computers allowed. "

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/06/14/pillsbury-summer-associates-rockin-the-law-library/

While dozens of summer associates are upstairs playing peek-a-boo games in the library, enjoying three hour lunches at Nobu, and earning $3,000 a week, hoards of contract attorneys are slaving away down in the crammed dungeon, working 12 hour days, and aren't even being provided with toilet seat covers. I guess somebody has to pay the piper.

Schepp, Part X_X

The Appellate Term, Second Department released its long awaited decisions today in Boston Post Rd. Med. Imaging, P.C. a/a/o Adrian Black v. Progressive Ins. Co., 2007 NYSlipOp 51173(U) (App. Term, 2d Dep't, 2007) and Boston Post Rd. Med. Imaging, P.C. a/a/o Ira Bright v. Progressive Ins. Co., 2007 NYSlipOp 51174(U) (App. Term, 2d Dep't, 2007). Judge Gianelli of District Court, Nassau County, Hempstead Part had granted Progressive, represented by McDonnell & Adels, summary judgment as to their contention that the provider was not a properly licensed entity under the meaning of State Farm v. Mallela, 4 NY3d 313 (2005), and hence not entitled to no-fault benefits.

Justices Rudolph, McCabe, and Tanenbaum don't see it that way. In their estimation, the evidence proffered by Progressive was insufficient to satisfy Mallela. Of course, they give no guidance as to why the evidence was insufficient or what evidence would actually be sufficient.

Very interestingly, the App. Term does implicitly hold that, if proven, the fact that a provider sold its accounts receivable would constitute a defense to no-fault payment. Compare, Andrew Carothers, M.D., P.C. v GEICO Indem. Co., 13 Misc 3d 549 (Civ. Ct., Kings Cty., 2006; Battaglia, J.). Somehow, though, an executed contract selling said accounts receivable (along with an admission of such contract by provider's counsel, but with a differing interpretation) does not prove same. The App. Term's evidentiary rationale is too weak to suffice as a explanation for their decision; we still live under the rule that allegations made in a motion are deemed admitted unless rebutted. Kuehne & Nagel v. Baiden, 36 NY2d 539 (1975); Schneider Fuel Oil, Inc. v. DeGennaro, 238 A.D.2d 495 (2d Dep't, 1997). It has also been true since at least 1899 that "[i]n a civil action[,] the admissions by a party of any fact material to the issue are always competent evidence against him, wherever, whenever or to whomsoever made." Reed v. McCord, 160 N.Y. 330, 341 (1899). Perhaps the Appellate Term is waiting for an opportunity to physically observe the execution of said contract.

Either way, despite that one glimmer of hope, at this point the rulings do not bode well for the carriers in the ongoing litigation with Dr. Schepp in Supreme Court, Nassau County or the numerous suits involving Andrew Carothers, M.D., P.C. (which was the successor entity to Dr. Schepp's Boston Post Road Medical Imaging, P.C., Preferred Medical Imaging, P.C., and Deajess Medical Imaging, P.C.). Presumably the carriers are hoping that the judges overseeing those matters will not be as gun-shy as the App. Term was in the decisions released today.

Summer In The Sweatshop

Tom,

Please do not print my name, and please do not identify the name of my project.

To put it quite simply, I just completed the project from hell. There were 12 of us, and on the first day, we were corralled into a small (15' x 20') windowless "conference" room, which in all likelihood previously served as a janitor's supply closet.

There was no AC, and one weekend, during a particularly brutal heatwave, things got particularly dicey. The air became thick, sticky, smelly, and downright unbreathable. One older gentleman began to perspire, and suddenly became pale. I literally thought he was going to keel over and have a heart attack. It didn't help that our slavedriver of a boss made us work 14 hrs. that day, and would only bother to buzz us off the floor for our regimented, required half an hour break.

As I said before, getting off the floor on the weekend was nearly impossible without the master's buzz key. In a fire, the place would have lit up like a tinder box, because as the above picture illustrates, trash was literally strewn across the room. Navigating around the room necessitated the use of skillful body contortions and limber bodies.

7 years of higher education to be treated like a penned up farm animal.

Barbara's Right

"This is hardly an isolated case (see my book, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, co-edited with Arlie Hochschild.) If the new “top” involves pay in the tens or hundreds of millions, a private jet and a few acres of Nantucket, the new bottom is slavery. Some of America’s slaves are captive domestics, like the Indonesian women in Long Island. Others are factory workers, and at least 10,000 are sex slaves lured from their home country to American brothels by promises of respectable jobs. CEOs and slaves: these are the extreme ends of American class polarization.

But a parallel kind of splitting is going in many of the professions. Top-ranked college professors, for example, enjoy salaries of several hundred thousand a year, often augmented by consulting fees and earnings from their patents or biotech companies. At the other end of the professoriate, you have adjunct teachers toiling away for about $5000 a semester or less, with no benefits or chance of tenure. There was a story a few years ago about an adjunct who commuted to his classes from a homeless shelter in Manhattan, and adjuncts who moonlight as waitresses or cleaning ladies are legion.

Similarly, the legal profession, which is topped by law firm partners billing hundred of dollars an hour, now has a new proletariat of temp lawyers working for $19-25 an hour in sweatshop conditions. On sites like http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/, temp lawyers report working 12 hours a day, six days a week, in crowded basements with inadequate sanitary facilities. According to an article in American Lawyer, a legal temp at a major New York firm reports being “corralled in a windowless basement room littered with dead cockroaches,” where six out of seven exits were blocked."

--Barbara Ehrenreich, "Going to Extremes: CEOs vs. Slaves." Barbara is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed.

http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/2007/05/going_to_extrem.html

Article also linked at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/going-to-extremes-ceos-v_b_49791.html?view=print
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/411675,CST-CONT-ceo03.article
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070611/ehrenreich

Unsurprisingly, biglaw profits per partner (PPP) continued to soar in '06: http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=563047&mc=119&forum_id=2.

A Lifelong Swan Song

For what its worth, the BG&S website has some articles I've authored, each of which should have been published by now in "The Suffolk Lawyer," which is put out by The Suffolk County Bar Association:

• No-Fault MRI Providers' Suits Stayed Pending Declaratory Judgment Action
• Should Courts Referee No-Fault Referrals? Part 1
• Should Courts Referee No-Fault Referrals? Part 2

All of the articles should be of interest to readers of this blog. Enjoy.

A Short Notice

Please be advised that I am no longer associated with the office of Bruno, Gerbino & Soriano, LLP. I can still be contacted at djtoell @ gmail.com. A resume is available upon request for any interested persons. For the immediate future, I will be in Civil Court, Kings County for per diem appearances.

Law School Fraud

With the proliferation of heavily indebted law graduates and the growth of horrible temporary attorney sweatshops continuing unabated, an interesting article has uncovered the massive statistical fraud that has going on within the ABA and amongst our nation's law schools. With such twisted statistics (which paint an unrealistically rosy picture of the legal market), is it any wonder why such large numbers of sheep continue to wander over to the slaughterhouse?

http://www.law.com/jsp/tal/PubArticleTAL.jsp?hubtype=Inside&id=1180688730005

"Unfortunately, some of the measures that some law schools have taken to improve their status seem like the equivalent of using a particularly dodgy tax shelter.

The law schools’ record on postgraduation employment is even less flattering. U.S. News asks law schools to report the percentage of each graduating class that is employed at graduation and at a later point (currently nine months after graduation). Since the mid-1990s, both statistics have steadily climbed for most schools in all four U.S. News tiers. Between 1997 and 2006, the employed-at-nine-months figures climbed from 83.9 percent to 91.5 percent. Unfortunately, during this same period the overall first-time bar passage rate declined from 83 percent to 78.6 percent, largely due to many states raising their passing score. Because results from a second bar exam would not be available nine months after graduation, the increased employment can only come from employment in jobs that do not require a law license.

Obviously, the numbers do not add up. University of Iowa sociologist Michael Sauder, who has interviewed more than 120 law professors and administrators for his rankings research, heard examples of alumni taxi drivers who are “employed” for the purposes of U.S. News rankings. We have collected many other examples. Such practices only serve to mislead students into purchasing an expensive legal education. In the process, legal education is losing its credibility."

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It's time for some honest disclosure:

Wow, wow and wow! There MIGHT actually be some changes coming soon! Tom the temp & myself have argued for years that a system to gather and audit actual salary data would be 1.) easy to implement and 2.) healthy for the profession.

A simple index card that could be filled out and completed with basic salary and employment info 12 months, 24 months, and 48 months after graduation would be a simple and easy way to compile spot-on accurate salary and employment info. Naturally, subhuman scum like the "Valvoline Dean," Pat Hobbs, and others of his ilk want no such part of any such survey. How fast would Seton Hall enrollment nose-dive if prospective students saw how utterly abysmal salary and employment truly is?

I would have the card ask these simple questions, and make non-compliance (or fraudulent compliance) with the survey a disciplinary offense with a hefty fine.

1.) Are you employed in the legal profession?

2.) If the answer to #1 is yes, are you a temporary or contract attorney?

3.) Do you practice full time (over 40 hrs week) or part time (under 40 hrs week).

4.) What is your title at your legal job?

5.) What is your current yearly salary?

6.) firm name, city/state, practice area (or non-legal job title), and debt load at graduation (that would go right under current yearly salary....)

This data could be published in an ABA book and then we'd have a solid, accurate idea of the real prospects for post-graduate employment. Random & independent audits would assure accuarcy and truth- you need to remember that sleazy rodents like the Valvoline Dean really, really enjoy their no-show "jobs" and huge salaries & perks, and will (and do) lie thru their teeth to keep them.
-- L4L