SUE THE EVIL BASTARDS!

I agree. In reality, however, nobody would sue. The predatory banks have us by the balls. The law firms and agencies know this. As temps, we lose all of our rights as American citizens at the document review basement door.

"I was doing some research for a friend of mine who was recently fired from her job and I came across a classic textbook cause of action for all temp workers who have been fired for making complaints or threatening to make complaints against their employers to government agencies. NY recognizes a cause of action called "retaliatory discharge" which accrues when an employee is fired specifically (quid pro quo)because they threaten to disclose illegal activity by the company to a government agency (see Holston vs. Sisters of St. Francis,650 N.E. 2d 985 (Ill., 1995) and Kraus vs. New Rochelle Hospital Medical
Center, 628 N.Y.S. 2d 361 (N.Y. App., 1995).. Given the number of blatant OSHA violations you've cited, the number of suits that could be filed would be significant. The advantage is that all of the persons these actions have been taken against are all admitted attorney's who can file their own complaints pro se. With a little bit of guidance on matters of NY civil procedure (we could create a sort of "how to" manual for how to file the complaints), we could flood these bastards with lawsuits; either that or compile them into class action suits against the various temp companies.

I get the feeling that that is the only way to get them to listen, hit them in the wallet where it hurts. The goal wouldn't even be to actually win the lawsuits. By filing individually, pro se, the individual lawyers incur almost no expenses (outside of an meager filing fee) while forcing the temp companies to spend large sums of money defending themselves; it literally throws their whole structure back in their faces. They might have to settle the suits quickly to avoid the inevitable expenses incurred by their own bloated structure. Ironically, it may even have the effect of creating more of a demand for temp workers to process the discovery demands from the lawsuits of other temp workers. All you would need would be a handful of ex-temp workers who really don't give a shit about doing temp work again to file the suits (because they will certainly be black balled), and there must be an abundance of them.

Proving the quid pro quo, namely that the termination was directly in response to the threat of making a complaint to a government agency and not for some other reason is the hard part. It wouldn't be all that difficult however to produce the basic affidavits necessary to make a prima facie case and survive the inevitable pre-answer motions to dismiss and subsequent motions for summary judgment. Simply by creating a triable issue of fact, they would be forced to expend significant resources just to respond. You could even specifically arrange test cases with willing subjects who specifically, and rather vocally, in the presence of multiple witnesses, speak to a supervisor and threaten to report them to a government agency regarding the present work conditions. The statements of the supervisor would be admissible under the opposing party admission exception to hearsay. This is just a rough outline but I'm sure a more comprehensive blueprint could be organized.

Maybe I'm a wild eyed dreamer, but it's about time someone hit these guys where it hurts. Let me know what you think. Is this at least worth posting?"

The Candidates

Based on some of your comments over the past year, here are some of the candidates for "Sleazy Recruiter Of The Year Award" in no particular order:

Wanda Lin and Elizabeth Cass
get my vote for horrible recruiters of the year. Indeed, they believe very much that they are primadonnas. Deal with these characters at your own risk!

Eileen Lamboy. Eileen is the witch! Eileen is the witch! Those NYC Update Legal Stepford Wives are the worst!

Allan Cohen, because he pretends to be on your side. Check his horns....

As a naive law grad, Andrew Rider stuck me at Milberg without informing me that defense firms discriminate and will blackball anyone who has worked at a major plaintiff's firm.

Julie Dailey and Lauren Gibson have a scheme to get the McCarter people to work more hours? They keep missing deadlines, so they are bribing people to work more hours-- $7.50 an hour extra for every hour past 55-- $15 for every hour past 70. People who bill the most are entered into a drawing to win a free TV!!! Isn't there something unseemly about all that? Another person made the mistake of being honest with them. He had done a previous job with Morgan through Hudson, so they pulled out the non-compete clause of his contract, and Morgan withdrew the offer. He then was forced to take a job for Hudson at the cesspool that is the McCarter/Seroquel project.

Yeah, what's up with Sean Treadwell? He used to be a cool guy but recently sent me some very scathing e-mails...after I couldn't finish the project. It's Treadwell's (and FrankenDine's) bald-faced lying over and over again to temps about pay rates and hours that get their names sullied about on this blog. Where there's smoke, there's a fire.

I nominate fake blonde "Jenn from Hudson" who is rumored to have replaced Julie Z. / Napolean. She oversaw the firing of a whistleblower and attempted to put a sock in the rest of the lot through jumbo bagels. Some of those people flocked to the bagels like Pavlov's salivating dogs and remain part of the Hudson/Hughes Hubbard psych experiment.

ONE EXIT ON THE FAR END OF THE ROOM, WITH THE OTHER EXIT ON THE OTHER
END OF THE ROOM LOCKED UNTIL THE FIRE DEP'T CAME ON TUESDAY TO FORCE
DICKHEAD OSMAN TO UNLOCK IT. ONLY ONE CONCLUSION: LEXOLUTION BELIEVES TEMPS ARE ALSO WITCHES AND WANTS TO ROAST THEM!!! YUM YUM!! TEMPS ARE TASTY!

I am serious. Scott Krowitz crowded fifty eight people into a room on top of each other with only one exit. The fire marshals came and would have shut down the place but for the fact that Lex was able to open up another exit in the back of the room by removing a segment of a wall. We were told not to show up today until 10am because they had electrical problems. Overcrowding and electrical problems-recipe for disaster? Scott Krowitz also trolls the toilet schools proclaiming what a great "opportunity" legal temping is.

Aunt Tom Kim Powe makes $100K+ a year for serving house Massas Krowitz and Osman. I guess it's true that house slaves are better treated than those picking the cotton.

Sean Curtin, the guy that was at De Novo who locked horns with Evelyn Louie, and who now works at a no name agency.

Sandrene Ryan at DeNovo will put a curse on you!

Captain Julie Zuckerberg can only scream and yell from the shore in a vain attempt to intimidate and distract them, and get Quinn Emanuel to switch agencies once again, this time to Hudson.

Carrie Cheskin at EPSlim/Frankendine is the witch!

Denise Fischler will call you up at a funeral and will tell you off.

Sleazy Recruiter Award - 2008

Wanda Lin Elizabeth CassEileen LamboyAndrew RiderJulie DaileyLauren GibsonSean TreadwellJenn (last name?) from HudsonDick OsmanScott KrowitzKim PoweSean CurtinEvelyn LouieSandrene RyanJulie ZuckerbergCarrie CheskinDenise Fischler

Free polls from Pollhost.com

Former Recruiter Tells It Like It Is

"Many grads struggle stuggle stuggle. Many law schools are simply diploma mills looking to make money. How do I know this???


Because in my corporate gig I dealt with these sad sack attorneys who are having to do temporary attorney work, owed 150K in law school loans, and couldn't find permanent work. Now in their defense, some of them choose to do temporary work (which consists of reviewing documents for 70 hours a week...very mundane work. Trained monkeys could do it), but most of them are forced into the drudgery of temp work to pay their huge law school debts.


Its only about 5 -10% of all law school grads who come out of school to plum, 140K a year jobs with big law firms. Most lawyers are taking 45 K a year jobs or doing temp work and struggling to make ends meet."

-----------------------------------------------------------------


In other news, LSP is staffing a fairly large gig in NYC. Sadly, they are "deflating the rate" to $33 an hour. $35 an hour was the standard rate four years ago. Adjusted for inflation, this rate is pathetic. Frankly, even if the rate was paying market, I wouldn't take it, as I find LSP's Wanda to be someone who is very difficult to deal with.

Who Is The Hillary Clinton Of Law Firms?

"The New York Observer has answered a burning political question that never occurred to us, at least until now: 'If the major presidential candidates were top New York law firms, which ones would they be?'
Lawyers in New York — perhaps enjoying a bit more idle time than usual these days — energetically took up the question, offering all kinds of suggestions and nominations, David Lat wrote. Lawyers nationwide have showered Hillary Clinton with more campaign contributions than any other candidate, federal records show.

After some debate, Mr. Lat declared Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison the closest match for Mrs. Clinton. Why Paul Weiss? One anonymous lawyer at the firm suggested that, like the candidate, the firm had a reputation for being a bit, well, hard-driving. (The lawyer actually used a more colorful phrase.)"

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/who-is-the-obama-of-law-firms/

Other similarities pop into mind. Paul Weiss and Hillary both have a long history of union busting. We all know what happened to dozens of contract attorneys at Paul Weiss when they complained to the media about their dangerous and unsanitary working conditions. Similarly, Hillary sat quiet on the board of Walmart during its heyday of union busting and outsourcing, when workers were terrorized and their rights were trampled upon.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yuZhwV24PmM/

Clinton also voted for the credit card company-supported bankruptcy bill, a provision which undoubtedly helped Youngwood keep dozens of young JD's trapped within his cockroach-ridden gulag.

By donating money to her primary campaign, Alfred Youngwood certainly supports Hillary. Will you?

The Wall Street Journal Gives A Shout Out to The Doc. Review Chain Gang

"Over a drink recently, the Law Blog was regaled with a horrific tale of document review drudgery. A fellow law school graduate, who began legal life at a large firm before moving to an in-house job, recounted the story of a 13-month long, full-time doc review he participated in as a junior associate working on a bank fraud case. Reportedly, the doc review team — sedentary for so long — would conduct late-night cartwheel contests in the hallways to expend the pent-up energy they didn’t have time to burn elsewhere. Most of those on the team who didn’t wear glasses before the doc review marathon began needed them by the time it was over.

The story was neither easy to tell nor easy to hear. We cast our eyes downward and ordered another drink.

It reminded the Law Blog of our own doc review war story, which seems tame by comparison. It was a bleak February and, feeling restless, we volunteered — please, don’t ask — to help out on a doc review for a trademark litigation that sounded interesting. What followed was four weeks of sixteen-hour-days clicking away on a computer program whose name we’ve blocked from memory. In fact, we’ve tried hard to block the whole four weeks from memory.

LB loyals, we know there are doc review warriors out there. And we also know that sharing traumatic stories is often the first step in the healing process. Now that we’re half-way through February, let’s bring some levity to this darkest of months. Send us your horror stories, and please, spare no details!

Of course, feel free to post a comment. Additionally, we’d encourage those of you with especially detailed (or lengthy) tales to send them to lawblog@wsj.com. We’ll look ‘em over and if we get anything especially good, we can run them out in separate posts. Happy Presidents’ Day!"

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/02/15/sound-of-the-first-year-workin-on-the-doc-review-gang/

The Empire Strikes Back

The cease and desist emails are starting to pour in:

"Tom-

You really need to remove the comments that note first and last names. Your most recent entry generated some slanderous comments that include the first and last name of a certain Hudson employee. Because the writings are professional attacks, you could be looking at some legal action. Let's keep the blog in good standing.

Thanks,

Anonymous"

Over at the JDUnderground message board, the partners of a small firm (Freiberg & Peck) apparently don't want the negative opinions of former employees aired in a public forum:


"Author: Marianna
Subject: Freiberg Thread?
Time: February 11, 2008 - 8:41 pm

What happened to my Freiberg thread?


Author: Administrator
Time: February 11, 2008 - 8:45 pm

Mr. Peck asked me to delete it


Author: How?
Time: February 11, 2008 - 8:48 pm

When F&P contact you, are they nasty? Do they send "formal demands" with threats? Do you have a "relationship" with them at this point, where they just say- hey admin, do me a favor take down the postings?


Author: Administrator
Time: February 11, 2008 - 8:53 pm

They are formal and respectful but not threatening. There is no relationship.

What pisses me off most is that they make a blanket claim that the whole thread is defamatory. I do wish that they specifically pointed out exactly what language is defamatory. I am too busy to argue with them now so I don't care. But if I had the time, I would make them point out the exact defamatory language."

http://jdunderground.com

And, finally, O'Melveny Myers is alleged to have partaken in a witch hunt against their blogging employees:

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/02/the_omelveny_myers_witch_hunt.php#more

Are these employers justified, or is this all merely a case of an abusive boss trying to bully former employees into quiet submission? Discuss.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Who is the most sleazy temp recruiter of them all?

Nominations are now being accepted. The winner will receive the "Temporary Attorney Sleazy Recruiter Recognition Award" and will have their name prominently displayed on the right.

The Hard #'s

Okay, for the first time, I have an actual bill in my hand. The law firm is a V50, the client is an investment bank, the year is 2004, and the matter involves the Enron class action:

Junior Partner Billing Rate - $475

1st Year Associate - $245

Contract Attorney - $220

Contract Attorney winds up being paid - $35 (without benefits)

Paul Weiss

Nearly a year and a half after a massive retaliatory firing in which dozens of attorneys were fired for speaking to the media about dangerous, cramped, and cockroach infested work environs, the Paul Weiss sweatshop (with the aid of Hudson Legal) is still open for business:

"I'm a temp document coder at Paul Weiss--not a JD, but a para. When
Hudson called me with a 'job,' and then claimed not to have any
further information, I should have realized that they were full of
b.s.

At any rate, the highly regimented schedules we are
required to follow, lest we risk our paycheck, and the deleterious
effects of working in an underground holding cell--completely removed
from reality behind privacy-frosted glass doors--is generally work
in which we are at the mercy of the agencies who place us, and the low-level
supervisors who have been charged with overseeing us.

Do you think there are enough interested and capable attorneys and
paralegals who would band together to unionize?"