ATL Piece

Today, Above the Law did an interesting piece on contract attorneys:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/01/contract_attorneys_good_work_i.php

One of the ATL commenters became nostalgic about his time in the Paul Weiss gulag:

"When I was a contract attorney for Paul Weiss (for only a few weeks prior to starting my 'real' job as an associate) about 4 years ago, I had to work SEVEN DAYS A WEEK...for about 12-14 hours a day. Because I wasn't admitted to the bar yet (admission was pending), I was only paid about $21/hour. They put us in a basement storage room that had roaches and made us share the same bathroom as the homeless people use in the subway concourse.

I woke up one morning covered in welt-like hives and went to the doctor. He told me that I was so upset and depressed about my job, that my stress was manifesting itself through hives. Holy shit my life sucked. Thank God I got 'fired' a few weeks into it and was able to land an interview (which lead to my real job) within 2 days of my firing.

Worst. Experience. Ever."

I was a little taken aback by yesterday's law.com piece, where certain agency heads were claiming that they were "sharing the burden" with contract attorneys in these difficult times. Perhaps, so. When times were good, however, weren't these many of the same people were shoving bodies into these substandard gulags, profiting off of them, and then dumping them overboard the minute anyone showed the slightest level of discontent?