Unbearable Blood-Sucking Agencies

Tom: I have come to understand a great deal about the ultimate motives, agenda of some of those who come into an equity role at some of the major legal temporary agencies. Attorneys have to recognize that in most instances these folks are not your friends or career advisors invested in your professional development and success. All too often many of us are bought off with a slice of Pizza or a free sandwhich or in the case of that Scott Krowitz guy at Lexolution, some chummy b.s seminar about "Careers in Coding." Behind the scenes some slimebag middle management profiteer is all too happy to add a layer of profit in between you and the law firm employer.

Consider the case of one Robert Singer, who formerly served as an Executive Director at Weil Gotshal and Manages and Finance Director at Cravath. Roles which were primarily financial and devoid of any human component. His role has been principally to teach law firms how to be more profitable. He took his former fat paychecks and in late 2005 bought into the partnership at DeNovo legal. Since that time, he has changed the face of that agency, mostly for the worse. His motives are purely profit oriented, primarily for himself and those in his inner circle. Most temps go to work on DeNovo projects because of Sean Curtin. In fact, a friend of mine is a partner at a firm and he mentioned being pitched by Singer and the guy did not know the first thing about the data retrieval process critical to the management and staffing of a major case but tried to schmooze him about how DeNovo Legal was a full service Trial Preparation Firm. The Partner told me that a bean counter who knew jack shit about his business was essentially trying to jack him off because he saw DeNovo as no different from any other temp agency.

I worked on a project there in 2005 mostly because it had a reputation as one of the better enviornments to work in. They, however, are out of touch with people who have to work 60 hours or more a week doing mind-numbing work to pay their bills. We have to endure Update like staffers like this Evelyn Louie chic, who has the worst interpersonal skills. Friends on a project there tell me that she periodically rises from her hole like its Groundhog day to make another announcement about the conditioning of expense reimbursements but largely the temps have no idea whether the project will last for a week, a few more days or months. Sure, they give out free pizza and the like but those that built what was a more uniquely personal and professional agency get pushed aside and what these people are replaced with is a Nazi like efficiency. They sit around with calculators all day long trying to figure out ways to extend the work day, eliminate breaks or reimbursements for meals or cars. That is the word on the street. Fortunately or unfortunately I was staffed on something else at the time, and am actually working for an agency I hate right now but it pays the bills. Agencies are increasingly becoming "UPDATE" like with no regard to ones professional development and long term job security. If we have to deal with people like Update's Leslie Firtell, Eileen Lamboy or Evelyn Louie and Robert Singer at DeNovo Legal, most will likely go someplace else.

The further lesson in all of this, is that in this modern era in America we increasingly find those at the top of the food chain sucking more and more $$ out of the business while the proletariat professional classes have to rationalize getting less. It will work for a time but ultimately bankrupt souls like Robert Singer will be dumped on the scrap heap of business history.

Note To Agencies: Stop Passing Yourselves Off As Unbiased "Career Counselors" To Naive, Debt-Ridden Law Graduates

"Temporary legal work is a great opportunity for those who graduate from law school without a job offer," says Scott Krowitz, a partner in the temporary placement firm Lexolutions. "The work gives young lawyers exposure to the practice of law and creates new networking opportunities. And temp-to-perm (temporary to permanent) positions can lead to permanent jobs that might not have been available to these attorneys through the usual recruiting channels."

The concept of a seminar on career opportunities in coding is nothing short of a marketing sham designed to position Lexolution and its CEO, Scott Krowitz as somewhat of a career counselor invested in your success. That is a fabrication of the role that entities like Lexolution serve. Certainly you need to be on good terms with as many entities that might call you for a job. But I have seen way too many firms just stop dealing with particular candidates for irrational reasons and rewarding syncophants no matter how f'ing stupid and incompetent they are. Talent, skill, ability or goal oriented individuals are not the candidates that they want. Instead, they want subservient insecure fools who kiss the ass of these agency gatekeepers in order to continue to get a pay check. The more firms consider hiring directly without the agency, the more they might find an increase in the quality of candidate, and the more money will be available to reward said individual for his hard work. It is ridiculous that the agency cut off many candidates exceeds that candidates hourly rate. In many cases where the attorney is collected $35 per hour, the agency is billing for $75 per hour and the law firm is billing the client $150 or more.

Just a sage bit of advice to aspiring legal professionals,law students and/or potential document review attorneys. Recognize that owners of agencies like Lexolution (i) are NOT career advisors or counselors who have your long term professional development at heart, (ii) but are independent agencies, brokers or intermediaries who add a layer of cost between the legal professional and the law firm client and (iii)have no professional, entrepreneurial or economic incentive to help you evolve from this type of work into a different career path. In short, you must look at the likes of Scott Krowitz as someone you need to evolve past in the long term as for now, folks like him are "necessary evils" in the temp game. They are not your friends but rather are folks who are complicitors in your professional enslavement.

The UPDATE Blacklist is very real indeed. But they are not the only firm that has one, a good question to ask Scott Krowitz at Lexolution who also secretly has one as well. Regardless of how intelligent you are, how much experience you have and how good a job you have performed in the past, either of those firms will blacklist you if they perceive that you at all question their M.O. There are enough lawyers who will work in these temp jobs. They want SHEEP and not BULLS. The more you stand out, the worse it is for them and since more and more attorneys graduate each year, they would rather place passive people in these jobs who do not at all question or buck the system. Their are people that UPDATE places regularly who are actually horrific candidates but they do precisely what UPDATE tells them to. That is what many of these firms want. You are being paid to sit in a chair for as many hours as possible, code docs so that the agency can get their override and the law firms can jack their clients for work which at times is even questionable really needs to be done. Plain and simple.

-- fellow poster

2007: What the *%$! is Going On?

The reader is directed to No-Fault Paradise, a new entry in the highly-specific genre of New York no-fault automobile insurance law blogs from David M. Gottlieb, Esq., an attorney at Edward Shapiro, P.C., a prolific no-fault plaintiff's firm. Mr. Gottlieb's Civil Court, Queens County, Room 101 Seating Chart is both completely accurate and incredibly funny.

Thanks much also to a recent anonymous poster for some lively debate on the recent Appellate Division, 2d Dep't decision in Fogel v. Progressive.

In a bit of housekeeping news, please note that Erik B. Lutwin, Esq. has moved on in his professional career. Your humble blawger wishes Mr. Lutwin well. For the time being, I am the sole contributor to this blawg, but Mr. Lutwin was the one who got the ball rolling here, and he also devised the catchy title. Not having a fellow contributor makes the device of using the royal "we" that much more of a contrivance, so you'll forgive me if I continue to do so now and again.

Happy various holidays to all, and a Happy New Year, as well. Thanks especially to the two biggest long-running supporters of my site, Matthew S. Lerner, Esq. of New York Civil Law and Nicole L. Black, Esq. of Sui Generis. They provide much more traffic my way than the other way around, I'm sure, and I'm grateful for how often they feature my posts.

--

It's that time again, right
Kick out the old, welcome the new
Make your New Year's resolutions now!

...Go!

(And a very Happy New Year from BBC1)

DEBEVOISE & PLIMPTON -- Holiday Scrooge

12/28/06-- Debevoise cut a bunch of people from a long term project last Friday just in time for the holidays. They called all the temps into a conference room and told them there was a lot of work left for those who were being kept. Merry Christmas indeed. Talk about insensitivity to the Christian holiday. They could easily have continued to use all the temps until after Christmas at least. Debevoise you are a Scrooge.

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Happy Holidays everyone!! Hopefully, Scrooge will toss you an extra lump of coal in whatever toilet firm or cockroach infested document review basement you happen to find yourself trapped in this year.

Fogel: Out

As 2006 draws to a close, the Appellate Dvision, 2d Department has given us one of the most important no-fault decisions of the year. In Stephen Fogel Psychological, P.C. v Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., 2006 NY Slip Op 09604 (App. Div, 2d Dep't, 2006), a unanimous Court overturned that portion of the prior Appellate Term, 2d Dep't decision that held that an assignor's failure to appear for an independent medical examination ("IME") prior to the subject services having been rendered results only in a rebuttal of the presumption of medical necessity in the favor of the plaintiff provider. Instead, although agreeing with the concurrence/dissent of Golia, J. in the App. Term Fogel case and the Appellate Term, 1st Department decision in Inwood Hill Med., P.C. v General Assur. Co., 2005 NYSlipOp 25437 (App. Term, 1st Dep't, 2005), the App. Div. has gone even further. They now hold that failure to appear at an IME is a violation of a condition precedent to no-fault coverage, regardless of when the no-show occurred as compared with the date(s) of service of a given claim. Indeed, the App. Div. now holds that a carrier may deny claims "retroactively to the date of loss" when a no-show occurs.

This has numerous potential implications. A denial of coverage retroactive to the date of the loss should render the defense one that survives preclusion regardless of whether it is preserved in a timely denial of claim form. See generally, Central General v. Chubb, 90 N.Y.2d 195 (1997). Other explicit conditions precedent to coverage listed in the PIP Endorsement (11 NYCRR § 65-1.1) should also be subject to the same rule.

Misunderestimated

A special thanks to JDjive for passing along a bunch of traffic this morning to my incredibly lame blog. Many of the visitors who clicked over here have spent a significant amount of time looking at various posts, reading the cited case law, etc. I'm thinking the intended insult had the opposite effect, but I'm sure I'm too lame to understand the difference...

In other news, the Appellate Division, Second Department will hear the appeals in Fair Price a/a/o Novelo v. Travelers on 12/14/06 and Mandarino v. Travelers on 12/19/06.

Keeping It Real, Part II

By way of a long-overdue sequel in this occasional series of posts, the reader is directed to the recently-published decision in Dan Med., P.C. v New York Cent. Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 2006 NYSlipOp 26483 (App. Term, 2d Dep't, 2006) as the latest example of the Appellate Term applying real law rather than fashioning some other rule purportedly designed to conform to the legislative intent of no-fault.

In particular, the Dan Med. decision stands for the proposition that a motion for summary judgment must be supported by evidence in admissible form sufficient to demonstrate the absence of any triable issues of fact. As a result, in order to demonstrate prima facie entitlement to summary judgment, a no-fault plaintiff must proffer the relevant claim forms in a manner that complies with the business record exception to hearsay in CPLR R. 4518. Upon a failure to proffer such evidence in support of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, same is to be denied. This is true regardless of whether plaintiff has proven that such forms were submitted to and received by the insurance carrier; while something may have been submitted and received, that something must also be put forth in admissible form.

Note that, in order for the issue to be preserved for appeal, a defendant must raise those defects in plaintiff's proof in their written opposition. Should defendant fail to raise such defects on the record, an appellate court is unable to review a lower court's determination that plaintiff's motion was sufficient. See Bath Med. Supply, Inc. v Allstate Indem. Co., 2006 NYSlipOp 52273(U) (App. Term, 2d Dep't, 2006), concurring opinion of Weston Patterson, J.

On the other hand, in certain circumstances, the Appellate Term still continues to impose artificial (unreal?) law that appears to have no particular basis in statutory law or the regulations, and indeed may even be contrary to the plain text of such. See, e.g., Boai Zhong Yi Acupuncture Servs. P.C. v Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., 2006 NYSlipOp 26485 (App. Term, 2d Dep't, 2006). The reader is directed in particular to the lengthy (purported) concurrence therein of Golia, J.