July 9, 2007
Legal Department
Legal Sweatshops
So you're thinking of going to law school, eh?
Apparently, lawyering is not the great job it once was. If you can't land the job you want—especially if you're from a bottom-ranked law school—you'll probably have to find some scutwork to help pay off those massive student loans.
That means work in a legal sweatshop as a temporary attorney, probably helping a dozen other temporary attorneys sort through some company's 100,000-page document production in a civil suit.
Temporary Attorney has the horror stories:
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.
...
"By far it is the worst, unprofessional and dishonest agency that I had to deal with. I worked for 3 months/ 12 hours a day/6 days a week in sweatshop like conditions, but when I had to see a doctor and "only" came in for 8.5 hours - they black listed me, told me the project is over "for me", refused to let me go back to collect my things, and tried to deny my unemployment benefits."
I guess it beats a lot of blue-collar sweatshops, but it's probably not what they were hoping for when the went to law school...
1 Comments
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I'm a contract attorney in D.C. and can understand the various sentiments regarding the profession. It can be tough in the trenches at times. Tom the Temp's feelings are shared by many but not entirely representative. I guess I have a slightly optimistic view of the temp attorney profession.