Doc Review Tips (Coasting) Forum

[LivinItUp7]

I realize this is probably going to get laughed off the thread (burner account for anonymity), but any insight would be greatly appreciated.

I'm transactional attorney (without any litigation/doc review experience) currently in between jobs, and I don't start my next position for a few months. To kill some time, I picked up a short document review gig with one of those independent temp agencies that biglaw outsources to. As I'm going through my assigned sets, there are so many documents that I'm not sure on (random ass internal spreadsheets marked "confidential and privileged" but that don't actually seem to qualify for privilege, etc.). This isn't my area of practice, nor am I familiar with the matter.

Am I going to mess up the case by mislabeling a ton of docs? Are there generally multiple levels of review so there is back-up to catch my incompetency? Any doc review coasting tips would be a huge help to get me through this experience. I've been trying to mark as many docs privileged as possible so that I don't lead them to produce something that would be damaging.

[Anonymous User]

Most firms instruct contract attorneys to overcode for privilege, e.g. code anything marked "privileged and confidential" as privileged without regard to the privilege claim. Associates, staff attorneys, or a priv team will sort it out later. Overcoding for privilege is rarely going to be an issue until a priv log is required, and at that point you'll probably be staffed on something else.

If you undercode for privilege there's a chance whatever you code as responsive and not privileged will be produced, though competent firms should screen for documents coded not privileged that hit on various priv search terms. Either way, you're much more likely to be caught for undercoding than overcoding so it's best to err on the side of overcoding.

If you want to coast, code a few documents as quickly as possible, take a moderate break, repeat, etc. Your documents/hour will probably be tracked and anything under 40/hour may draw questions. As long as you're hitting that pace you should be fine.

[cisscum]

whats the compensation?

[Anonymous User]

Most firms instruct contract attorneys to overcode for privilege, e.g. code anything marked "privileged and confidential" as privileged without regard to the privilege claim. Associates, staff attorneys, or a priv team will sort it out later. Overcoding for privilege is rarely going to be an issue until a priv log is required, and at that point you'll probably be staffed on something else.

If you undercode for privilege there's a chance whatever you code as responsive and not privileged will be produced, though competent firms should screen for documents coded not privileged that hit on various priv search terms. Either way, you're much more likely to be caught for undercoding than overcoding so it's best to err on the side of overcoding.

If you want to coast, code a few documents as quickly as possible, take a moderate break, repeat, etc. Your documents/hour will probably be tracked and anything under 40/hour may draw questions. As long as you're hitting that pace you should be fine.

Really? Coding 40 documents per hour seems like a rush.

[Anonymous User]

Most firms instruct contract attorneys to overcode for privilege, e.g. code anything marked "privileged and confidential" as privileged without regard to the privilege claim. Associates, staff attorneys, or a priv team will sort it out later. Overcoding for privilege is rarely going to be an issue until a priv log is required, and at that point you'll probably be staffed on something else.

If you undercode for privilege there's a chance whatever you code as responsive and not privileged will be produced, though competent firms should screen for documents coded not privileged that hit on various priv search terms. Either way, you're much more likely to be caught for undercoding than overcoding so it's best to err on the side of overcoding.

If you want to coast, code a few documents as quickly as possible, take a moderate break, repeat, etc. Your documents/hour will probably be tracked and anything under 40/hour may draw questions. As long as you're hitting that pace you should be fine.

Really? Coding 40 documents per hour seems like a rush.

Most firms instruct contract attorneys to overcode for privilege, e.g. code anything marked "privileged and confidential" as privileged without regard to the privilege claim. Associates, staff attorneys, or a priv team will sort it out later. Overcoding for privilege is rarely going to be an issue until a priv log is required, and at that point you'll probably be staffed on something else.

If you undercode for privilege there's a chance whatever you code as responsive and not privileged will be produced, though competent firms should screen for documents coded not privileged that hit on various priv search terms. Either way, you're much more likely to be caught for undercoding than overcoding so it's best to err on the side of overcoding.

If you want to coast, code a few documents as quickly as possible, take a moderate break, repeat, etc. Your documents/hour will probably be tracked and anything under 40/hour may draw questions. As long as you're hitting that pace you should be fine.

Really? Coding 40 documents per hour seems like a rush.

Depends on the review. If you get a batch of calendar invites, you should be going pretty quickly.

Contract attorneys regularly get away with coding like 20 not-so-complicated emails an hour.

If the supervisor is competent, then they can see that you reviewed a bunch of docs quickly and then chilled out (I know, I was involved in firing several contract attorneys that were doing this among other things....)

[Anonymous User]

whats the compensation?

Not OP but I’ve got a buddy that does this for $15-20 per hour (depends on the specific project).

[Anonymous User]

whats the compensation?

Not OP but I’ve got a buddy that does this for $15-20 per hour (depends on the specific project).

NOT OP or any of the other commenters but: my friend does contract attorney work/doc review for $42-45 an hour. She's been working w/ the same company for a few months now which may be the key to increasing the pay.

If anyone is struggling to find meaningful pay and/or needs to supplement their income I recommend using the Possee list to find temp. work like this. My sister started with that when she had to take a February bar and had around 12g saved after a few months. It can really get you through while you try to retool and find something that fits you. Many of them start between $30-35/hr for attorneys with at least one bar admission.

Cheers & happy holidays to all!

[flipflopper]

I've got called for Jury Duty and I'm in a doc review gig. The agency says they don't pay. How do I go about getting the $40 from the court? There's a form to fill out, but it says Employers are forced to pay you if your employer has more than 10 employees. Mine does, but I'm guessing since they consider us temps, they don't have to pay us, even though the court paperwork says they're supposed to. What to do? I really can't afford being on a jury. If I'm not even going to get the lousy $40, the court won't pay me. I don't really want to jeopardize my project with the agency by hectoring them about how they're supposed to pay. I just need to know how to explain this to the court, saying they are not paying. I do have a letter I could show the court but I don't know if they're going to accept that.