Top Law Schools

This has to be one of the more depressing links you will click today.

3 Columbia, 2 Cornell, a Penn, a Northwestern, and an NYU grad all doing time in the doc review dungeon.

At sticker (because let's be honest, these probably weren't scholly kids), that represents about a million and a quarter in tuition.

At Cravath though. Is there some reason to think they didn't start at $160,000?

grapefruits wrote:At Cravath though. Is there some reason to think they didn't start at $160,000?

They are listed as "Discovery Attorney," not as "Associate." Zero chance these guys are pulling down $160,000.

Paying them 160K would defeat the point of the discovery attorney position. The whole idea is to pay people a lot less to do grunt work. Not sure what they make, but I doubt it is even half of a regular associate's salary.

Did you notice one of those doods didn't even go to law school? He read law instead?

You seriously couldn't wait out your full ban? Enjoy another week.

BigJT wrote: let's be honest, these probably weren't scholly kids

The really sad one is the guy with the JD and the PhD.

It is 2013, what do you expect? Happiness and success?

If they are there because this is the best option for them, then this is very depressing.

at least they get on the webpage. I am sure many discovery attorneys cannot say the same. Though, this puts everyone on notice they are discovery attorneys.

Tom Joad wrote:It is 2013, what do you expect? Happiness and success?

This is my favorite post of the year so far.

BigJT wrote:At sticker (because let's be honest, these probably weren't scholly kids), that represents about a million and a quarter in tuition.

Comment makes me ask. . . 35,000 law students, paying $30K in yearly tuition =
+$1 Trillion per year or $3.150 Trillion over three years. Can that be right??

Figure if 10,000 of those 35,000 students never get into law, schools receive $900M (over three years) for . . . .? (what?)

^Your calculation fails to take into account scholarships.

bk187 wrote:^Your calculation fails to take into account scholarships.

It also confuses the words "trillion" and "billion"

luthersloan wrote:Paying them 160K would defeat the point of the discovery attorney position. The whole idea is to pay people a lot less to do grunt work. Not sure what they make, but I doubt it is even half of a regular associate's salary.

Heavens to Betsy!

Tiago Splitter wrote:

bk187 wrote:^Your calculation fails to take into account scholarships.

It also confuses the words "trillion" and "billion"

bk187 wrote:^Your calculation fails to take into account scholarships.

When all is said and done (not counting COL) you believe $30K is high. . .what is a more realistic?

And yea, big opps it is Billion not Trillion. Blame it on the wine… keyboard or (lets leave it at that).

Senior discovery attorneys at firms like Cravath can easily pull down 200k. I know several who make this much at other firms. Some lawyers choose to be discovery attorneys because they hours are extremely predictable, and there's usually a lot more job security relative to normal associates. I'm sure any of these people are smart enough to start their own firms. They choose these jobs because they like predictability, and they've developed an expertise in discovery work.

These aren't contract positions where you're expecting to get fired after big cases settle. I think very few of you in this thread actually understand what salaried discovery attorneys do. If you had actually worked on document review projects, you'd realize that they can be quite complex. Responsible people are required to manage them.

On the other hand, a number of TLS posters have written extensively about their doc review horror stories, portraying doc review as a very low paying, working long hours in the basement with no benefits kind of job.

JO 14 wrote:On the other hand, a number of TLS posters have written extensively about their doc review horror stories, portraying doc review as a very low paying, working long hours in the basement with no benefits kind of job.

See, e.g., sadsituationJD.

JO 14 wrote:On the other hand, a number of TLS posters have written extensively about their doc review horror stories, portraying doc review as a very low paying, working long hours in the basement with no benefits kind of job.

I think his point is that these are not the same positions as those cellar dwelling doc reviewers.

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:Senior discovery attorneys at firms like Cravath can easily pull down 200k. I know several who make this much at other firms. Some lawyers choose to be discovery attorneys because they hours are extremely predictable, and there's usually a lot more job security relative to normal associates. I'm sure any of these people are smart enough to start their own firms. They choose these jobs because they like predictability, and they've developed an expertise in discovery work.

These aren't contract positions where you're expecting to get fired after big cases settle. I think very few of you in this thread actually understand what salaried discovery attorneys do. If you had actually worked on document review projects, you'd realize that they can be quite complex. Responsible people are required to manage them.

The point is that few if any new attorneys take these jobs by choice. They take them out of desperation and after holding such a job for more than 6 months you are branded as a doc review monkey for life. While there might be added stability in working as a discovery attorney at a big law the reality is that anyone on that linked list is one serious litigation drought away from unemployment and eventual temp-work that is likely to include basement doc review projects. Moreover, at most big laws these positions are viewed as less prestigious than a paralegal position.

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:Senior discovery attorneys at firms like Cravath can easily pull down 200k. I know several who make this much at other firms. Some lawyers choose to be discovery attorneys because they hours are extremely predictable, and there's usually a lot more job security relative to normal associates. I'm sure any of these people are smart enough to start their own firms. They choose these jobs because they like predictability, and they've developed an expertise in discovery work.

These aren't contract positions where you're expecting to get fired after big cases settle. I think very few of you in this thread actually understand what salaried discovery attorneys do. If you had actually worked on document review projects, you'd realize that they can be quite complex. Responsible people are required to manage them.

It may have something to do with this recent ITLSS blog post (bolded applies to me as well):

http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot. ... solan.html

These are not temp contract workers. These are full time permanent employees who supervise large discovery projects and all make six figures. I know people at other v25 NYC firms with similar jobs and one makes 250k. These are all experienced lawyers and their position is mostly managerial. These are not the temp workers in the basement, these are the people who run the projects in the basement, supervising and coordinating with litigation partners to figure out what basement ppl should be looking for. This people aren't David Boies but it is a solid and stable job.