Blind Item Follow-Up: In Defense of Fake Work
On Monday, we offered you a blind item about a major law firm giving “fake work” to its summer associates. Some commenters thought we were criticizing the practice, but if you go back and read our original post, you won’t find any criticism. To the contrary, we enumerated the advantages of this policy (which found defenders in the comments as well).
We now bring you an update, based on a number of interesting emails we received. Here’s one:
My former firm, Day Berry & Howard [now Day Pitney], did this with first years back in the 80s. Several of us found out we were researching the exact same issue having to do with business trusts. I proposed we do a joint memo and that’s what we did. I don’t think they did that again.
And here’s a second:
Fake-work has been happening for years. I have given it to summers at the two firms I’ve been at and have practiced this art since 2005…. [T]his practice will greatly increase this year.It is very easy, especially in areas like tax, where you can give a summer associate a discrete set of facts year after year (sans client names) and see if the summer can get to the answer you already know is right (or find some of the authorities that are directly on point). I actually think it is a GREAT way to test a summer’s research and writing ability without having to take as fact the lame “I couldn’t find very much on point” excuse. Of course, it is essential that the summer not know you gave him/her fake work until he/she does a spotty job and then you hand them the memo you (or a former summer associate) wrote so that they can see that they should have put a bit more effort in getting the project right before handing it in. In prior years, it was fun to see the sense of dread come across an SA’s face if they did, in fact, half-ass it and you caught them in the act (since the SA would likely get an offer anyway). This summer, pulling something like this would probably bring the SA to tears or worse.
I gave three separate fake work projects to summers back when I was at Locke Lord. The partners absolutely knew I was doing it and liked the comparison potential that the practice fostered. The practice was not widespread when I was doing it.
Additional discussion, plus the name of the firm that was the subject of the original blind item, after the jump.
We asked this distributor of fake work assignments: what about the Westlaw or Lexis charges? His response:
On the Westlaw/Lexis front, my firm actually lets you hit some time to an assigned nonbillable number…. However, you’ve actually hit on another practice that is rampant during summer clerkships — SA’s use of their Westlaw/Lexis law school accounts during their summer clerkships.I told SAs that (1) the client does not want to pay exorbitant Westlaw/Lexis costs; (2) there is a nonbillable number, but that it needs to be used sparingly and with discretion; and (3) that the firm had unlimited LoisLaw and RIA checkpoint access. Then I would leave the SAs to their own devices, knowing that the pressure to steal Westlaw/Lexis time using their law school accounts would likely be too great to resist. I would obviously NEVER encourage this practice, but based on the resultant memos that were produced, I KNOW it was happening.
Truth is, I know that Westlaw/Lexis know it is happening and don’t police it in their effort to create addicts to their services, not only in law school, but during summer clerkships, when the pressure to produce good legal research is higher than ever.
Finally, going back to the original blind item, which firm were we talking about? Answer: Latham & Watkins.
But, as often happens in this game of telephone, important parts of the story were lost in translation. Fake work is being doled out, but the summers know that it’s fake. From a Latham source:
LW has actually been (surprisingly) open about the fake work/ general lameness of their summer program this year. There is definitely full-out fake work going on, but it’s totally in the open and is part of a formal “writing program” that everyone’s aware of — basically, partners come up with two openly fake writing assignments for the summers (some are corporate, some are lit, depending on the partner), which the summers complete and will be judged on in considering whether to give them offers, etc. They’ve even been given training sessions on how to handle the assignments, write “like a lawyer,” etc.There’s basically no client billable work for the summers this year, but the firm has been open about it with the summers, and everyone’s aware that most of their work is either fake or make-work “approved office projects,” e.g. writing book chapters for partners, researching arcane issues that no one cares about.
Some advice to Latham summers: take those “writing program” assignments very, very seriously. The work may be fake — but if you don’t get an offer, the unemployment waiting for you after graduation will be all too real.
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Comments
FIRST.... LATTT
Third Turd!
There's a better way to cut costs: let people die. Anyway, that's Obama's current plan for cutting costs of health care.
From the LA Times and Obama's mouth:
"President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.
"In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve 'additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care.'
"He added: 'Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.' "
Wow. Kill your grandma, and 'save' health care.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health25-2009jun25,0,1978875.story
Latham Troll must be getting aroused reading this
ha ha bitters. Kill your grandma. You sound like my grandma, bitters. Why so bitter? What you always angry about? Is your penis so small?
Any summer associate who believes his/her work product is for a real client/matter is a consummate dolt. At this stage in their career, anything produced by a summer associate is not presentable for a client. Only non-peer firms bill their clients for summer associates' work product.
I'm hung like a horse and I find it shocking Obama told a girl last night that it would make more economic sense for her grandmother to die.
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Hey, 7, at least we have a guy who is willing to tell the truth this time around.
PE, as usual, has it wrong. Elite firms are loathe to cut their bills in any way - including summer associate time.
I've got the perfect discrete and "real work" summer assignment... IN MY PANTS.
3, good to hear the first sensible thing out of Obama's mouth. I tell my kids to study hard so they can get a good job and pay exorbitant taxes to keep 120 year old people on life support.
I've been using my law school Westlaw password for some of my summer associate work - is that wrong?
3 - I think you're missing the point. As technology and research continue to advance, we have the ability to keep people alive longer, but at a huge economic cost. It's an inescapable fact that, at some point, we have to put a value on life (and quality of life). Our healthcare system will crumble if we're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep every 85-year old terminally-ill smoker alive for a few months.
This comment is addressed to post no. 10.
If the firm doesn't care about the client, then yes it will bill garbage time for summers' work. Will it get paid? That is another story. I personally will not jeopardize my relationship with institutional clients by billing for amateur work from summer assocaites. You must work for a non-peer firm.
14, when you think of people who oppose cost-benefit analysis with respect to human lives, who do you think of first, liberals or conservatives? And how well do you think this cost-benefit analysis form of universal health care will go down with the Democratic base clamoring for universal health care?
13-
Yes, and Westlaw polices this very closely. I know a guy at my firm who did this and got no offered--no firm wants to deal with potential liability to Westlaw, on top of all the crap they put up with for summers.
3 - I don't see your point. It sounds like the best healthcare idea to come out the executive branch in years.
And as for social security, raise the retirement age to 70.
Your hands hurt? Well now your back is going to hurt too, because you just pulled 4 hours landscaping duty. Read the name-tag, you're in my world now granny. (Best Ben Stiller quote ever)
One year my flock had dwindled due to dysentery, so I had no work for my summer associate Bogdan. Instead, I had him tend a boulder near our grazing grounds. But when the flock increased and I asked him to assist with the goats, the pressure was too much - Bogdan had become used to the boulder's ways and could not adapt. In despair, he fled our pasture and now sells gyros in Chicago.
13 - don't worry, your firm will love you for that.
16 - I don't think about anything other than green, as in money (I'm a conservative, if that does anything for you). Cost-benefit in these circumstances is absolutely unavoidable. You may not like to think of it that way, but that's reality.
13
14 - I'm pretty sure our healthcare system will crumble from over-regulation, too. Imagine how much lawyers would whine if, not just taking the bar and paying silly annual registration fees that keep some loopy policy wonks in Albany employed, we had to provide services to any person who walked through the door, get paid from a single national legal insurance fund (which tell us how to practice, also), and be subject to scrutiny from every federal and state agency under the sun. I'm pretty sure most lawyers would quit, which is what I keep telling my doctor friends to do.
But I think they hate me because I spent 3 years in school, I make 200K a year, and I work with well-educated people. They spend about 9 years in grad school/residency, make 65K a year, and have to work with the dregs of society.
I may have failed organic chem, but whose smarter now, beyotch?!
14 - I'm pretty sure our healthcare system will crumble from over-regulation, too. Imagine how much lawyers would whine if, not just taking the bar and paying silly annual registration fees that keep some loopy policy wonks in Albany employed, we had to provide services to any person who walked through the door, get paid from a single national legal insurance fund (which tell us how to practice, also), and be subject to scrutiny from every federal and state agency under the sun. I'm pretty sure most lawyers would quit, which is what I keep telling my doctor friends to do.
But I think they hate me because I spent 3 years in school, I make 200K a year, and I work with well-educated people. They spend about 9 years in grad school/residency, make 65K a year, and have to work with the dregs of society.
I may have failed organic chem, but whose smarter now, beyotch?!
I'd love to hear from that ex-Latham Loser that constantly bashes the firm in every thread (regardless of the thread's subject) and then talks about how Latham is driving him/her to suicide. Speak up douche. Now is your chance to say something that is actually relevant to the subject of the thread for a change.
I am not gay, I am French Canadian.
First to say that I enjoy the Goat Herder
- Not the Goat Herder
i make 200"k" a year, but I only do it because I want to be able to tell people -even perfect strangers - that I make 200 "k". sometimes, I like going on internet message boards and talking about how many "k" i make. I am a douchebag. Women are not attracted to me because they can tell that my self esteem is inextricably bound up with others' opinions of me. I have no native self-confidence. I still feel like the high school paper was where I really fit in. I am a poor version of my true self.
kind of sick to hand over the real memo, but i bet it would also be pretty funny as well.
What's wrong with making SAs compete with each other? Seems to me to be a good way to weed out the carpetbaggers that made it through the recruiting process on non merit-based factors.
Michael Stipe had a chin implant ... pass it on.
Locke Lord Houston has treated me like a king and I owe it all to the education I received at SMU.
Thank you and good day.
19=genius
Michael Stipe's chin is real and spectacular. 30, please stop spreading falsehoods.
Not the Latham suicide troll, but....
I worked at Latham. I just wanted to let all of the Latham SAs out there think about a few things.
1) It's fine not to have pressure to hit hours as a summer, but how will it feel when you return full-time and are told you are not "productive" enough because there is no work for you?
2) How do you think all of the struggling junior associates regard you now? How would you feel as a junior associate, scrambling for any scraps of work, if the few "real" work assignments that exist were doled out to summers, instead of you?
3) How would you feel a year or two from now, when, as a result of poor planning and rampant overhiring, you were told some sort of nebulous personality flaw is causing the firm to let you go. Something like, "You don't have the personality of a lawyer?"
Just some Latham food for thought....Yes, you want that paycheck, but just know that Latham is a snake den. Particularly the SV office.
22/23 - I tend to agree with you on the downside of regulation. That said, I don't think anyone has suggested that doctors would need to see everyone who walks through the door.
With respect to your single national plan point, isn't that effectively the case now anyway? Simply substitute BCBS (or your state's dominant insuer) for the federal government in your hypo. In my state, the top two insurers cover over 75% of the people residing in the state, with BCBS covering 2 out of every 3 people.
Farah fawcett's anal herpes got the better of her.
3, if you're going to overstate your case, don't include a link to the story that strips you of all credibility. just a protip.
Good advice about taking "fake work" assignments seriously. Think about it: who would you rather piss off, a fourth year you're doing a 50 state survey for, or a partner in management who came up with the fake work? Prioritize accordingly.
18-you royally f*cked up that stiller quote
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Atlanta's WorsTTT Law Firm® McKenna Long & Aldridge has done the same "fake work with training sessions" thing since it started falling behind the Atlanta market a few years ago.
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This is getting ridiculous. If jackasses like 43 actually speak for any appreciable portion of the ATL readership, this site is doomed.
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36 - dude, that is mean.
Since when did rural Romania get wifi, Goatherder?
So far, my firm's SA program seems focused on training us how to drink 'like a lawyer'.
So, let me get this right... Fake work is double billing the client... and this is talked about openly... and no ethical investigation is being taken...
Sounds about right.
Why don't firm smarten up and test the applicant's writing skills while he or she is still an applicant? The way firms interview candidates is ridiculous. Someone gets an offer because everyone likes him and thinks he's fun to have lunch with. Only months later do you realize Mr. Charming can barely write his name and his memos look like text messages. Why do we have to have a "writing teacher" come in to teach the basic punctuation and grammar attorneys should have learned in grade school?
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Latham is such a fucking ghetto shithole that they can't give summers a real assignment even AFTER firing 45% of their New York associates, and half of the first year class in New York.
When is Latham going to whack Bob Dell and Dave Gordon???!!! You two clowns should have diversified the NY office back when you had the chance. Now you are efffed in the A, and have destroyed your reputation for good. You will never get your reputation back. You don't kill half the associates in one office and just go on like nothing happened. And no, none of your former peers followed you like you'd hope.
The libs would have more credibility if they publicly renounced all expensive medical care in their old age. I'm talking to you, Nancy. Or even better, Obama should vow not to accept any expensive and ultimately futile procedures if his kids ever get sick. Not holding my breath.
51 - We get it, but are they hiring?
"Why don't firm smarten up and test the applicant's writing skills while he or she is still an applicant?"
Yes, with all those brilliant writers in BIGLAW.
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Goat herder is billiant, except that Bogdan should have been competing with Jonathan and Nate for the "best bould-herder" position, and Brogdan should now be a ranger in Hickory Run State Park:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HickoryRunBoulderField2007.jpg
"Whose smarter now," 23? Looks like you failed English as well as Organic Chem. I hope you don't really make 200K a year, because that would be so wrong.
LOL at Bob Dell and Dave Gordon's TTT managing skills.
Throwing everything into corp and finance was an AWESOME strategy, wasn't it dummies?
I don't know why Latham hasn't fired you two assclowns yet.
make love to me Bob Dell
-73 year old woman in wheel chair
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LATHAM & WATKINS DEATH WATCH. someone pass me the popcorn, I'm going to enjoy watching this TTT shithole turn into a carcass.
"Latham is well diversified."
-Bob Dell in 2/27/2009 email announcing mass layoffs
This just in: Latham is a poorly managed toilet that overhired and still doesn't have enough work even after firing half the associates in NY.
Good work you TTT dirtbags. Dave Gordon is a manaagerial genius! The finest syracuse law school has to offer.
BTW, why are there no law school honors listed on Dave Gordon's LW profile? Are you telling me he didn't even make cum laude at SYRACUSE?
While I generally don't support censorship of any kind, ATL comment removal censorship >>>>> ATL comment writing tard self-censorship.
Sack up and learn to swear anonymously on the internet. You fucking dickless losers.
LaTTTham's slow demise is making me feel suddenly less suicidal. Seeing Bob Dell fired and eating out of dumpsters would make me feel even better.
- less suicidal laid off latham first year
even if the LW summers do get offers, the unemployment will still be very real when Latham lays them off several months after they start.
Don't they even have real pro bono projects that need some help?
at first i hated LaTTTham. now i pitty them.
rest in peace Latham. you were a good firm once, and that's how we should remember you when you're gone.
DAAAAAAAAVVVVEEE GOOOOOORRRDDDOOOOON!!!!!!
In high school we used to give fake work to summers all the time. It was no big deal.
better spend those severances now before LaTTTham's creditors sue you for it
I have information that PE is actually a disgruntled bong maker from Cleveland....
Not enough work for the summers huh. I wonder what Latham will do...
Document Review = Fake Work!
Nuff said...
The writing assignments aren't really being presented as "fake work," but as an evaluative exercise. There's also a whole mock corp/lit scenario that summers are working on that's openly regarded as fake work. Poor summers.
Fake work for fake lawyers.
This CLIENT doesn;'t pay for fake work or for summer associates for masturbating into their LW coffee mugs.
Fake work for fake lawyers.
This CLIENT doesn;'t pay for fake work or for summer associates for masturbating into their LW coffee mugs.