Contract Attorneys

What Motivates You To Do Good Work At Your Job?

Contract attorneys don't have much to motivate them. In the winter, they have even less.

By  
on

This winter has sucked. It’s cold outside and there’s snow and ice just about everywhere. Even if you don’t suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) you are still likely to feel your mood dip with the temperatures. And I hate my job. Listen, I know it’s document review — there isn’t a lot to love about the work. But even that little blip of personal satisfaction at a job (menial though it may be) well done seems to be frozen. I’ll need something stronger than long johns and woolen socks (or the whiskey I find myself turning to with increasing frequency) to survive this winter.

So, I ask you what motivates you to do good work at your job? Because as a document review attorney it’s a struggle to find that motivation.

When you eliminate the chance of advancement, because doc review rarely provides the opportunity to get ahead, do you still have it inside of you to put out your best work? And when the established hourly rate is unlikely to change and created by people who would be shocked to learn your name, is there really any way for money to be a motivator? Doc review compensation is based solely on the hours you’re there coding your little heart out, not how thoroughly a document gets reviewed.

And really, is there an exemplary way to code a document? Or does it all boil down to how fast you can code and not make too obvious of an error? Because there are bad things you can do, like miss the obvious privilege call but no one is giving out prizes for your understanding of the complexities of the underlying deal. And by the time that becomes relevant to the legal team, the contractor they paid to go through the key communications is gone, ensconced in their next project learning about a different set of facts that will also ultimately prove irrelevant to their actual life.

What about the good old standby motivator, fear? Fear of losing your job (even if it is only temporary) or even getting yelled at can certainly be a motivator, but with the volume of documents being churned through on an hourly basis and the laughable quality control process found on most review projects the potential of getting called out for any one document you code is pretty small.

Teamwork? I guess that works. For big projects that have gone on for months, or when a vendor or law firm hires the same team of reviewers over and over for a series of projects then the sort of camaraderie that develops in the trenches or other hopeless situations can motivate you to code, faster and better for the sake of the team. This can work for awhile and some of the very best coworkers I have had I found in desperate document review rooms. Yet inevitably the project ends, or the management makes some move– cutting hours or personnel or something miserable that reinforces the inherent fungibility of reviewers and that fragile motivator pops like an over-inflated balloon.

Then there’s the old reliable “professional responsibility” or “pride” in your work. “Real” attorneys with permanent jobs that are engaged in the “practice of law” always seem shocked that the mere monkeys they allow to code documents are capable of such complex emotions. But they are real. Plenty of reviewers dreamed of being a lawyer, and though the reality of document review is a far cry from those dreams the platitudes surrounding the profession still resonate. Then the daily grind of being a contract attorney sets in and you’re repeatedly treated like a child that’s been dropped on its head and micromanaged to the point of checking in after pee breaks and the veneer of professionalism begins to crack. If you spend 12 hours a day being treated like you aren’t a professional, then it becomes harder to use that to do your best possible work.

Sponsored

So I ask again, what motivates you to do a good job? And if you find out, please let me know.

Alex Rich is a T14 grad and Biglaw refugee who has worked as a contract attorney for the last 7 years… and counting. If you have a story about the underbelly of the legal world known as contract work, email Alex at alexrichesq@gmail.com and be sure to follow Alex on Twitter @AlexRichEsq

Sponsored

Topics

,