Things are sort of looking up for former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. First, a speaking gig in the U.S. Virgin Islands. And now, Gonzales, who has been jobless since August, has a job!

From Bloomberg:

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from his job amid a controversy over the firings of federal prosecutors, has been hired to provide assistance to a special master on a patent case.

Gonzales will help former U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips oversee settlement talks in the case of a Texas company which claims banks such as Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank and Bank of America Corp. are violating its patents for taking and transmitting digital images of checks.

Phillips, in an order signed yesterday, said he needed Gonzales's help because of the number of parties in the case and the ``overall complexity of this litigation.''

And maybe because he feels badly for him. Since "special master" appointments are not permanent gigs, we're calling this what it is: a temp job for Gonzales.

We hope Gonzales ensures that we can keep pulling up copies of our checks online. If not, we may lobby to have him sent back to the Virgin Islands indefinitely.

Alberto Gonzales to Help `Special Master' on Check Patent Case [Bloomberg]

Last month, we informed you about positive developments at Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy. These included enhanced parental leave and a promise of no associate layoffs. In a bit of positive publicity for Milbank, whenever a rival firm announces a no-layoffs policy -- e.g., Latham -- it's described as making "the Milbank promise."

But not everything is hunky-dory over at Milbank. We hear that, earlier this month, the firm laid off the entire group of staff attorneys. It appears that the "Milbank promise" protects partnership-track associates, but does not extend to staff lawyers. (Shhh, don't tell Yolanda Young....)

We wondered whether perhaps it was just a case of contract lawyers whose project was finished being dismissed because their work was done. But a source explained this was not the case:

Milbank has a staff attorney program, much like Skadden or Simpson, where they have a group of permanent employees engaged in e-discovery, doc review, etc for the litigation department. Staff attorneys are not hired to work on a specific case like a contract attorney. They get assigned to various matters, and once they finish, get assigned to new ones, much like associates.

In other Milbank news, we hear that their summer program has been capped at 12 weeks. But considering that there are only so many weeks in a summer, and that some firms -- e.g., Pillsbury Winthrop -- are going as low as 10 weeks for summer 2008, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

A Milbank spokesperson did not respond to multiple inquiries about either the staff attorney or summer program news.

Update / Correction: This post is the subject of a correction. Please see here.

Earlier: What's Up at Milbank Tweed?

Here's something from the ATL mailbag that we thought might be a good topic for discussion. It concerns the professional prospects of staff attorneys at large law firms:

I have a friend that is a staff attorney at a Vault 100 firm. He kind of keeps it a secret. He started at a tiny firm after being on the Law Review of a third tier school. Then he got this job almost two years ago.

I know he is hoping that if he busts his butt and does great work, they will wake up one day and realize: this guy should be an associate! I know from other mutual friends that he is aching to get that response, and would even start as a first-year associate at this place, or of course another Big Law firm, even though he is the equivalent of a third- or fourth-year associate by seniority.

So here is the topic I propose, for guys/gals like him: Is there any shot at his strategy working? Do Big Law firms ever allow or invite a particularly valuable and hard working staff attorney to become a "real associate"? Will the experience he has ever get him in the door at another Big Law firm?

Some of my peers think that once you are pegged as a staff attorney, that is all anyone will ever think of you as, whether at your current firm or other Vault 100 firms. For his sake, I hope that they do allow staff attorneys to become associates.

So, folks, what do you think? Our off-the-cuff reaction is that this strategy is a long shot, especially now that the economy is worsening and firms are tightening up on hiring (even of judicial law clerks, who tend to have superb academic credentials).

But that's just our quick-and-dirty response, backed up by no research. If you have some opinions or, better yet, actual data (either systematic or anecdotal), please post in the comments -- or feel free to email us, if you have an especially long and detailed response. Thanks.

In the absence of more associate bonus news -- we've heard rumors of various committees at various firms meeting, but we have no new announcements -- let's move on to a related subject. What about bonuses for staff attorneys, the non-partnership-track lawyers employed by many large law firms?

Here's what one of them had to say:

Staff attorneys who work at Biglaw read your blog, too. Most shops have a bonus tied to hours, but they do not specify what the payout will be at each tier (2000, 2200), claiming they'll see where the market is at in December. I'm wondering whether other firms have a similarly vague policy (vague because the market for staff atty compensation isn't as established as associates, but it still exists). It would be great if you could dedicate a bonus post to this.

I know staff attorneys will get slayed as third-rate, but that's why we didn't work as hard in law school to try to get recruited.... We don't give a s**t!

Our jobs may be headed to India, as glorified contract attorneys, but we do handle the grunt work, so associates don't have to. We make their jobs easier, I think. Yeah, I know, they have to answer to the partner -- but see my last sentence in the preceding paragraph.

If any of you have information to share about bonuses for staff attorneys, please spill your guts in the comments to this post. Thanks.

That's the question that Arin Greenwood -- who previously brought us this great article, as you may recall -- tackles in a long but interesting piece for the Washington City Paper, entitled Attorney at Blah. Greenwood writes:

For more and more law school graduates, this is the legal life: On a given day, they may plow through a few hundred documents—e-mails, PowerPoint presentations, memos, and anything else on a hard drive. Each document appears on their computer screen. They read it, then click one of the buttons on the screen that says “relevant” or “not relevant,” and then they look at the next document.

This isn’t anyone’s dream job, but more and more lawyers in big cities around the country are finding that seven years of higher education, crushing student loans, and an unfriendly job market have brought them to windowless rooms around the city, where they do well-paid work that sometimes seems to require no more than a law degree, the use of a single index finger, and the ability to sit still for 15 hours a day. Is this being a lawyer? It is now.

The best stuff is at the beginning, in which Greenwood paints a vivid (and hilarious) picture of a temp attorney's daily grind of document review. The end of the piece, a description of the grim realities of the legal job market for most law school graduates, might be interesting to lay readers, but it will be all too familiar to anyone who's heard of Loyola 2L.

Check out the full piece by clicking here.

Attorney at Blah [Washington City Paper]

McDermott, Will & Emery has come up with a more creative way to deal with soaring associate salaries. The firm has announced that it will be creating a "second tier" of associates to deal solely with low-level tasks like, e.g., document review.

As Cal Law points out, hiring cheaper lawyers to do this type of work is nothing new; this type of stuff is the staple of contract attorneys in most biglaw firms these days. The new part is making these contract attorneys a lower class of associates, essentially making them "permanent contract attorneys", as Cal Law puts it:

While some firms quietly turn to contract attorneys, or even ship grunt work overseas, McDermott, Will & Emery plans to create a new tier of attorneys — think of them as permanent contract associates — to handle lower-end tasks at lower billing rates.

...

First-year associates at big firms now earn $160,000. Meanwhile, electronic discovery has dramatically increased the amount of basic work that usually goes to those high-priced associates.

"This is a topic of great importance, since the cost of document review has become intolerable for everyone," said David Balabanian, the head of Bingham McCutchen's litigation group.

While hiring contract attorneys is nothing new, creating a second class of full-timers is.

[The Recorder via Cal Law]

Is this a good or bad thing? On the one hand, it increases the competition even more for the "real associate" positions and institutionalizes to an even greater extent the law school tier system into biglaw law firms.

On the other hand, it may be beneficial to those attorneys now doing the contract work. It will establish them as associates in the firm, even if not on the same level as the top tier associates. They will likely receive things like benefits. The top tier associates will likely do more substantive work sooner. And the clients won't find themselves paying top tier prices for stuff like document review, as still occasionally happens.

So what do you guys think? Will other firms adopt this model? Once again, it makes sense to us.

And hey, L2L, maybe you should apply.

Related:
Firm to Fill Cheap Seats [The Recorder via Cal Law]
McDermott To Create a New Class of BigLaw Attorneys [WSJ Law Blog]

Our recent post about contract attorney work, part of Non-Top-Tier Law School Week here at ATL, generated almost 200 comments. We're happy to report that we have more for you on that front.

Here's a question from a contract attorney reader:

I've done some contract attorney work (doc review, ick) in the past and have been offered jobs that pay a flat fee of $35-$45 an hour, but want 60 to 80 hours a week.

The Fair Labor Standards Act seems to say that professionals (attorneys) are only exempt from OT pay when they're salaried. We contract attorneys, obviously, don't fall within that category. It also seems to say that it's illegal for an employer to make an employee waive that right to overtime pay.

Any idea why it is that so many major law firms can hire contract staff for flat rates and make them work overtime without OT pay?

More after the jump.

Yesterday we declared this week to be Non-Top-Tier Law School Week at ATL. We'll be focusing on the career prospects of graduates of non-elite law schools.

As noted, many such grads work in the field of insurance law. Here's another popular option: working as a contract attorney.

We'll kick off the discussion with a comment from a reader. Here's one:

How about a post on JD's who are doing contract work while waiting for bar results? There have to be more people like myself who don't have jobs wit the Am 100, who once bar exam results emerge will be hitting the legal market in search of the dream job.

Maybe you would tap into a large section of people like myself who are presently in a legal no-man's-land.... [F]rom what I hear, only about 20% of students actually have jobs coming out of law school or before bar exam results come out.

So, any takers? Are any of you similarly situated, doing contract work while waiting to hear from the bar examiners? Any recommendations about landing such gigs?

(We have fodder for more general discussion of contract attorney gigs, but we'll save it for future posts. Feel free to send tips our way, by email. Thanks.)