Legal Temp Work is Indentured Servitude
by Name Withheld by RequestLink to article
I’m a 54 yr old divorced woman. For many years I worked as a BtoB marketing person for various companies. After a layoff in the early 90s, I went to law school full time. I love law, but couldn’t find a job with a law firm. My strength is research & writing and I finally got an editorial position with a legal publisher, which was fun but didn’t pay enough. I went back to marketing communications with the same legal publisher and after 6 yrs with the company was restructured out. That was 2 years ago. Since then I have been a temp lawyer through an agency and have been assigned to the same law firm for over a year. Legal temping has become indentured servitude for thousands of law school graduates who don’t have degrees from top institutions and, therefore, will never be hired as 6-figure associates by large law firms. Young lawyers are making $25 - $40 an hour and still have to pay off $60,000 law school loans. I’d love to see reporting on this issue.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:51 am
In doing reseaarch for my new book, I found plenty of people with experiences such as yours and they are not confined to the legal profession. The more general issue is that there is a disconnect between the assumptions people make when they return to school to retool themselves and what they actually experience once their retooling is complete.
Perhpas the best way to report on this is to invite others to comment to see just how much of an issues this is. Any other voices out there?
R. William Holland
Board Chair, United Professionals
September 4th, 2007 at 10:45 am
I don’t know about law, but at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth the rule for temps is only work one year, take 6 months off, then one more year. After that you are done for life. Some of the temps had been there for years when the rule came along in 2002. Some of the temps were made direct, and some kicked out.
September 6th, 2007 at 11:06 am
My wife worked space for service after law school. A law firm had an empty desk that she could occupy to do the work he handed to her, otherwise unpaid. The work she had to do for him grew while the time for her own practice shrunk.
If it weren’t for my small salary and my family health insurance, I can’t imagine how she would have survived the life threatening illness that eventually forced her to stop working altogether.
December 25th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I’d like to know how the practice of making physicians cover emergency room call for free for 24 hours while working 36 straight hours during the week or 60 straight hours on a weekend of call is NOT indentured servitude. Please give me your thoughts.