We have two general tiers of non-partner track attorneys below associates and partners:Barry_Spinoza wrote:Does your firm hire staff attorneys or other non-partner track lawyers? I've noticed a few of the elite boutiques hire staff attorneys who often graduated from a school local to the boutique's main office (e.g., Susman's SA's are almost exclusively UT/UH grads) and didn't clerk, but did extern for a semester or summer with an A3 judge. If you're aware of the role(s) played by these people, could you shed some light on their responsibilities and what gets them hired?
1) Contract attorneys. These attorneys are paid hourly to review documents or complete document-related projects. For the uninitiated, that means coding documents based on tags related to the review, such as "responsive", "privileged", and/or "hot". The coding is done in specialized software. The actual work involves clicking a radio button appropriate to the code and then advancing to the next document. It is thankless work, but it's the backbone of modern, doc-intensive litigation.
I have worked closely with several contract attorneys in my time here. They are very capable attorneys who often have insights into the case beyond their job descriptions. Many are quite bored with the work. Contract staff can be transient and many only stay here for a year before moving onto their next project or adventure. My work re the contract attorneys involves writing detailed document review assignments, providing policy feedback on close-to-the line documents often related to attorney-client privilege, and doing quality checks of contract attorney work.
The contract staff I've worked with all have unique stories; few planned to be contract attorneys when they graduated law school. One quit his clerkship early for personal reasons and found us as a bridge job until his old position became available again. Another is a mom who works part-time so she can take care of her kids. Still another is a world traveler who saves up enough money to globe-trot before taking a lengthy sabbatical to explore some remote area. He's completed that cycle of work/save --> travel/spend a few times.
2) Non-partner-track salaried attorneys. We have a unique title for these attorneys that I believe is firm-specific, so I won't repeat it here. These attorneys are paid a salary and are bonus-eligible, based on hours billed. We have almost as many of them as we have associates at the firm. They do much of the same work as the contract attorneys, only at a higher level. They come to the firm via different paths. Some are hired out of law school, others were contract attorneys who performed well and were promoted, still more were associates or contract attorneys at other firms who lateraled here. Most went to regional law schools.
These attorneys can have lengthy tenures at the firm and there is little turnover. In my time here, we have not hired any new attorneys to this position, but we have hired several new associates. Most of these lawyers bill around 2000 hours/year, although there are outliers on either side of the hours equation. These lawyers are experts in database management or are experienced in high-level document review issues like search terms, de-duplication, custodian management, etc. I give these attorneys substantive legal assignments in addition to the document-review work. For example, I have asked these attorneys to, among other things, create timelines, identify documents that source a particular claim, and prepare fact-related summary materials for presentations to regulatory agencies. Some of these attorneys will even do first drafts of substantive legal memoranda. In that way, they can the the associates' associates, albeit with more experience and seniority. I sense that these attorneys are less bored with their work than the contract attorneys.