Contract Attorney, Texas Style

I hope the new year is bringing good news your way.  If not, then maybe it’s bringing you the hope of good news…

I ‘get’ to take a few days off and take care of some of the chores around the house that obviously needed to be done more than I actually thought they needed to be done.

Apparently the grass needed to be mowed even though it hasn’t grown since a few weeks after the Autumnal Equinox, and I was also shockingly unaware of how desperately some of the rooms in the house needed to be painted.

Next, the garage hasn’t been organized for quite some time, so I’ll get to that.

As far as the contract legal work in this neck of the woods, apparently the main reason there’s anything at all to do is the Federal Government.  I don’t know of any large litigation projects right now, (whispers that the large “unnamed” retailer review completely shut down now) but there are several investigations supporting review work.

IF there are any firms listening out there, now seems to be the time to jump on that huge litigation document review you were thinking about getting around to some time before the end of the discovery period, and hire a bunch of Houston attorneys so they can pay down their Christmas debt.

Here’s to a prosperous, productive and busy 2009!

Just heard that two more projects have shut down in Houston.  Still haven’t heard about any projects that have started.  Have heard of a couple that “may” start “soon” but that’s not the same…

Apparently 25 attorneys were just let go on the “Large Unnamed Retail Company” document review project headed up by Hudson.  There may be room for some of them over at the ongoing reviews being done at Fulbright, but is there somewhere else for them to go?

The “Posse list Houston” posted a review today, but I think that’s for just a few attorneys…

“Contract Attorney needed for document review project in Houston.  The ideal candidate must have summation experience and must be able to start immediately.

Good hourly rate and paid parking.”

That one is with good ol’ BK Taylor at Amicus-solutions…

FIRST, please comment on whether you know about a review coming up or happening with one of these agencies.

Second, please comment on your experience working at the various agencies that staff document reviews in Houston.  If you don’t see one that needs to be added, let me know at admin@documentrelations.com

From time to time, I may condense and edit comments into the description of the agency.

Let me apologize to those who have stopped by over the last month or so.  I have been totally disconnected…mentally and technically.

I’ve added some pages about some local agencies so we can get some comment and activity about current recruiting efforts going on in Houston to try to get a feel for the level of activity out there.  We’ll see if that generates any activity.

Please let me know if you have any other thoughts about what info would be helpful.

Hello all, I am new to the Houston job market and was wondering the current state of employment. I am hesitant to buy into what the recruiters are telling me. While I would never ask anyone to give up competitive information, I would appreciate any opinions on the current market. Are there many projects going or ramping up? Once someone is in the system, how much down time do you really have from job to job or over the course of the year? As I said earlier, I am just looking to get a fair assessment of the market. All help is appreciated.

Now, there’s a Federal Rule of Evidence 502.

The text of the rule can be found here, but the main gist of it is that inadvertent disclosure does not automatically mean waiver in Federal Court any more.  Ediscovery guru Michael Arkfeld says the new rule applies to all actions commenced after the date of enactment and on pending actions if “just and practicable.”  That may mean any litigation you’re working on right now!

We were a little worried about this one because most procedural rules passed by the Supreme Court go into law if Congress does nothing.  This one, since it “creat[es], abolish[es], or modif[ies] an evidentiary privilege” had to be approved by both houses of Congress.  See 28 U.S.C. § 2074(b)

This affects the document review profession by providing a little bit of sanity where there was once abject terror at the thought of letting slip some small bit of privileged information.  Where before, an accidental production could cause waiver of large swath of privileged communication, the new rule will hopefully bring a bit of reason to the process.

Now we have an opinion interpreting the rule.  In the case of a litigant who, it can be said, was rather lax with it’s treatment of privilege (let a vendor run some searches then filter for keywords and produce without review) the Court found no waiver.

Not much document review getting done this weekend.

Funny, but I don’t remember evacuating before Katrina and Rita.  It seems like in the old days, we just hung out through a hurricane.  Now people around me, on the North side of Houston, are boarding up windows and heading out of town.

It’s really no fun at all that I’m sitting here about to get hit with a hurricane, and all I can do is worry about how much document review I’m not getting done.  I guess that’s just the nature of the business. (combined with living from paycheck to paycheck)

Summer doesn’t end around here, it lingers until everyone is so tired of it they just can’t stand it, then it hangs around just a little more, then leaves, then comes back to see if you missed it.

I got my kids back to school today, so there will be a little more time for things other than work, maybe.

The project that has carried me through this summer is now coming to an end, much more abruptly than the Texas Summer, and that has me looking around at the market.

I have found only a few small projects ramping up.  Couple of coders needed here or there.  Nothing too inspiring.  Not much news from the major contract attorney houses either, as far as I can tell.

As always, I’d love to hear from anyone with any different news.

Almost every review I’ve been on lately has involved keyword searches some time prior to the documents being presented for review.  The art of finding the correct set of keywords to bring out the most relevant documents for a particular document collection can indeed be a very complex and interesting part of the process. 

Or, it can consist of a couple of lawyers (or a lone associate) sitting down in a room trying to dream up what he/she thinks will be the words that will bring out relevant communications from what he/she thinks are the types of things their particular client might say in emails and documents.

Check out this discussion of part of the issue.  Craig Ball also discusses part of the review process related to key terms at Grimm Prognosis for ESI Search.

Is your current review well thought out or did someone throw darts at a Thesaurus to get your keyword set together?