Legal News

Sound of the First Year Workin? on the . . . Doc Review Gang

By Dan Slater

Over a drink recently, the Law Blog was regaled with a horrific tale of document review drudgery. A fellow law school graduate, who began legal life at a large firm before moving to an in-house job, recounted the story of a 13-month long, full-time doc review he participated in as a junior associate working on a bank fraud case. Reportedly, the doc review team — sedentary for so long — would conduct late-night cartwheel contests in the hallways to expend the pent-up energy they didn’t have time to burn elsewhere. Most of those on the team who didn’t wear glasses before the doc review marathon began needed them by the time it was over.

The story was neither easy to tell nor easy to hear. We cast our eyes downward and ordered another drink.

It reminded the Law Blog of our own doc review war story, which seems tame by comparison. It was a bleak February and, feeling restless, we volunteered — please, don’t ask — to help out on a doc review for a trademark litigation that sounded interesting. What followed was four weeks of sixteen-hour-days clicking away on a computer program whose name we’ve blocked from memory. In fact, we’ve tried hard to block the whole four weeks from memory.

LB loyals, we know there are doc review warriors out there. And we also know that sharing traumatic stories is often the first step in the healing process. Now that we’re half-way through February, let’s bring some levity to this darkest of months. Send us your horror stories, and please, spare no details!

Of course, feel free to post a comment. Additionally, we’d encourage those of you with especially detailed (or lengthy) tales to send them to lawblog@wsj.com. We’ll look ‘em over and if we get anything especially good, we can run them out in separate posts. Happy Presidents’ Day!

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).