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Document Ninja School: A New Program for a New Career Track

By Bruce Carton

Over at Above the Law, Elie Mystal writes that recent events suggest we are seeing a new bifurcation of the attorney career path: traditional partnership-track associates and a new species of what he calls ?barely legal? career paths. This week, law firm WilmerHale announced that it is seeking 20 lawyers with the title of ?discovery attorney" to do document review out of the firm's ?business services center? in Dayton, Ohio. According to the firm, "discovery attorneys" will handle document reviews on a full-time basis, earning $55,000 to $60,000 a year, plus benefits. It was also reported this week that Thomson Reuters is now looking to hire experienced contract attorneys to staff a new facility in Ann Arbor, Mich., by March 1. The ABA Journal reports that the company is actively building multiple document review project teams for the document review facility. Given the emergence of this new career track of "permanent document reviewer," Mystal asks a good question: If we?re going to have two different ?tracks? for attorneys, then shouldn?t we have two different tracks for legal education? Why require three years and charge six figures to train people for jobs that they have nearly no hope of getting? Wouldn?t...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on January 28, 2011 (boomark / email).