03/06/00

As an attorney in Washington, D.C., I am hardly an endangered species. There are so many of us, in fact, that a thriving subculture exists in the local legal profession: contract, or temp, attorneys. For some, it's a way of life. For me, and many others, it's a way of making a little cash until my next permanent gig. The assignments are rarely filled with glory. Usually, some firm or solo practitioner has gotten a huge project dumped into its lap and desperately needs a bunch of paralegals to clean up the mess. Only thing is, there's a shortage of paralegals, and a glut of lawyers. So who ya gonna call?

I have now participated in several of these projects, and met more than a few attorneys scrounging for insulting pay after their fancy downtown firms went belly-up. Inspired by their stories, and maybe even a couple of my own experiences, I give you:

Haikus of a Contract Attorney

Cockroaches scrambling
For every job opening
Six hundred lawyers

Give alms for the poor
Underemployed attorneys are
Charity cases

How much coffee can
Seven people consume? The
Gallons are endless

Armies of lawyers
Inflict upon enemies
Thousand paper cuts

Warehouses bursting
Full of legal documents
Must read every word

Typing and typing
So-called research project is
Just data entry

Endless numbers march
Data entry at temp job
Glazed eyeballs roll back

A mighty river
Of data flows through my hands
Fingertips weep blood

Hours late today 
Mistakenly showed up
At last week's job site

Overtime hours
Medically dangerous
Exercise? What's that?

Pasty greyish skin
Long hours shuffling paper
Vampires get more sun

Ergonomics are
Only for permanent staff
Covet boss's chair

Literary prizes
Will never go to drafters
Of agency rules

Demanding voices
Messages for absent boss
Phone rings once again

Years of hard training
Without stimulation, skills
Atrophy slowly

Menial labor
Parents can't grasp why I went 
To law school for this

Technical questions
How did you get this far with
No computer skills?

No trial lawyer
Should have to put up with this
Good thing I type well

Disclaimer: Any similarity to an actual temp assignment, living or dead, is not purely coincidental, but may have a grain of truth therein.

All blatherings copyright 1999 by the author. All rights reserved. You can look, but don't touch. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's blatherings.

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