A lawsuit against legal heavyweight Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is testing whether some purportedly professional work might in fact be eligible for overtime.

The case pits Skadden against a contract attorney hired by a legal staffing agency to review documents for $25 an hour on a Skadden case.

Under federal labor laws, licensed lawyers can’t earn overtime pay for work in excess of 40 hours a week if what they are doing is considered legal work. But the plaintiff, David Lola, says he deserves overtime pay because the tasks he did were so basic they shouldn’t qualify as practicing law.

The case could have a far-reaching impact, legal observers say. Contract attorneys are hired on a short-term basis across the legal profession to review reams of documents during the initial phases of litigation and investigations, and many feel they are underpaid.

Mr. Lola’s lawyer, D. Maimon Kirschenbaum, has another attorney overtime case pending as well, and contract attorneys are using Mr. Lola’s case as a rallying cry to raise awareness of what some see as unfair working conditions for document reviewers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28009310)

u: arranging signature pages, watching $250,000 bill for Dook accumulate at 7.8%, praying troutman sanders NY inexplicably decides to match davis polk scale.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28016316)

lol why is this a fucking law? come on lawyers

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28009745)

...which is forgivable because FUCK wage and hour law

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28010039)

However, the regulations (29 CFR §541.304) specifically exempt doctors and lawyers engaged in the actual practice of medicine or law from the salary basis requirement of the FLSA.

I am not an FLSA masterman, as you pointed out, but I interpret this to mean that doctors and lawyers are essentially not protected at all by the FLSA. They are exempt from both OT and min wage regardless of how little they are paid (and thus whether they are paid at all). Maybe the courts have interpreted this differently, I dunno. I do barely any wage-hour work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28011604)

after a couple years of making utter shit pay, he was making around 60k. but he's started selling equipment at his jobs and gets a commission. figures he should be making 100+ from here on in. dudes he works with make 200+ (but they are chill, fratty used car salesman types).

LOL at law.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28016304)

bold move keeping your trial firm that pays contract attorney wages to full time associates for that 2d cir appeal. if SCOTUS grants cert maybe they'll get jackson lewis and littler involved too. it'll be like david boies and ted olson teaming up to fight for gay marriage. but more like the fattest, slowest, ugliest upper deck passengers teaming up to hurl the weakened and malnourished steerage passengers overboard as they vie for space in the last rickety lifeboat before the N.Y.L.S. Titanic Scholar-SHIP sinks to the bottom of the shitlaw ocean.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2894870&forum_id=2#28016831)