DirtyLAWndry reader, “Tiffany,” just found out that this is going to be her last week at her job.

Hi. I work at a law firm doing document review. I’ve been here for about four years now. During this time, I’ve had to put up with a lot of nonsense. There are about 40 attorneys on this project. For the past few months, our work has slowed down tremendously. The staff attorney in charge of the project, “Eileen”, has been giving us small assignments here and there for other projects. But, she has been running out of things for us to do. Instead of firing all of us, she asked another staff attorney, “Mike”, whether he could use us for an upcoming project. I sit close to “Mike’s” office, so I overheard the conversation. He told “Eileen” that he planned on hiring new reviewers from a recruiting agency. “Eileen” argued that it didn’t make sense to do so since her reviewers were available. She knew that “Mike’s” project was only going to last for 8 weeks, and she was hoping that by the time it ended, she would have more work for us. “Mike” is one of those attorneys that feels super-important, has a huge ego problem, and thinks they’re funny when they are so not. In addition, he’s a big pervert. We all nicknamed him “the Man-whore”. So, it didn’t surprise me when he said “oh, just fire the lot of them. I’m trying to bone some new flesh.” I just assumed he was joking. This conversation took place about three weeks ago. I told a couple of people, but we figured that “Eileen” would let us know when the project was ending.

Well, today, I found out that this is my last week. But, this didn’t come from “Eileen”. She still hasn’t said a word. This morning, “Mike” had a meeting with two of the attorneys from my group. These attorneys are both young, single ladies fresh out of law school. Apparently, he selected them to join him in his project that’s going to start in two weeks. During this meeting, he also told them that the rest of us were being let go this week. So, of course, the two attorneys told their friends and now everyone knows. We’re all pissed about it because we still haven’t received an “official” word from “Eileen”, even though some people emailed her about the situation. Plus, this was going to be a short week for us anyway because of Good Friday. “Eileen” has been conveniently MIA since “Mike’s” meeting ended.

To make matters worse, we’ve been blacklisted from this new project. One of the reviewers was able to find out which staffing agency was going to staff “Mike’s” project. So, of course, people here started making phone calls and submitting their resumes. People started complaining that they were given negative responses, even though they’ve had years of document review experience. So, I decided to call for myself. The conversation with the recruiter was going well until she asked me where I was working. I told her the name of the firm and then she requested the name of the case. I tried to be slick and say that I was not able to give her that information. But, she said that she understood and that I could just give her the initials. So, I did, and as soon as she heard that, she said that the law firm had requested that the staffing agency not place anyone that had worked on that project on the new one. We already know that there isn’t a conflicts problem because of the information that the two attorneys gave us. “Mike” just wants his “new flesh”.

I know that document review isn’t a secure or stable job. But, I was expecting that my boss would tell me that the project was ending instead of hearing it through the doc review grapevine. I hope that bastard “Mike” is happy knowing that he just fired 38 people in this terrible economy. I have much more to share with you about “Mike”, but this email is already lengthy.

Sorry to hear about the lay off, “Tiffany”. I will surely post any info that you have to share about “Mike” as I’m sure my readers want to know more about this “lovely” person.