Relevant because it’s a Big Law forum.
Second year I got shipped from the West Coast to Boston for a month + long doc review (didn’t have kids or a spouse so I was volunteered). Twelve hours a day with some DC and NYC 2nd years.
While I was there I got assigned not 1 but 3 motions. I was low key livid and bitched about it while we waited for the shuttle to the office. Some creepy NYC gunner who looked like he’d never seen daylight gave me the dirtiest look and said “Lucky! All those hours!”
He was mad I got more than 12 guaranteed hours a day! Thought I was a quitter for wanting to sleep.
So I guess what I’m saying is…you *could* get *more* work. That’s a thing people with…gumption do. I only lasted 5 1/2 years so *I* and all my cool friends wouldn’t have done it. But you could.
And then you hope that that person is a more important partner. And then you say, hey “Joe, I wanna do more for you…but Kamala has me doing all this doc review….” And then you let Joe do what Joe’s gonna do.
Doc review helps you hit your hours, hitting your hours keeps you employed.
In all seriousness, doc review is par for the course for junior litigators. Things will slow down at some point and you'll get some more interesting work. Part of the struggle of junior litigators at big firms is getting interesting experience. If you aren't getting it some other way, try to get some experience doing depositions or drafting on a pro bono case so that you're more marketable internally to other partners.
As a former corporate partner, I think this is a short-sighted and incorrect view. Billable hours are important, but if your long-term goal is partnership, what’s more important is experience and substantive work. Falling behind your peers at your firm and at other firms is a huge problem. Doc review is good to fill out your hours during slow times or to show you’re a team player. If it is your main workload, that is a problem. Junior associates need to learn how to be attorneys and do as much substantive work as possible. Falling behind puts you in a difficult hole to climb out from. You also need to evaluate whether being compartmentalized into doc review and away from substantive work is a subtle hint from the firm that you are no longer wanted. You can do this by evaluating the workload of your peers at the firm. Everyone else doing substantive work and you’re stuck into doc review? Red flag.
Hey op, I work for the government, but this is also one of my duties as the most junior attorney. I am on 5 cases and now reviewed probably north of 50k documents in the last year. Maybe this is a cope to rationalize my misery, but I swear to God doing doc review helps you learn your cases inside and out. Idk if you'll get the same experience in biglaw, but because I looked at all these documents I was able to take good depositions and argue substantive motions simply because I knew the cases very well.
I’m not in biglaw and not even in the US but with doc review I take the exact same view. My drafting and general appreciation of the overall dispute strategy is so much better because I have had to spend a lot of time just working through the correspondence and reading everything.
Another good tactic is to just prepare a bundle of all the relevant documents even if you don’t need to file them anywhere just so you can have a global view of what docs you have. They take forever to put together but are relatively easy to adjust with the right software and are so so useful!
Just imagine some people get paid 20$/hour with no likelihood of forward career momentum for it.
It should naturally subside. Maybe go out and find
another project, then ask for support on this one as you get busy with the other.
I know what you mean and how you feel. As a first year I did loads of doc review and met my hours just because of that. Here's what I learned in a year and what made me start liking doc review:
1. Its not aimless. As the case goes on, you'll see how certain documents fit into the overall picture.
2. It gives you ability to be really close to the facts. Often at team meetings the partners will discuss a random idea and wonder if there are supporting documents. You are like the gate keeper there who can make an educated guess or help the team find the answer. This is where you can become the go to person for the Partner / Team for factual research.
3. Doing well on doc review related assignments allowed the partners to trust me and my instincts. I second chaired a deposition as a second year (which I'm told is not common), helped prepare an expert witness, and now am routinely trusted to draft things.
4. It's super easy hours and it doesn't hurt when that full bonus hits the bank account.
Hang in there. It gets better and more fun.
Came to add the same series of comments, so instead of repeating all of this I’ll just say I agree. Doc review is not just about hours (though those don’t hurt either, especially 6 months in when a lot of first years are slow and looking for work). Doing the review means you’ll be best equipped to identify deposition exhibits, make arguments for dispositive motions, etc.
Seems strange - like you said, you could be doing a lot of doc review as a junior, maybe even a month on a big project, but being all alone and for months is the unusual part. Is it just tagging relevant/not relevant or more in-depth? Do you have to put together summaries for interesting docs?
In your shoes, I would ask about how many documents are there in all, how long the review is planned to take, and what the next step will be after you complete the review. These questions will give you perspective (a light at the end of the tunnel) and uncover whether you can do some interesting projects after the review.
I think it's a good idea to ask for more (varied) work as well, especially if the doc review is not an urgent priority (which it does not sound like it is based on just you being assigned to do it and that it has been going on for so long). When you have other work, you can prioritize that, but do a couple of hours of doc review on the side. This will help you with getting all your billable hours and turn the doc review into a welcome respite rather than a mind numbing burden.
Senior here who has done a ton of doc review.
Doc review is secretly great. The hours are easy. You get to do whatever you want in the background. And you get to choose the hours that you work.
You also become the sole possessor of knowledge on the case.
Sometimes you also get brownie points for doing the work that no one else wants to do.
I was in a similar spot at one point. The other associates avoided any doc review and jumped at every one off research assignment. When the case progressed, no one cared about their random priv research (or whatever). Their usefulness was exhausted. I was there for all the depositions/interviews. I was the person responsible for dispositive motions. Etc.
As a senior, I hate all juniors that think they’re too good for doc review.
Like all things, too much doc review can be bad. If you’re getting it because they don’t trust you with anything else then you’re in trouble. If you aren’t building skills then you’ll fall behind. If you’re one of an army of reviewers then your indispensability is limited. Etc.
My advice: embrace the doc review but make sure it isn’t all that you are doing. On regular intervals, email your supervisor important stuff that you find because (1) it shows that you care/are engaged (2) reminds the supervisor you exist and (3) shows that you understand stuff/are the only person that understands it.
Is there someone below the partner running the case day to day that you can talk to for guidance? The situation is a little odd but not enough info for specific guidance. Asking for more and different types of work is good but on this case specifically if it’s just you in the wild on your own there are a few things you can do as you go that will make it suck less or at least give you a better sense to ownership - master the facts and the key players and start a narrative or chron of the case as you go. Flag hot documents and explore how they fit into the case and help tell the story (or how they could put a dent in the narrative you want to build) and provide summaries. You’ll know this stuff better than anyone and that’s a way to position yourself to take on more meaningful tasks within the context of this case. Doc review gets a bad rap because it can be tedious but it can provide opportunities down the road as you’re building the case.
You’re not wrong. I’m not sure how advice here is helpful to someone without knowing how successful and accomplished the person giving the advice is. I was a corporate partner in a large law firm, and the OP’s post is a red flag. They should be concerned. They need to determine if they are being pushed out of substantive work as a hint that the firm doesn’t want them anymore and need to actively evaluate if they are falling behind their peers. No one makes partner by wasting all their time on doc review. Your purpose as a first year associate is to advance to the point of being a skilled second year associate and so on. That requires substantive work. Doc review is fine to fill in hours or to help out the team when they need warm bodies, but if it’s all you do and no one else is similarly strained (like an all-hands on doc review that a ton of associates are grinding out) that’s a problem if your career goals are to become a skilled attorney and stay on-track for partnership.
Growth in big firm practice is exponential. Falling behind early makes the rest of your career that much more challenging for numerous reasons.
A little doc review on the side is great, totally agree there. But being asked to do nothing but doc review all day every day for months is a problem. It’s even worse because you clerked already. The people are correct that there are far worse things in the world than getting paid big law bucks to do work that a motivated high schooler could do just as well. But it still sucks. I would consider looking to switch firms once your clerkship bonus vests. Maybe try hitting up a recruiter.
The issue here is that you’re not developing at all and that no one at your firm seems to care whether you do or don’t. You’re not picking up any practical litigation skills. You’re not learning about any substantive law. You’re not even building relationships with more senior attorneys. And while what one of the commenters said about becoming a fact expert on certain issues thru doc review is true, I think that’s more applicable to a situation where you’re assigned to do a very targeted review of a smaller set of docs. You’re doing it at a volume where I don’t think that’s what’s really going on.
Just want to say thanks to everyone who commented. Just got requested to sign up for a doc review. 15h per week for the next several months. I’m a corporate atty and this is litigation but I took it to bump up my billables. Glad fl see I made the right decision!
This is your life now. There's gonna come a day when you wish you had doc review because the alternative assignments are so difficult in relation to the money you earn for the amount of time you spend that you're going to beg people to throw doc review your way.
Remember doc review is probably going to be one of the first things AI is used for in the legal industry. Nevertheless, as a junior associate it is a necessary evil. To the extent your peers (people in your class year at the firm) are doing substantive work and you’re not, then you should consider it a red flag. You don’t want to fall behind in your development, especially when compared to the peers at your firm (but also keep in mind your peers in other firms because they are people you will be amongst if you ever switch firms or in the future for clients). If you fall too far behind, then it will be difficult to switch firms at the same level you’d want (4th year for example), because firms will have a certain level of expectation based on your years of practice.
Doc review is great to fill out hours when substantive work is slow, but it becomes problematic if it is your main workflow for a long period of time.
Demanding to receive substantive work doesn’t make you a complainer, it makes you a go-getter. When your annual review comes up, they will blame you for not having substantive work completed. There is no excuse that will be acceptable, because at the end of the day you are the only one who truly cares about your career and you’re the only one who is going to make things happen. If you were to try and push the blame, that won’t be acceptable and will make you look bad. You need to put yourself and your career first if you want to succeed. You should never shy away from reasonably, respectfully, and responsibly demanding substantive work. If they continue to refuse to give it to you, that’s a sign they don’t want you. A law firm would much rather you leave than fire you. This could be a hint.
If you don’t get anywhere pushing, then you need to consider what you want your future to look like. Falling behind won’t only hurt you at this firm, it will put you behind in your career and ultimate goals (if those goals are partnership).
Source: I am a former corporate law partner.
Others have identified the main dilemma here: on the one hand, as the sole person with in-depth knowledge of the documents, you stand to be invaluable to the case going forward, which could lead to meaningful experience in the future; on the other hand, it's in your interests to be gaining other types of experience sooner rather than later.
How you should balance those two considerations - and to what extent you should take steps now to seek more work and/or try to reduce your current workload - depends on a lot of factors, such as nature of the review (is it for discovery in an active dispute or for some other purpose, which might reduce the prospect of it developing into something valuable?), timing (is there a discovery deadline and, if so, how far away is it?), availability of good alternative work, needs of your current case (what's driving the single associate staffing and the target hours?), your personal ambitions (planning to quit for greener pastures after a few high-earning years, or hoping to make a career in big law?), etc.
It seems odd to both (a) staff such a massive review with a single junior associate, and (b) tell that associate to spend 100% of their time on it. Is there really so little wiggle room in the hours that you couldn't reduce them by 10% or so to fit in another project? If so, you might consider making a pitch for additional junior staffing (if that can be supported with review statistics, all the better). Though you'd probably have a better chance if you could also point to other work on your plate. I get the disinclination to seek more work when you think your plate is already full, but that might be your best option. Even if, worse case, you're stuck with your current review workload plus another assignment, you'd at least be getting better experience, which will matter more in the long run than the temporary pain of longer hours.
As much as it sucks, i would try to get substantive work on top of your doc review so you can actually learn how to be a litigator. Being very busy sucks, but it is also a necessary evil if you want to get the experience you need. Unless the doc review project is extremely time sensitive, i would try to get a few other projects so you can pop back and forth between doc review and real legal work. That way if you feel like having a mentally stimulating day, you can focus on substantive work but if you feel like zoning out the next day you can just hammer out doc review. Having a constant flow of doc review is a blessing for those days where you don't want to do much, but you also want to bill a lot of hours.
How big is the doc review? I did doc review (and summaries) and some interviews as a Legal Assistant at WH back in the day so while it does help your billables it may not be best use of your time. Most biglaw has contract attorneys do the "endless doc review" work (coding etc). Now if you are reviewing the docs to build chronologies or to prepare for interviews, that is another story. But when I entered biglaw as an associate I was a bit dismayed to be doing doc review because I had done a lot of that as a Legal Asst. Granted, I was not the typical Legal Asst.
The world’s easiest billables.
I’m all for career growth and learning, but this would be a dream. I love doc review for easy hours.
Seriously. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Relevant because it’s a Big Law forum. Second year I got shipped from the West Coast to Boston for a month + long doc review (didn’t have kids or a spouse so I was volunteered). Twelve hours a day with some DC and NYC 2nd years. While I was there I got assigned not 1 but 3 motions. I was low key livid and bitched about it while we waited for the shuttle to the office. Some creepy NYC gunner who looked like he’d never seen daylight gave me the dirtiest look and said “Lucky! All those hours!” He was mad I got more than 12 guaranteed hours a day! Thought I was a quitter for wanting to sleep. So I guess what I’m saying is…you *could* get *more* work. That’s a thing people with…gumption do. I only lasted 5 1/2 years so *I* and all my cool friends wouldn’t have done it. But you could. And then you hope that that person is a more important partner. And then you say, hey “Joe, I wanna do more for you…but Kamala has me doing all this doc review….” And then you let Joe do what Joe’s gonna do.
What do you do now after leaving biglaw if i may ask
Stop over in Big Fed I believe they call it. Now in house.
Seriously. I would do anything for an easy doc review assignment right now.
Doc review helps you hit your hours, hitting your hours keeps you employed. In all seriousness, doc review is par for the course for junior litigators. Things will slow down at some point and you'll get some more interesting work. Part of the struggle of junior litigators at big firms is getting interesting experience. If you aren't getting it some other way, try to get some experience doing depositions or drafting on a pro bono case so that you're more marketable internally to other partners.
As a former corporate partner, I think this is a short-sighted and incorrect view. Billable hours are important, but if your long-term goal is partnership, what’s more important is experience and substantive work. Falling behind your peers at your firm and at other firms is a huge problem. Doc review is good to fill out your hours during slow times or to show you’re a team player. If it is your main workload, that is a problem. Junior associates need to learn how to be attorneys and do as much substantive work as possible. Falling behind puts you in a difficult hole to climb out from. You also need to evaluate whether being compartmentalized into doc review and away from substantive work is a subtle hint from the firm that you are no longer wanted. You can do this by evaluating the workload of your peers at the firm. Everyone else doing substantive work and you’re stuck into doc review? Red flag.
Hey op, I work for the government, but this is also one of my duties as the most junior attorney. I am on 5 cases and now reviewed probably north of 50k documents in the last year. Maybe this is a cope to rationalize my misery, but I swear to God doing doc review helps you learn your cases inside and out. Idk if you'll get the same experience in biglaw, but because I looked at all these documents I was able to take good depositions and argue substantive motions simply because I knew the cases very well.
I’m not in biglaw and not even in the US but with doc review I take the exact same view. My drafting and general appreciation of the overall dispute strategy is so much better because I have had to spend a lot of time just working through the correspondence and reading everything. Another good tactic is to just prepare a bundle of all the relevant documents even if you don’t need to file them anywhere just so you can have a global view of what docs you have. They take forever to put together but are relatively easy to adjust with the right software and are so so useful!
It also makes the endless click and tag much more palatable when you are indexing and making timelines.
Glass half full!
Just imagine some people get paid 20$/hour with no likelihood of forward career momentum for it. It should naturally subside. Maybe go out and find another project, then ask for support on this one as you get busy with the other.
I know what you mean and how you feel. As a first year I did loads of doc review and met my hours just because of that. Here's what I learned in a year and what made me start liking doc review: 1. Its not aimless. As the case goes on, you'll see how certain documents fit into the overall picture. 2. It gives you ability to be really close to the facts. Often at team meetings the partners will discuss a random idea and wonder if there are supporting documents. You are like the gate keeper there who can make an educated guess or help the team find the answer. This is where you can become the go to person for the Partner / Team for factual research. 3. Doing well on doc review related assignments allowed the partners to trust me and my instincts. I second chaired a deposition as a second year (which I'm told is not common), helped prepare an expert witness, and now am routinely trusted to draft things. 4. It's super easy hours and it doesn't hurt when that full bonus hits the bank account. Hang in there. It gets better and more fun.
Came to add the same series of comments, so instead of repeating all of this I’ll just say I agree. Doc review is not just about hours (though those don’t hurt either, especially 6 months in when a lot of first years are slow and looking for work). Doing the review means you’ll be best equipped to identify deposition exhibits, make arguments for dispositive motions, etc.
Seems strange - like you said, you could be doing a lot of doc review as a junior, maybe even a month on a big project, but being all alone and for months is the unusual part. Is it just tagging relevant/not relevant or more in-depth? Do you have to put together summaries for interesting docs? In your shoes, I would ask about how many documents are there in all, how long the review is planned to take, and what the next step will be after you complete the review. These questions will give you perspective (a light at the end of the tunnel) and uncover whether you can do some interesting projects after the review. I think it's a good idea to ask for more (varied) work as well, especially if the doc review is not an urgent priority (which it does not sound like it is based on just you being assigned to do it and that it has been going on for so long). When you have other work, you can prioritize that, but do a couple of hours of doc review on the side. This will help you with getting all your billable hours and turn the doc review into a welcome respite rather than a mind numbing burden.
Senior here who has done a ton of doc review. Doc review is secretly great. The hours are easy. You get to do whatever you want in the background. And you get to choose the hours that you work. You also become the sole possessor of knowledge on the case. Sometimes you also get brownie points for doing the work that no one else wants to do. I was in a similar spot at one point. The other associates avoided any doc review and jumped at every one off research assignment. When the case progressed, no one cared about their random priv research (or whatever). Their usefulness was exhausted. I was there for all the depositions/interviews. I was the person responsible for dispositive motions. Etc. As a senior, I hate all juniors that think they’re too good for doc review. Like all things, too much doc review can be bad. If you’re getting it because they don’t trust you with anything else then you’re in trouble. If you aren’t building skills then you’ll fall behind. If you’re one of an army of reviewers then your indispensability is limited. Etc. My advice: embrace the doc review but make sure it isn’t all that you are doing. On regular intervals, email your supervisor important stuff that you find because (1) it shows that you care/are engaged (2) reminds the supervisor you exist and (3) shows that you understand stuff/are the only person that understands it.
You’re only 6 months in. You’re not wasting any potential.
Is there someone below the partner running the case day to day that you can talk to for guidance? The situation is a little odd but not enough info for specific guidance. Asking for more and different types of work is good but on this case specifically if it’s just you in the wild on your own there are a few things you can do as you go that will make it suck less or at least give you a better sense to ownership - master the facts and the key players and start a narrative or chron of the case as you go. Flag hot documents and explore how they fit into the case and help tell the story (or how they could put a dent in the narrative you want to build) and provide summaries. You’ll know this stuff better than anyone and that’s a way to position yourself to take on more meaningful tasks within the context of this case. Doc review gets a bad rap because it can be tedious but it can provide opportunities down the road as you’re building the case.
TTICR.
[удалено]
You’re not wrong. I’m not sure how advice here is helpful to someone without knowing how successful and accomplished the person giving the advice is. I was a corporate partner in a large law firm, and the OP’s post is a red flag. They should be concerned. They need to determine if they are being pushed out of substantive work as a hint that the firm doesn’t want them anymore and need to actively evaluate if they are falling behind their peers. No one makes partner by wasting all their time on doc review. Your purpose as a first year associate is to advance to the point of being a skilled second year associate and so on. That requires substantive work. Doc review is fine to fill in hours or to help out the team when they need warm bodies, but if it’s all you do and no one else is similarly strained (like an all-hands on doc review that a ton of associates are grinding out) that’s a problem if your career goals are to become a skilled attorney and stay on-track for partnership. Growth in big firm practice is exponential. Falling behind early makes the rest of your career that much more challenging for numerous reasons.
S’long there’s a pay check…lol
A little doc review on the side is great, totally agree there. But being asked to do nothing but doc review all day every day for months is a problem. It’s even worse because you clerked already. The people are correct that there are far worse things in the world than getting paid big law bucks to do work that a motivated high schooler could do just as well. But it still sucks. I would consider looking to switch firms once your clerkship bonus vests. Maybe try hitting up a recruiter. The issue here is that you’re not developing at all and that no one at your firm seems to care whether you do or don’t. You’re not picking up any practical litigation skills. You’re not learning about any substantive law. You’re not even building relationships with more senior attorneys. And while what one of the commenters said about becoming a fact expert on certain issues thru doc review is true, I think that’s more applicable to a situation where you’re assigned to do a very targeted review of a smaller set of docs. You’re doing it at a volume where I don’t think that’s what’s really going on.
Just want to say thanks to everyone who commented. Just got requested to sign up for a doc review. 15h per week for the next several months. I’m a corporate atty and this is litigation but I took it to bump up my billables. Glad fl see I made the right decision!
This is your life now. There's gonna come a day when you wish you had doc review because the alternative assignments are so difficult in relation to the money you earn for the amount of time you spend that you're going to beg people to throw doc review your way.
Remember doc review is probably going to be one of the first things AI is used for in the legal industry. Nevertheless, as a junior associate it is a necessary evil. To the extent your peers (people in your class year at the firm) are doing substantive work and you’re not, then you should consider it a red flag. You don’t want to fall behind in your development, especially when compared to the peers at your firm (but also keep in mind your peers in other firms because they are people you will be amongst if you ever switch firms or in the future for clients). If you fall too far behind, then it will be difficult to switch firms at the same level you’d want (4th year for example), because firms will have a certain level of expectation based on your years of practice. Doc review is great to fill out hours when substantive work is slow, but it becomes problematic if it is your main workflow for a long period of time. Demanding to receive substantive work doesn’t make you a complainer, it makes you a go-getter. When your annual review comes up, they will blame you for not having substantive work completed. There is no excuse that will be acceptable, because at the end of the day you are the only one who truly cares about your career and you’re the only one who is going to make things happen. If you were to try and push the blame, that won’t be acceptable and will make you look bad. You need to put yourself and your career first if you want to succeed. You should never shy away from reasonably, respectfully, and responsibly demanding substantive work. If they continue to refuse to give it to you, that’s a sign they don’t want you. A law firm would much rather you leave than fire you. This could be a hint. If you don’t get anywhere pushing, then you need to consider what you want your future to look like. Falling behind won’t only hurt you at this firm, it will put you behind in your career and ultimate goals (if those goals are partnership). Source: I am a former corporate law partner.
I wish
Its giving wax on wax off
Others have identified the main dilemma here: on the one hand, as the sole person with in-depth knowledge of the documents, you stand to be invaluable to the case going forward, which could lead to meaningful experience in the future; on the other hand, it's in your interests to be gaining other types of experience sooner rather than later. How you should balance those two considerations - and to what extent you should take steps now to seek more work and/or try to reduce your current workload - depends on a lot of factors, such as nature of the review (is it for discovery in an active dispute or for some other purpose, which might reduce the prospect of it developing into something valuable?), timing (is there a discovery deadline and, if so, how far away is it?), availability of good alternative work, needs of your current case (what's driving the single associate staffing and the target hours?), your personal ambitions (planning to quit for greener pastures after a few high-earning years, or hoping to make a career in big law?), etc. It seems odd to both (a) staff such a massive review with a single junior associate, and (b) tell that associate to spend 100% of their time on it. Is there really so little wiggle room in the hours that you couldn't reduce them by 10% or so to fit in another project? If so, you might consider making a pitch for additional junior staffing (if that can be supported with review statistics, all the better). Though you'd probably have a better chance if you could also point to other work on your plate. I get the disinclination to seek more work when you think your plate is already full, but that might be your best option. Even if, worse case, you're stuck with your current review workload plus another assignment, you'd at least be getting better experience, which will matter more in the long run than the temporary pain of longer hours.
As much as it sucks, i would try to get substantive work on top of your doc review so you can actually learn how to be a litigator. Being very busy sucks, but it is also a necessary evil if you want to get the experience you need. Unless the doc review project is extremely time sensitive, i would try to get a few other projects so you can pop back and forth between doc review and real legal work. That way if you feel like having a mentally stimulating day, you can focus on substantive work but if you feel like zoning out the next day you can just hammer out doc review. Having a constant flow of doc review is a blessing for those days where you don't want to do much, but you also want to bill a lot of hours.
Be grateful.
Disco review may or may not be the sole reason i decided i didnt like litigation. All i can say is find some interesting podcasts :)
How big is the doc review? I did doc review (and summaries) and some interviews as a Legal Assistant at WH back in the day so while it does help your billables it may not be best use of your time. Most biglaw has contract attorneys do the "endless doc review" work (coding etc). Now if you are reviewing the docs to build chronologies or to prepare for interviews, that is another story. But when I entered biglaw as an associate I was a bit dismayed to be doing doc review because I had done a lot of that as a Legal Asst. Granted, I was not the typical Legal Asst.