Cheaper by the Hour
eBook - PDF

Cheaper by the Hour

Temporary Lawyers and the Deprofessionalization of the Law

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Cheaper by the Hour

Temporary Lawyers and the Deprofessionalization of the Law

About this book

Recent law school graduates often work as temporary attorneys, but law firm layoffs and downsizing have strengthened the temporary attorney industry. Cheaper by the Hour is the first book-length account of these workers.

Drawing from participant observation and interviews, Robert A. Brooks provides a richly detailed ethnographic account of freelance attorneys in Washington, DC. He places their document review work in the larger context of the deprofessionalization of skilled labor and considers how professionals relegated to temporary jobs feel diminished, degraded, or demeaned by work that is often tedious, repetitive, and well beneath their abilities.

Brooks documents how firms break a lawyer's work into discrete components that require less skill to realize maximum profits. Moreover, he argues that information technology and efficiency demands are further stratifying the profession and creating a new underclass of lawyers who do low-end commodity work.

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Yes, you can access Cheaper by the Hour by Robert A. Brooks in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Labour Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Preface
  3. 1. Degraded and Insecure: The ā€œNewā€ Workforce
  4. 2. ā€œBasically Interchangeableā€: The Creation of the Temporary Lawyer
  5. 3. Life on the Concourse Level: Doing Document Review
  6. 4. Box Shopping in ā€œNike Townā€: Struggles over Work
  7. 5. ā€œKeeping Count of Every Freakin’ Minuteā€: Struggles over Time
  8. 6. ā€œA Glorified Data Entry Personā€: Struggles over Identity
  9. 7. ā€œI Would Rather Grow in Indiaā€: The Emerging Legal Underclass
  10. Appendix A: Document Review Project Summary
  11. Appendix B: The Questionnaire
  12. Appendix C: The Attorneys
  13. References
  14. Index