Overview

How attorneys' work is deprofessionalized, downgraded, and controlled through part-time and temporary assignments

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9781439902868

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Reviews

"""Brooks offers us an uncommon examination of professional work from the inside... [T]he book is engaging to read, makes good use of the data, and raises important questions about the future directions of professional work. The book should be of significant interest to anyone studying the changing nature of work, and certainly to anyone considering a law career."" The American Journal of Sociology ""[A]n illuminating and sobering look at the law's version of the temporary employment industry... Cheaper by the Hour should prove instructive for anyone concerned about the short- or long-term future of the U.S. legal profession, and the title is recommended for all libraries that serve law firms or law schools. The book may also provide a sharp but valuable dose of reality for undergraduate students considering legal education and the debt load that it can entail."" Law Library Journal ""The strength of this book is the author's participation in the settings he describes... As one of a number of studies of workers in nonstandard work arrangements, this book adds to accumulating evidence pointing to a need for new policies and practices to address the various segments of a sizable 'contingent' workforce. Placed in this context, this study should further inform both analysts and advocates for change."" Work and Occupations ""Brooks's account is timely...A key contribution...is that he brings to life the work lives of temporary lawyers doing document review... Cheaper by the Hour provides a window into the world of temporary lawyers. [T]his book raises a series of questions on how outsourcing by law firms and other professional service firms can be better managed and made more satisfying for those individuals who are the human side of outsourcing."" Human Resource Management ""Cheaper by the Hour is a very timely book, well-organized and penned in an engaging style. The critical perspective that Brooks brings to bear on the industry is sorely missing in the very limited literature on temporary attorneys. The use of an ethnographic research methodology and the book's style and tone made the book in many ways reminiscent of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, which proved to have both powerful academic force and popular appeal."" Marion Crain, author (with Pauline Kim and Michael Selmi) of Work Law: Cases and Materials"

<p> Law schools paint bright illusions of their graduates' earnings potential. This book is the reality. Nowhere near courtrooms or plush offices labor an exploited, minimally paid underclass of lawyers in a Dickens-meets-Dilbert world of 'document review, ' in which professionals with advanced degrees live tenuous existences sorting documents into categories, work that ninth graders could accomplish and with nothing lawyerly about it.... Brooks presents a firsthand account of his own experiences and interviews coworkers in these dead-end jobs with no benefits, no chance for promotion, and no possibility to even act as a lawyer. It's a scary world showing that nobody has any security. VERDICT Would-be law students must read this look at the profession's dark underbelly... this is essential for law school libraries and a good purchase for comprehensive labor collections and large public library systems, as well. <br> -- Library Journal<br> <br>

Author Information

Robert A. Brooks is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Criminal Justice at Worcester State University in Massachusetts.

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