The millennial contract lawyers who curse their fate in my recent American Lawyer feature, “The Screwed Generation?,” are often cursing The Am Law 100, and with good reason. Big Law is complicit in their mistreatment. At least three firms near the top of The Am Law 100 have aggressively defended the practice of denying overtime pay to contract lawyers.
Kirkland & Ellis (2014 profits per partner: $3.51 million) won dismissal of a 2013 Houston claim for overtime pay in the Deepwater Horizon case on the grounds that contract attorneys are engaged in “the practice of law.” This may come as a surprise to older lawyers who honestly recall wasting their law degrees on rote and brainless document review in their youth.
