A "Document Review" Paycheck

It has been almost a month since my last post because my life has been pretty ordinary until tonight. My days have been spent contacting patent law firms and intellectual property law firms across the United States with emphasis in the Colorado, New York, New Jersey, District of Columbia, and Minnesota states.

Additionally, I have been putting in around 12 hours daily posting my resume to job sites and e-mailing recruiters and networking.

Last week for the first time, I had a quick 25 hour job at a document review firm in Denver where I had the chance to sit in front of the computer and review documents for a second request from the Department of Justice. Basically, that entailed looking through thousands of documents and checking ["tagging"] them as to whether or not they apply to the case at hand.

This is my life. The jist of it is that since my wife will be losing most (75%) of her paycheck in a few weeks because she is going to be having our first child and going on maternity leave, I feel that the quickest way to replace her income is through these temporary document review recruiters. Unfortunately, while a patent attorney makes close to six figures, I have an interview on Tuesday to meet with a recruiter about a document review project in another state (a 1.5 hour drive, plus traffic) which pays $25/hr. This amounts to roughly $1000/wk working 40 hours per week which will be slightly higher than what my wife is currently making. The tough thing to grasp is that the average document review project pays between $35/hr to $40/hr. At least this will be a paycheck.

Over-qualified? I thought that was a cliche'.

Well, I had my interview this afternoon. I was supposed to meet with four attorneys, but one of them refused to see me. I was a little bit confused, especially since he was the head patent guy in the Company for whom I would be working.

In short, my interview was a DISASTER. The management whom I met with jumped all over the idea of training an attorney and paying me as a paralegal so that I can "get my foot in the door" and "learn the ropes of the business world while at the same time learning the real workings of a corporate IP department." However, the attorneys were appaled by the idea. They said that I was overqualified, and that I didn't belong in the Company as a paralegal. I tried to convince them that I was "starting at the bottom, like in the mail room" to no avail. They were right; I didn't belong there as a paralegal.

Further, the attorneys said that they wouldn't feel comfortable bossing me around, especially because I would be their equal and/or superior in knowledge in status, especially once I passed the patent bar. I am specialized in patent law, and it was written all over my resume. Part of me wondered whether they just didn't like the idea of an attorney (or in my case, a soon-to-be-admitted-attorney who has passed the bar exam) to work as a paralegal. Another part of me thought that I would have gotten the job if I erased the words "Juris Doctor" from my resume as if I never went to law school, ever. Most of me knew they were concerned that I wouldn't stick around in a medium-paying paralegal position after being sworn in as an attorney and so they would be wasting their time training me. I thought they were right.

On this topic, I spoke to the human resources guy about this issue before I even went on the interview -- he said that it was his (and management's) intention to train me as a paralegal for the short-term with the intention of having me move up to the ranks of attorney after a year or so of familiarizing myself with the business and the technology. I thought this was a good idea.

However, when I walked out of there, I was sure that I was walking out alone; ...WITHOUT the job.

On a positive note, today I learned a big lesson -- ATTORNEYS SHOULD NOT APPLY FOR PARALEGAL POSITIONS. That wasn't the lesson, but the rule. The lesson I learned was that I should finish up what I have been working on (namely, the patent bar) and I should take that G-d forsaken exam and get it over with and start working at a regular firm. This was the plan until I got the e-mail last week from the HR manager of the Company who saw my resume and thought it would be a good idea if I applied for the paralegal position.

Anyway, back to the patent bar.