Why I Live at the P.O. * Why I Do... Doc Review.

* with apologies to Eudora Welty

In the past few months, I learned in reading the New York Times that some American attorneys are embarrassed to put on their resumes that they have worked as document reviewers.

That's too bad.

What do I do? Analyze and code documents in anticipation of litigation. I enjoy my work, and have been regularly employed in Minneapolis at a bevy of legal agencies, working with law firms around the country. We've worked GoldStar financial lawsuits out of New York, and within our field, nobody makes any bones about why so many of these discovery projects end up in Minneapolis: we work cheaper per hour than New York or on the East Coast, where so many lawsuits originate, and the Twin Cities formerly had 4 law schools graduating attorneys annually: University of Minnesota, University of Saint Thomas, Hamline University and William Mitchell. (The latter two have since merged.)

The daily work is much like my previous work scoring the state achievement tests, precursors to Common Core. The law firm, or state educators, establish a protocol on how the documents or tests should be scored, and we process hundreds daily: reading, skimming, paging through, listening to, and eventually "coding" the legal documents, or school work, according to set standards.

Predictive coding is currently being employed as well, in the document review world:
Computer software can hit on key terms, and determine whether the document is likely relevant and turned over to be scored, or if it is non-responsive. Still, there is as of yet no replacement for human readers determining what the humans who created these paper trails were communicating, and whether or not the document is responsive, and/or privileged in some way, and thus produced to the "other side" in a lawsuit.

Personally, I like to think of myself as neutral, grading according to the protocol, some of which are better written than others...


My next project begins Wednesday, and if it goes the two months as currently expected, I'll be working through my birthday. One of the best parts of this work, for me, are the flexible hours -- I was getting a weekly 48, in 4 days with the 3-day weekends since June 1 on the last one -- and the ability to begin anew every project.

It's voyeuristic work really -- you're peeking in at private communications and getting somewhat of an insider's look at the way the businesses are regulated, and the work gets done -- in a variety of industries. (The financial and pharmaceutical sectors produce the bigger projects, but I've worked class-action lawsuits alleging defective products, as well.)

When I graduated in 1990 heading into the journalism field, in addition to the hiring freezes, it was an industry undergoing Change.

I displaced a lot of union workers, as a paginator -- electronically laying out newspages; scanning, importing and sizing the photos (and even going out, digital camera in hand, to get the shot myself if there was nobody presently available in the photographer's pool), and proofreading the pages of other paginators, who were charged with producing (weekend and Monday) sections as well.

Computers here are shaking up the legal industry: this document review work used to be the domain of young associates internally at the firms, where now they can contract out.

I didn't get paid OT either -- because my last agency was headquartered in Florida and this is professional work, it was straight pay for 40 through 48 hours. But for me, it paid to work it.

The freedom of choice in employment this way reminds me of Lochner: let me work the longer hours, when I can, and pick up as much knowledge as possible in the shorter quarters. You never know when what you know will pay off, and a little independence can never be short changed.