Attorney-Advisor Equals Document Reviewer?

[Anonymous]

No.

[Anonymous]

What do you mean by doc review?

If you mean coding documents for responsiveness and privilege at a rate of 50-100/hour for most of the day, which is what contract attorneys do, then no, that’s not what a typical attorney advisor role involves.

But if you mean analyzing lots of documents as part of an investigation or litigation, then sure, lots of attorneys do that. I actually enjoy the work and it’s one of the reasons I left biglaw. Once you become a partner or counsel in biglaw, clients won’t pay you $1000/hour to review documents, which sucks if you enjoy getting in the weeds and understanding the facts.

[Anonymous]

I review documents at part of my work as an attorney-advisor. I would say about 25 percent. The remainder is witness interviews, supporting DOJ in depositions and litigation, writing legal advice memos. The job has its ups and downs in terms of interesting work, but for $180K and around 45-50 hours a week of work, I'm reasonably happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Interesting. You seem to have very little understanding of either FOIA or that any litigation requires all levels of attorney to do some degree of doc review.


I'm a DP and I'm not sure what your point is. If my work is implicated in a litigation hold or FOIA request, I go through my emails and drafts for responsive documents and copy them to the designated folder. Then I'm done. Did I review documents? Sure. Did I do what is commonly understood as document review? No.

Maybe it is because I work for a law enforcement agency, but where I work, the program office (me, as their attorney) gets to look over what the FOIA attorney proposes redacting, with the agents. So a total of 3 groups (FOIA attorney, agents, program attorney) looks it over.

I'm also a lawyer in an LE agency and I'm not allowed to see the redactions. The FOIA attorney makes the call without program input.
A good thing to keep in mind when commenting is that every single agency does things differently.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it is because I work for a law enforcement agency, but where I work, the program office (me, as their attorney) gets to look over what the FOIA attorney proposes redacting, with the agents. So a total of 3 groups (FOIA attorney, agents, program attorney) looks it over.


I'm also a lawyer in an LE agency and I'm not allowed to see the redactions. The FOIA attorney makes the call without program input.
A good thing to keep in mind when commenting is that every single agency does things differently.

I'm not sure where the bolded is coming from or what you are in a snit about. I certainly didn't say every LEA does what mine does. And you are not in charge of what people keep in mind or do not keep in mind before commenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My agency's attorney advisors do document review for major litigation and also do document review for the DOJ when supporting their litigation in our subject area. I wouldn't say all attorney advisors do doc review but it's not exactly in the job description so you will never know until you get the job. I have actually seen quite a few GS 14 FOIA jobs which, in my opinion, are worse than doc review. At least in my agency, FOIA requests are coming in daily while the staffing levels are not adequate to meet the deadlines on any request. I think most attorney advisor jobs are actually interesting with a good work life balance but you somehow need to find out what your job entails before entering on duty. Maybe avoid agencies that deal heavily with litigation or are politically controversial enough to get daily FOIA requests?

Word

[Anonymous]

I agree with everything said about how it just denominates a non-litigating attorney position.

But I’ll also add that I don’t understand the original diss. A GS-14 salary with good benefits and flexibility for doing review/research/writing without the stress of litigation deadlines is a pretty sweet gig for most people, especially parents. I’m pretty sure a lot of people would love to land this type of job and can’t get through the hiring system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you people get it? The legal profession is a caste system. Document reviewers are the untouchables and nobody wants people to associate them with document review even if they don’t do document review

As an attorney at the Board of Veterans' Appeals with extensive contract doc review experience, this hits deep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It basically means it’s a non-litigation attorney role but the actual tasks can vary greatly depending on agency, department, and exact job function.

I’m an attorney advisor who litigates.

[Anonymous]

At State/L, every non-SES role is attorney-advisor. Litigation through Treaty negotiation through (gasp) FOIA attorney.

[Anonymous]

Some attorney-advisors do a lot of legal research and writing, for example the ones who work for the Board or Commissioners and ALJs or AJs, esp in the non-volume (non-benefit) agencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It basically means it’s a non-litigation attorney role but the actual tasks can vary greatly depending on agency, department, and exact job function.

I’m an attorney advisor who litigates.

I'm a general attorney who litigates and also does FOIA. And yes, it is basically document review. Fortunately at my agency it is usually fairly short, under 100 pages, and often interesting to review.

[Anonymous]

Btw lots of litigators/trial attorneys at doj do plenty of doc review on their cases. No other way to get in the weeds of their cases and there’s no shame in being prepared and knowing the facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean by doc review?

If you mean coding documents for responsiveness and privilege at a rate of 50-100/hour for most of the day, which is what contract attorneys do, then no, that’s not what a typical attorney advisor role involves.

But if you mean analyzing lots of documents as part of an investigation or litigation, then sure, lots of attorneys do that. I actually enjoy the work and it’s one of the reasons I left biglaw. Once you become a partner or counsel in biglaw, clients won’t pay you $1000/hour to review documents, which sucks if you enjoy getting in the weeds and understanding the facts.

This. It's my favorite part of the job but I'm becoming too senior. (Not the first-level contract review attorney coding, but the second level fact-building) Where did you go after biglaw?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't even know what FOIA is. I also didn't know attorney advisors did document review. I'm an attorney advisor, and the work I do is important to many individuals. I thought the person was dissing attorney advisors by likening their workload to document review.

That's . . . troubling, and does nothing to dispel the impression that federal employees aren't the brightest bulbs out there.