Contract Attorney, Texas Style

I hope the new year is bringing good news your way.  If not, then maybe it’s bringing you the hope of good news…

I ‘get’ to take a few days off and take care of some of the chores around the house that obviously needed to be done more than I actually thought they needed to be done.

Apparently the grass needed to be mowed even though it hasn’t grown since a few weeks after the Autumnal Equinox, and I was also shockingly unaware of how desperately some of the rooms in the house needed to be painted.

Next, the garage hasn’t been organized for quite some time, so I’ll get to that.

As far as the contract legal work in this neck of the woods, apparently the main reason there’s anything at all to do is the Federal Government.  I don’t know of any large litigation projects right now, (whispers that the large “unnamed” retailer review completely shut down now) but there are several investigations supporting review work.

IF there are any firms listening out there, now seems to be the time to jump on that huge litigation document review you were thinking about getting around to some time before the end of the discovery period, and hire a bunch of Houston attorneys so they can pay down their Christmas debt.

Here’s to a prosperous, productive and busy 2009!

Not one to complain when I actually have work, I’ve gone, in the last month, from the relative “good life”at a big firm to the never ending hours of a temp review with an agency.

I have to work over 50% more hours now just to make the dollars I was making a month ago. I have to keep making the same dollars because the wife and kids still exist, still live at the home I’m trying to pay for, and I have no plans to get rid of any one or subset of them.

The not yet paid for Suburban in the garage does not reside in the same “most favored relation” status, and had better not give me any excuses to start trying to investigate the resale market. It has, unfortunately as far as I’m concerned, never given us a moment of headache (other than at the gas pump). In fact, our Suburban probably spends its nights in the only “inside the garage” parking space trying to stop laughing about my two paid for run-down cars that live on the street.

My two cars are a pair of stories in themselves. First, I have to have two because if I didn’t have two, I’d have to be prepared to walk or call a cab when the one was in the shop. With two, you always have a spare. And, I need a spare because they’re not worth having comprehensive insurance on. No comprehensive, no rental car. Unless it’s the other person’s fault, but I have a hard time getting that to happen.

My two paid for cars have a combined mileage of well over fourteen laps around the globe, but I can’t bear to get rid of them. One, my wife bought at least 2 boyfriends before we met, and we’ve been married 14 years now. The other I bought after the first one was totaled in a wreck, and I found out they wouldn’t renew the title until I did all sorts of paperwork relating to salvage titles and copies of receipts and all sorts of that stuff. Then the CV joints went out and the A/C went out and the lights stopped working sometimes and it was really leaking a lot of oil.

The other one, I bought off of a friend’s mom, when I had some extra money. It promptly began to overheat every time I drove it. In one year, I’ve replaced the fan clutch 4 times, had 2 radiators, replace all the spare pulleys on the front end, bought a new water pump, several thermostats, and then, to cap it off, they detected coolant coming out of the tailpipe. Apparently that hurts the resale value…go figure.

Back to the good news. I’m busy, and I get to work from home on this project!

I haven’t heard about any new contract projects in Houston for quite a while. I have heard about expansions of ongoing projects, and some changes here and there, but no real developing news.

There has been some movement outside of Houston that I have heard about. In particular, I’ve seen some movement in Austin, and of course projects are churning on the East Coast, but nothing here. I’d love for anyone to correct me on this.

Heard that management was changing at the Huron contract review shop. Nathalie Hofman, who they brought into town to set up the whole thing, was sent back to the East to take care of some sort of problems over there. She was one of the best managers I have ever worked with, and I was sorry to see her go, but I haven’t even met her replacement. They’ve been doing a lot of hiring at Huron, outside of the contract review area as well, and lots of good people I’ve worked with in the past have ended up over there.