Below is the federal complaint filed on March 4, 2013 by attorney William Henig against Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Providus New York LLC.
Henig is one of legions of so-called “contract attorneys” who are paid to review and categorize the significant number (often in the thousands, and sometimes in the millions) of documents produced in litigation. He claims that he was entitled to be paid, but was not paid, the statutory overtime rate of time-and-a-half for hours worked in excess of 40 per week.
Whether plaintiff (and others in his position) are “exempt” from the overtime laws will likely be a heavily contested issue. (Click here for an overview of overtime exemptions under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.) The complaint alleges that plaintiff is not exempt, “[g]iven the extremely routine nature of Plaintiff’s job duties”. Plaintiffs will essentially need to show that they were not performing “legal work”, which may be difficult to do.
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