Contract lawyer claims he is entitled to OT pay due to 'extremely routine nature' of job
A lawyer who performed document review for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan on a contract basis claims in a lawsuit that he is entitled to overtime pay for work in excess of 40 hours a week.
The plaintiff, New York lawyer William Henig, claims he typically worked 57 to 60 hours a week in the position that began in August 2012 and lasted about six weeks, report the Am Law Daily and Above the Law. The suit (PDF) claims the “extremely routine nature” of Henig’s work makes him a nonexempt employee under state and federal laws, entitling him to be paid at one and a half times his hourly rate for overtime.
Named as defendants are Quinn Emanuel and the temp agency that placed Henig, Providus New York. The suit seeks class action status.
Henig is represented by D. Maimon Kirschenbaum. “I have been arguing for years that contract attorneys are entitled to overtime pay under the [Fair Labor Standards Act] and New York law,” he told Above the Law. “However, I have found that contract attorneys tend to be reluctant to file such suits out of fear of being blackballed in the industry.”
