Is Document Review a ‘Scarlet Letter’ on Lawyer Resumés?
Document review work can help pay the bills for laid-off lawyers, but is it a career killer?
That’s the question raised by readers of a Corporette blog post on job-hunting advice, the Careerist blog reports. One commenter suggested contract work can both pay the bills and account for down time on a resumé.
Others begged to differ. “Be [wary] of putting that on your resumé—some legal employers consider doc review a scarlet letter,” one person wrote. Said another, “If you tended bar to make ends meet while job hunting, you wouldn’t put that on your resumé, would you? Approach temping the same way.”
The Careerist checked with legal recruiter Katherine Frink-Hamlett for her take on the dilemma. “To the extent that omissions are tantamount to misrepresentations, I would counsel against it,” she said. “Further, if omitting the projects would cause a huge and glaring gap in the resumé, that’s equally problematic.”