Henig v. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP
2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 172823, 151 F. Supp. 3d 460, 25 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1578 (2015)
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Rule of Law:
A licensed attorney performing document review is engaged in the practice of law, and is therefore exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), if the work requires the exercise of legal judgment, even if the tasks are routine and guided by specific protocols.
Facts:
- Plaintiff William Henig, a licensed attorney, was hired by Providus, a legal staffing agency, to work as a temporary contract attorney for the law firm Quinn Emanuel.
- Henig's sole duty was to perform a 'First Level Review' of documents for litigation involving one of Quinn Emanuel's clients.
- He was instructed to use a database to apply 'tags' to documents, categorizing them as responsive or non-responsive, privileged or not privileged, and key or interesting.
- Quinn Emanuel provided Henig with a detailed presentation and other materials to guide the review, but Henig claimed he also received verbal instructions that reduced the task to a mechanical checklist.
- During his two-month employment, Henig reviewed nearly 13,000 documents.
- Henig independently used tags such as 'attorney-client privilege,' 'work product,' and on at least one occasion, 'deliberative process privilege' and 'key.'
- Most of the documents Henig tagged as 'non-responsive' were not reviewed by any other attorneys, making his determination final for those documents.
Procedural Posture:
- Plaintiff Henig filed a putative class and collective action against Quinn Emanuel and Providus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for violations of the FLSA and NYLL.
- Defendants filed motions to dismiss the complaint.
- The District Court denied the motions to dismiss and ordered discovery limited to the issue of whether Plaintiff was engaged in the practice of law.
- Plaintiff subsequently filed a Second Amended Complaint.
- After the close of discovery, Defendants moved for summary judgment.
- The court held the motions in abeyance pending a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the similar case of Lola v. Skadden, Arps.
- Following the Second Circuit's decision in Lola, Defendants renewed their motions for summary judgment, which were before the court for this opinion.
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Issue:
Does a licensed attorney performing document review, which includes categorizing documents for responsiveness, privilege, and importance, engage in the 'practice of law' under the FLSA's professional exemption, thereby making him ineligible for overtime pay?
Opinions:
Majority - Judge Ronnie Abrams
Yes, a licensed attorney performing such document review is engaged in the practice of law. The critical inquiry under New York law, which governs the definition of 'practice of law' for the FLSA exemption, is whether the job duties require the exercise of legal judgment. Even accepting Henig's assertions that he was given rigid, simplifying instructions, the record demonstrates that he exercised legal judgment. His work was not a purely mechanical task that a machine could perform. For example, he used discretion in applying a 'deliberative process privilege' tag and a 'key' document tag, testifying he marked one document 'key' because it 'didn’t seem like something that should be buried.' Furthermore, his final determinations on the thousands of documents he tagged as non-responsive required legal judgment. The mere fact that the work was routine or constrained by guidelines does not strip it of its legal character, distinguishing it from cases where an attorney's work involved no legal judgment whatsoever.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the scope of the FLSA's professional exemption for attorneys performing document review, a common task for contract and junior attorneys. The court sets a relatively low threshold for what constitutes 'legal judgment,' establishing that even highly routinized review falls under the 'practice of law' if it requires any discretion beyond a purely mechanical application of rules. This ruling strengthens the position of law firms to classify contract attorneys as exempt professionals, significantly impacting the compensation structure for a large segment of the legal services industry by limiting their eligibility for overtime pay.
