Now, about that Treasury space on 18th and L we reported yesterday ….

Yesterday we posted a report provided us by our friends in Treasury about a large space on 18th and L Street.  If you missed our story (short but the pic is cool) you can click here.

We are highly reluctant to pass on info until we get some sort of confirmation.  That’s why we held back on the Treasury 18th and L office space story (it’s been “out there” for awhile) until we knew.

But we were slammed with emails asking “what does it mean?”

Well, we aren’t exactly sure because nobody will go on record.  But we’ll throw this out to you:

At a Starbucks “coffee chat” yesterday (the Deep Throat garage was being used) we learned that Treasury, FDIC and other assorted Federal agencies have been in “consultations” with several D.C. and NYC law firms about pending government work, as well as with DC and NYC staffing agencies.  This was confirmed independently by one law firm and two staffing agencies (upon pain of death if names were disclosed) who are involved in “a process” that involves Federal government work.  Nobody would define that “process” or its subject matter.

A few points:

1.  The Federal government has been using staffing agencies quite a bit of late on various projects/document reviews.

2.  We think that anything big (and this sounds “big”) is going to be TARP-related due to all the media reports in the last few weeks, the decision by Treasury, FDIC, FHLB, etc. to expand use of temporary attorneys, the number of Posse List members being hired via the Treasury web site, and the FBO listings for government contracts.

3.  We have also seen the uptick in law firms and agencies setting up “financial forensic units” to handle complex financial transactions and litigations.

4.  We have also seen a large increase in general postings on Monster.com, law.com, etc. by agencies “bulking up” by requesting resumes.

So … are people just blowing smoke or is there the “Mother of All Contract Attorney Work” coming down the pike? 

Yes, we know there are a gazillion Madoff litigations out there, and a gazillion bank/financial fraud/credit crisis litigations out there.

And there are enormous cross-border cases involving U.S. and European banks sucking up contract attorneys in Europe and elsewhere.

But we think (hell, we’ll stick our neck out on this one) that we are seeing the set up for a Federal government project.  Is it “Son of Resolution Trust” (for those of us who worked the RTC projects back in the 1990s)?    We aren’t sure.

But be warned:  the rates we are hearing are low ($30 an hour) which is par for the course.  We suspect that a ceiling has been set on the bill rate just to bid which is SOP on these projects now.