Washington Free Beacon’s Liz Harrington appeared on Fox News’ "Your World" to discuss her recent article which revealed that government paralegals were "paid to do nothing" and spent their time "watching television, doing laundry, and shopping online," among other activities.
Harrington explained that the Patent and Trademark Office hired around 20 new paralegals in 2009, but they did not hire any new judges, leaving the paralegals essentially without work. Senior managers were aware that the paralegals did not have any work to do and thus decided to create their own separate billing code. The code was called "Other Time" and it enabled the paralegals to bill their employer for the hours they spent doing household chores, surfing the net, or walking their dog. "It ended up costing taxpayers over $5 million," Harrington revealed. The paralegals also received bonuses.
She added that senior managers feared pushback from the labor union and let the "Other Time" code continue as a result.
"It wasn’t like there wasn’t work to do in the Patent Office – there’s 20,000 cases a year backlogged, but they just weren’t doing any of the work because they didn’t manage it properly or have enough judges," Harrington said.