A Mandate for Clock Watching

Even his friends know Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst as a very tough guy. As a campaign organizer for both Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon last year, Kleindienst bruised the feelings of a good many Republican leaders. Supporting the appointment of his fellow Arizonan before a Senate committee in January, Senator Goldwater observed that "he has a quality that is badly needed in this country: toughness."

Including the Washroom. Kleindienst lived up to his reputation last week with a memorandum that he circulated to each of the Justice Department's 1,050 Washington lawyers. As part of an efficiency experiment, Kleindienst ordered all staff attorneys to submit detailed daily reports of their working day. Starting this week, the lawyers will record their activities on time sheets. At the end of each day, the data must be transferred to a second form on which will appear the total amount of time spent on every activity, whether it be visits to the washroom or a plea before the Supreme Court--all organized for computer programming.

Kleindienst's memo indicated that the main purpose of the exercise is to impress Congressmen, who each year are skeptical when the department tries to prove that it needs money to hire more lawyers. "The long-term effect, if time is accurately recorded," said Kleindienst, "will be a relief of individual pressure through provision of adequate personnel and resources to handle our work."

On Capitol Hill, North Carolina's Democratic Senator Sam Ervin denounced the experiment as "nitpicking of the nittiest kind." Nathan Walkomir, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, called the plan "a classic example of bureaucratic stupidity and arrogance." One Justice Department lawyer found the study "an insult to our integrity." Said he: "The long-term effect will be to drive us right out of the department."

Other lawyers boggled at the complicated--and time-consuming--procedures outlined in ten pages of instructions. Someone in the department calculated that if the study were to last a year, it would cost Justice 66,000 man-hours, or $534,000. CBS Commentator Eric Sevareid was amused by a time-sheet category called "de minimis time," which is supposed to include all minor interruptions. "Computers read Latin already," quipped Sevareid, who described Kleindienst as "a new Lochinvar" riding a computer instead of a white horse and trying to rescue the Government from inefficiency--a goal that has eluded many others in the past.

At week's end, in a series of nine briefings, Justice Department bosses reassured the staff that the procedures are not designed to increase their work or to catch loafers. They also pointed out that many law firms require their attorneys to keep similar records for the purpose of billing their clients. "Please don't get scared of numbers," said Herman Levy, of the department's management office, who informed the lawyers that only reasonable accuracy was expected of them. Cynics observed that the briefings themselves cost the Government more than 500 man-hours of working time.

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