But it wasn’t always easy. The folks on the LSS, for example, always seemed to make things difficult. A committee of popularly-elected representatives, the LSS have been known to draw criticism from members for, among other things:
- reserving the “good tables” at the LSS Law Ball for elected representatives;
- pocketing left-over booze from LSS BBQs;
- rigging competitions so friends win;
- giving LSS tutoring jobs to friends; and
- talking loudly and obnoxiously about relationships that LSS reps have with law firms.
Yesterday we got wind of a minor email snafu in QUOTALS, but which turned out to be a storm in a teacup. Read on if you care.
First, some background. QUOTALS is an acronym for the Queensland Univeristy of Technology Association of Law Students. It is a Law Students’ Society in the same sense with which many of our readers will be familiar. It runs competitions, holds an annual Law Ball, invites students to socialise at booze-fuelled BBQs and, at least on paper, assists members to find seasonal clerkships and graduate jobs.
But here’s where things get interesting. We received the following email from an anonymous QUOTALS member last week:
QUOTALS is getting good at making sure the cohort aren’t aware of any great opportunities until they’re too late. For example a casual position at Freehills was recently advertised in their weekly email (distributed on the 9th of May) with only two days before applications were due to be in.
Surely firms have a bit more lead time on job applications?
An argument could be made that QUOTALS sends out weekly emails and that it was just poor timing. However, that has not stopped the odd email coming out mid week to advertise one of their own events!?
Would be interesting to see who Freehills eventually picked up for the position – given that a large majority of applications might have been rushed together at last minute, and whether or not a QUOTALS member snagged it. Ad below:
Freehills are currently looking to employ a 2nd or 3rd year law student in their Planning and Environment Group. The position is part time and requires the student to work approximately 16 – 20hrs per week. Applicants should have experience, or an interest in planning and environment law. Freehills are a national top-tier commercial law firm with offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore and a great sponsor of QUOTALS! Applications close on Wednesday, 11th May 2011. If you wish to apply, please send your CV and cover letter to: Madeline Simpson (Special Counsel).
We emailed Freehills to find out when the firm first asked QUOTALS to distribute to its members news of the job opportunity, and whether in particular, there was a longer lead-time than 2 days. A spokesperson from Freehills said:
Freehills emailed the request for applications to QUOTALS a little over two weeks prior to the closing date. We had no reason to believe it wasn’t emailed to students in the group shortly after this because we started to receive applications within a few days.
To find out what was going on, we sent QUOTALS the following carefully worded email (the question in bold is the one we really wanted an answer to):
—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Request for Comment
From: news@firmspy.com
Date: Tue, May 31, 2011 9:12 am
To: president@quotals.com
Cc: alsa@quotals.com
secretary@quotals.com
————————————————————————–Hello Team QUOTALS!
We’re compiling a survey and we thought it would be an excellent idea to get some feedback from QUOTALS since we haven’t contacted you guys yet.
We’re really hoping we can get some input from you guys and can more generally “open a dialogue”. A major reason why FS exists is to benefit junior lawyers like you guys.
We think all law students’ societies (including QUOTALS) provide an excellent service to your members – it is very generous of you all to volunteer your time, especially given the lofty demands placed on you by your lecturers, not to mention an increasingly competitive graduate recruitment climate.
Which gets us to a point we recently raised with ALSA and with several university law deans and are hoping to raise directly with QUOTALS today – that grad opportunities are shrinking and law students face harder competition than ever.
We’re hoping for some anecdotal evidence of this and here’s where you come in:
1) Is QUOTALS aware of any changes in the number of graduate opportunities being offered by major corporate firms in QLD? What about seasonal clerkships?;
2) Does QUOTALS provide assistance to members in relation to securing graduate/seasonal clerkship opportunities? If so, what are those?
3) Do major corporate firms directly contact QUOTALS regarding graduate/seasonal clerkship opportunities? How quickly (if at all) does QUOTALS pass that info onto members?
4) Do major corporate firms directly contact QUOTALS regarding other employment opportunities? How quickly (if at all) does QUOTALS pass that info onto members?
5) Are the individuals on the core QUOTALS team fearful about job prospects? How about members?
Guys – we thank you very much in advance for any help you can provide in response to those qns. If possible, keep them brief – we’re hoping to publish something on Fri. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedules to help us out.
Regards,
FS
——————
UPDATE:
A flood of emails and comments have come in regarding this story. Thanks to all the QUOTALS members and the committee members themselves for writing in to clarify our post. The fabled president of QUOTALS even put pen to paper, finding time in her busy schedule to address our concerns. The official response is included in the comments below. We can save you the trouble of reading it by saying that it is the QUOTALS’ committee position that an earlier email was sent to all QUOTALS members notifying them of the Freehills job opportunity and thus there is no mischief. We agree that the situation is better, but we’re not sure it gets the committee off an FS wrap entirely.
UPDATE 2: we received further clarification from the QUOTALS secretary to the effect that the relevant people were busy revising for their exams and didn’t get around to sending the email out immediately. He indicated that no committee members had access to the relevant job opportunity before the general mailing list. We’ve updated the post accordingly. Case closed. FS out. News at 11.
Finally, if you’re wondering who actually scored the Freehills job, read the following email we received:
Im a third year arts/law student at UQ. I also happen to be on the LSS at UQ – the UQLS. I went for the job at Freehills – didn’t get it. The girl who got it (who was in my grade at school, and who happened to be the interview before mine – I saw her walk out of the room) is in third year law at QUT. To the best of my knowledge, she is NOT involved in QUOTALS. I’ve got her on Facebook and did a fair bit of stalking, no mention ever of any LSS stuff.
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This doesn’t suprise me at all. The law student society at my uni were self serving cretins. Their focus was on identifying the “hot” fresher girls and inviting them to special events where all the final year guys would hit on them. Now that I am practising, whenever we are recruiting and I see the applicant was a committee member of a LSS, I automatically deduct points – I take it as an indicator that they are likely to be an arrogant wanker.
At my uni (which is Go8), you’ll rarely find a non-committee member working paralegal jobs at the top tier firms even though committee members usually don’t have the best marks nor the best prior work experience. However, I think this is mostly due to the firms hiring by referral (thus benefiting those with ‘connections’) rather than due to shady actions by committee members.
Very very true, Monty.
Anon, it is funny you describe the student law society at your uni as cretins – I had exactly the same experience.
This is an official response that was sent by QUOTALS to Firmspy at 2:39pm on 6 June 2011.
Good afternoon,
In response to your post this morning regarding QUOTALS we reply with the following:
1. The Freehills position was brought to our attention on 27 April 2011. It was included in our email to students on 1 May 2011 and included again on 9 May 2011. We have forwarded the email from 1 May 2011 to FirmSpy. We direct your attention to Paragraph 5 of this email. It was re-advertised in the next general announcement email on 9 May 2011 as there was still a chance for potential applicants to apply.
We have no idea who got the position – to the best of our knowledge, it wasn’t a member of the QUOTALS Committee. However, if it was, it would only have been by virtue of their reading the general email on 1 May 2011 or 9 May 2011 The email was not circulated to the Committee prior to being sent to the cohort and nor is that general practice.
2. We refer to your email dated 31 May at 11:12pm. Naturally, we each received this email when we checked periodically throughout the day on Wednesday. We noted that you had asked for a reply by Friday, so that FirmSpy could publish on that day. QUOTALS chose not to reply, at least not within that time frame, because we have relationships with QUT, the Faculty of Law, firm sponsors and ALSA to be mindful of that required thought-out and deliberate answers. A 48-hour turnaround for comment on these matters was not reasonable – QUOTALS apologises for not having responded to FirmSpy’s request informing them we would not be meeting this deadline.
However, now that FirmSpy has brought to our attention the fact that this email was simply a red herring, we do not feel apologetic for failing to reply. As FirmSpy pointed out in their email to us, our role is on a volunteer basis and requires lots of work on top of our own study load, part-time work and lifestyles. We take issue with the fact that these ‘compliments’ were simply a means of trying to attract comprising answers, however, are quick to point out that had we replied our answers would not have helped your cause anyway.
With respect to Question 4, the one you were most interested in:
4) Do major corporate firms directly contact QUOTALS regarding other employment opportunities? How quickly (if at all) does QUOTALS pass that info onto members?
Answer: We pass this information on to our student members as soon as possible. We are under instruction not to bombard them with information but will generally send out an email once a week.
With reference to the Freehills position, we did exactly this.
We look forward to a retraction and an apology immediately.
QUOTALS
QUOTALS is a collection of arrogant students who parade around thinking theyre the best for being part of an association that no one cares about
Well done FirmSpy.
I am sure you are realising, as I am, more and more people in the profession feel accountable to you. Excellent checks and balances coming out of all this.
I can only imagine 50 year old partners at a partners meeting: “no, no, no…don’t do that, Firm Spy will get a whiff of it!”
I believe that law students at one of the WA universities set up an “Alternative Law Student Society” a few years ago as a protest against the incumbent LSS. Not sure if it ended up surviving (I imagine funding would have been hard to come by), but still, a genius idea.
QUOTALS looks like it has hit the panic switch and not thought through its response. Firstly, yes, all LSS committee members are wankers. Employ them at your absolute peril. As a general rule, they are all loud-talkers and extremely hazardous to office morale. Secondly, it looks like there is a bit of a problem with the timeline of events described by QUOTALS, Moreover, QUOTALS emailed the job advert to members on the 4th day after the day it received notice of it, Yet Freehills began receiving applications “within a few days”. QUOTALS says “The email was not circulated to the Committee prior to being sent to the cohort and nor is that general practice.” If this is true, then how did Freehills begin receiving applications so quickly?
Perhaps QUOTALS needs a lesson in attention to detail
My friend is in quotals. He is a very smart student who joined the team so that he could get to know more students around campus. He has a law gpa above 6 and studies hard to keep it there. In his role at quotals he has sacrificed his time to plan events, write articles for publication and help out in various legal competitions as time keeper. He does this without being paid.
Although i am not a member of QUOTALS yet i hope to be next year because not only do i think it will look good on my resume but i know a few people who work there and will enjoy being part of the team.
As for members of LLS getting jobs – It is often because these people are motivated enough to go out and make connections and get involved in the legal industry.
In response to Crony – I highly doubt the QUOTALS newsletter was the only place that Freehills advertised the position. I would think that they would have also advertised it in a number of other areas students had access to, such as their website, and that therefore, it is extremely possible they would have received earlier applications via this medium. nah duh?
Everyone against QUOTALS here just sounds jealous that they had no friends in law school.
As a current executive member of an LSS I can assure you that we aren’t all wankers. I stepped into a role nobody else wanted to fill and over the past year have lost a lot of sleep arranging events and competitions.
I certainly don’t fit the LSS stereotype that has been spruiked in above comments but I will concede that a large portion of my colleagues do. If I had realized that this is what people would think of me come graduation time I’d have declined the position and saved myself a year of hard work.
seems like this article was accusing qutls of doing somethin they didnt do.
Who cares if people started applying ‘within a few days’ – as if qut were the only ones advertising the job.
the post was wrong … end of story.
So FirmSpy, did QUOTALS in fact ‘siphon’ the Freehills job to its ‘inner sanctum’? Did you ‘bust’ them? Or did you just make a fairly unreasonable assumption/accusation?
This whole thing reeks of wankery, and not necessarily from the QUOTALS team.
As others suggest, the ad was not exclusive to QUOTALS. I know that at least one of the other Brisbane uni law societies published the same ad on their careers page. I expect the other uni received it too.
What a beat up, seriously. So they waited 4 days before including it in their weekly email, and therefore they were all using the extra 4 days to apply? I don’t get it.
So many jealous whingers on this site. Whatever makes you feel good.
I’ve been around and got friends in LSSes, including QUOTALS, and:
1) Firms will typically contact a single person (usually President or Secretary I would guess), and any information would be sent to the appropriate person for compilation into the newsletter. The committee-at-large finds out the same way everyone else does.
2) I can’t recall any BBQs held by QUOTALS during my time at uni that had alcohol involved. QUT students go to a bar to drink, not a park bench (your university experience may differ). Nor have I ever felt that there have been ‘good’ and ‘bad’ tables at events, and I’ve never heard or seen that any LSS has had substantive input on staff (tutor) appointments.
3a) @Anon, maybe your experience with your LSS sucked. Maybe you’re right in respect to that particular LSS. But to penalise someone from any LSS on no other grounds because you have a chip on your shoulder? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t want to work at your firm – I take it as an indicator my potential boss is likely to be an arrogant wanker anyway.
3b) @Anon and @Crony, LSS members go and arrange all those events you enjoy. Ever been to drinks? Maybe to a law ball? Ever needed to ask for help, or entered a competition? Odds are your LSS was involved in some way with that, whether it be as little as members sitting on faculty committees or as much as planning the whole event. Don’t blame us because fine upstanding gentlemen (or ladies) such as yourselves didn’t care enough about getting off your own asses to go and contribute instead of just milking it and bitching about it when it’s not good enough. Maybe that’s why better employers look at them favourably… they’ve both proven they can do things and they have the wherewithal to go out and make something work?
3c) @Crony, four days seems a reasonable quantification of ‘within a few days’? You also have no idea of who else received the information. If QUOTALS got it, probably GULS and UQLS got it as well, and may have been able to get that information out faster? Perhaps there were notices on pinboards or a note on the Freehills website? Perhaps you need a lesson in ‘the way the world works’.
4) @Monty, I’ve heard that Monash and QUT are the largest law schools in Australia, but have LSS committee sizes of something like 90 and 30 respectively. There simply aren’t enough QUOTALS people around to steal all the jobs (I do know a number of people that aren’t involved with QUOTALS that have top tier paralegal jobs, and plenty of QUOTALS and ex-QUOTALS members that didn’t).
Puhlease, everyone knows Freehills only hires students from UQ.
This is not surprising, considering half the emails received from QUOTALS this year give off the impression that the members have been spending too much time sniffing or smoking a little something, something.
I am embarrassed to be affiliated with them.
So let me get this straight?
Some bozo who presumably missed out on the job is blaming QUOTALS because they only saw it two days before the job applications closed.
But they actually sent it out 10 days earlier?
Why complain to firm spy before checking your old emails and making sure it wasn’t in there?
waste of time. stick with firms guys … crappy research and shows you can’t always trust the tips you’re getting.
“And today, we think we’ve got proof.”
Oh yeah, well you thought wrong! haha ….
Wow.
Accusations of rigging competitions so that friends can win, giving tutoring jobs to friends, reserving best tables at Law Ball and now this -stealing jobs from students -are absolutely ridiculous and unfounded. Our competitions VP doesn’t give up 4-5 hours twice a week for 3/4 of the semester staying at uni till 11pm organising 200 people in a general moot just so that their best friend can win. Our activities team don’t start planning law ball just under a year in advance just so that they can reserve a good table.
Many of our committee members already have completed clerkships/been paralegals etc before even coming onto the committee. Personally this was my situation -my year on the committee in 2011 was motivated purely by a desire to continue to be involved in the law faculty and continue the programs the LSS runs for students. I got my clerkships through my marks, and nothing else, because I worked damn hard for the first 3 years at uni.
I didn’t need it for my resume, and I didn’t do it for bragging rights, or any sort of popularity contest. The committee members on the LSS may appear cliquey because they ARE friends -hours of working together will do that to you. Hours of compiling clerkship guides, hours at competitions, hours working out submissions to the law faculty on behalf of students. Plus, opportunities to get involved are sometimes completley rejected by students. We had several vacant spots on our committee this year that were widely advertised to all and sundry, to international students, to everyone and yet we still only received a bare minimum of applications.
What would uni BE without a law ball? What practical skills would you gain (that by the way, make you more employable) without competitions if your uni like mine, does not do much in the way of practical subjects?
To suggest the LSS ‘steals’ jobs from students, completley disregards the fact that a) we’re not machines and don’t check our emails every second of every day, and b) completley devalues the completley unpaid work the LSS does for student bodies across the country.
Well I don’t know about all that but I just checked my student email and did in fact get an email from quotals that advertises the freehills job as they say.
The thing I think is weird is the claim that Quotals keeps tutoring jobs for themselves… I was having a lot of trouble earlier on in the semester and contacted Quotals to ask if they knew of a good tutor. I got several really nice emails from them saying they were asking around and had a lot of trouble finding tutors. Finally they put me on to someone who was able to help me out. She’s not from Quotals… wtf?
Hi FS, just to let you know I’ve spoken with several other quotals members and none of them received the earlier notification mentioned in the official response
Just checked my email. Did not receive one on the 1st may as claimed. Secondly anyone looked at the quotals noticeboard. Saw a job advertised there today that closed in 2009. 62 likes for their comment, maybe they should spend more time sending out emails and less running to defend themselves.
It seems like QUOTALS have let all their members and friends know about this so they can come in here and give bad ratings to anyone who questions them. They are a bunch of wankers with this ridiculous sense of entitlement and superiority. About time someone pulled them up!
What a thrilling expose, FS. Pulitzer’s in the mail, I imagine.
can a quotals member please tell me why we are not having end of semester drinks? from previous quotals members i have been informed that you recieve funding especially for these events. so where is it going? how come UQ can have end of semester drinks and we dont?
To Jess above. Just going through my QUOTALS emails on May 1 2011.
Just to quote from the email:
5. Freehills – Paralegal Position
Freehills are currently looking to employ a 2nd or 3rd year law student in their Planning and Environment Group. The position is part time and requires the student to work approximately 16 – 20hrs per week. Applicants should have experience, or an interest in planning and environment law.
Freehills are a national top-tier commercial law firm with offices in Brisbane, Sydney,
Melbourne, Perth and Singapore and a great sponsor of QUOTALS!
Applications close on Wednesday, 11th May 2011.
If you wish to apply, please send your CV and cover letter to:
Madeline Simpson (Special Counsel)
Email: Madeline.Simspon@freehills.com
Ph: 3258 6662
Care to respond?
Maybe you should wait 4 days before sending the apology, entitled, ‘sorry for speaking the truth.’
And how about ‘QUOTALS’ send an apology to their students for scrapping an End of Semester 1 Drinks, and a Semester 2 Welcome Back Drinks. “No later than tomorrow morning!!!”
Seems highly appropriate.
@Jess, are you even on the QUOTALS mailing list?
I think volunteer committee members are entitled to defend themselves against claims that appear to backed with little or no evidence.
Firmspy you are completely out of line.
You’ve written an article titled “QUOTALS Busted Siphoning Freehills Job to Inner LSS Sanctum” and proceeded to make no such substantive argument.
Further you wrote to QUOTALS under the pretense of opening a dialogue, stating:
“We think all law students’ societies (including QUOTALS) provide an excellent service to your members – it is very generous of you all to volunteer your time, especially given the lofty demands placed on you by your lecturers, not to mention an increasingly competitive graduate recruitment climate.”
But of course this was just a guise to gain ammunition for an attack on the committee. Shame on you for your deception and for you further unfair indictment against the hard working volunteers at QUOTALS and LSSs more generally.
You embarrass yourselves with that update, FS. A four day delay? FFS. I presume that QUOTALS wouldn’t wish to harass its members with LSS emails more than once a week.
I’d suggest anyone who needs more than 10 days to knock together a resume and a cover letter isn’t cut out for a career in the law anyway.
Just checked my emails too. It was on their on the May 1 email. I think people should check before they post!
You said you were going through your “QUOTALS emails”, being a “QUOTALS member” is probably why you received the email and others did not.
Yes, all LSS people were the biggest wankers there. Self serving bunch of overly ambitious prats. Would hesitate to employ one.
If you’re not receiving QUOTALS emails, that’s not a QUOTALS issue, the QUOTALS emails get sent out through course mailing lists. If you’re not receiving emails, that’s a Faculty of Law technical issue, and QUOTALS can’t do anything about it.
Law student and joke, LSSs don’t get money to put on drinks. Hell, firms don’t give money for drinks, it’d give them a bad rep to be paying for hundreds of law students to get drunk. Firms do pay money to LSSs to sponsor big events like competitions and sports, and this money then gets used by the LSS to cover everything they do. Which includes flying competitors (who usually aren’t LSS members) to represent the university in competitions, going to ALSA to work out how locally to best represent student interests nationally, covering the cost of law ball that the ticket price doesn’t cover, etc. LSSs don’t run at a profit. Sometimes they have to cut back on some things to make ends meet (just like students). If you have a problem, call the firms and tell them they should give QUOTALS more money so you can go out on a pissup with your mates. I’m sure they’ll be interested.
Finally, FS… have you completely lost all abilities of reason, logic, and research? For one, all law students are QUOTALS members, there’s no membership fee, there’s no ‘paid-up’ members, if you’re a law student at QUT you’re in automatically. You don’t even need to ‘sign up’, all the QUOTALS events, competitions, job notices, etc. are relayed to all law students. This is fairly clear if you go read the QUOTALS constitution. Then do you honestly, honestly, believe that Freehills, one of the biggest top tier firms in Australia, would give notice only to QUOTALS and no other Brisbane LSS regarding a paralegal position? Did you take any account that QUOTALS updates are usually sent out to students on Sundays? Or that even with the ‘immense’ delay of 4 days, this still left students with the better part of two weeks to fire off a CV? You’re dragging yourself down FS, better to man up about the mistake and get on with being FirmSpy, not InnocentLSSBeingTargetedBecauseIMadeABooBooSpy.
Well, you’ve written an article that says QUOTALS did something it didn’t do.
They’ve shown you that they sent this email out on 1st may … this has been backed up by comments above.
Of course you should apologise.
FS is only worthwhile if it admits when it got it wrong.
Now, you and others are trying to move the goalposts on them by saying they should have sent it out STRAIGHTAWAY! they are students too you know! they can’t be expected to drop everything when something comes through.
As a student, im pretty happy with a four day turnaround. and even if someone did apply, what difference does it make? If im good enough for the job ill get it, if not then i wont.
By the way, I got it on both 1st may and again on the 9th. they seem to send emails by course code so I doubt they could exclude people, and even then, the list of emails are exactly the same in both.
finally, ‘paid-up’ members? who pays to be in quotals? im pretty sure someone told me we were members because we are enrolled – if we had to pay, im geting away with it. i havent given quotals a cent but get all their information and updates all the time.
QUOTALS did their job – FS should apologise.
Nice work picking on a bunch of kids about to head into law exams
This seems like a massive beatup/misrepresentation. Where is the proof of siphoning? I went to a uni other than QUT in Brisbane, so I’m happy to attack QUT wherever possible, but this is just weird and shoddy reporting.
It’s like you gradually realized there was nothing to this other than innuendo but haven’t quite been able to admit it yet. Time to apologize lest it undermine your credibility more generally methinks.
Firmspy should issue a formal apology if they cannot substantiate these claims they have made.
Seriously, can you still stand behind any of the words in this headline? QUOTALS Busted Siphoning Freehills Job to Inner LSS Sanctum
Busted? No proof
Siphoning? No proof
Inner LSS Sanctum? No proof — comments suggest otherwise.
I heard QUOTALS shot Osama BL…
confirm?
Honestly FirmSpy, you might need to pick your targets a little better in future. Perhaps the author of this article missed out on being elected to their respective LSS committee as a first year and has held a grudge ever since.
Although I have very little respect for the current LSS committee at my university, on the whole these societies do an enormous amount of voluntary work for the student body that simply would not happen without them.
Trying to lump LSS committees in with top tier law firms is a terrible misrepresentation and serves no positive end for students. When students read this, they will not want to volunteer their time to an LSS, and the work would not get done. Which means (at my university anyway) there would be no mooting program whatsoever and no careers support whatsoever.
FirmSpy… I was a huge fan but you’re definitely losing me these days.
If it’s accepted now that there was no secret circulation of the Freehills position within the committee, then what story is there here? The tardiness of the email amongst the QUT cohort? Come on.. It’s hardly watergate now is it. The real emphasis of this blog post is quite obviously more the pains that FS are at to establish themselves as the Brisbane legal industry’s answer to Woman’s Weekly, and not so much the sinister purposes of the QUOTALS committee.. It’s less Woodward and Bernstein, more Perez Hilton.
I think the bigger issue here which the QUT LSS fanboys seem to be forgetting is that most LSS, if not all, are notorious for being rife with cronyism and nepotism.
In this case it’s open to debate as to whether or not it occurred. People are left to form their own opinion and judgment based on the facts which ARE provided.
Regardless of whether or not it happened in this instance, it occurs repeatedly with jobs, tutoring, competitions, law ball tables etc at every LSS. For that reason it’s very difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
If you don’t like the accusations then clean up your pathetic organizations. That goes for all LSS.
I think most of the people here are being too tough on Firmspy. Yes, they seem to have gotten their information wrong and they shouldn’t have picked on volunteer law students. But we all know that Firmspy has limited resources and they rely heavily on the information provided by spies. They did make reasonable inquiry given the time and resources available to them, and made the judgment based on the information they had at the time.
Why are people getting a bit precious? While students, I’m sure we’ve all suspected that the LSS-types have siphoned off plum jobs. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter. LSS-bashing is just fair game, because they’re generally a ‘type’: wankers. Perhaps FS is just getting in early for the wanker-partners of the future. So think of it as a public service.
Way off base with this one it seems. FS, you should take your medicine and apologise.
My person opinion is that the LSS, at least at my University, was stuffed full of overconfident tools. And while they tilted the scales in their favour from time to time (always minor stuff – like good seats at law ball, etc), I could never really blame them. They were working hard for other people’s benefit, filling a role no one else really wanted to do.
Working at a top tier firm, it actually surprises me how few of them make it through recruitment. Instead of hyping themselves and their connections, they’d do better explaining how they added value for the student body.
I think the opening sentence is a reflection of Firm Spy’s extremely high level of journalism. They’ve made a simple grammatical error. “A few us?” It just deteriorates from there.
QUOTALS do an amazing job of keeping us up to date with job opportunities without bombarding us with new emails every day. Even if the QUOTALS members did send the position description around to themselves before emailing the rest of the cohort, there was still plenty of time for other students to apply. If they were good enough to get the job, they would have! I personally managed to score an amazing job, avertised through a QUOTALS email, and have never had anything to do with the committee.
Oh and I also received the 2 emails with the job description – on the 1 and 9 May. That means I would have had 10 days to apply from the first email. And ALL law course codes are on the email list – if you’re enrolled in law at QUT you would have received the email.
not defending QUOTALS here, see earlier comments to the contrary, but I definetly received the email on 1 May.
Thank you to the people at FirmSpy for bringing us all this information. At the end of the day, this site publishes the information – its up to the reader to decide what they want to believe in.
The trolls on here trashing them for reporting this are as stupid as alot of the subjects of these articles.
Alot of you on here are too young to remember a pre-internet age when you couldn’t find out anything from the ‘real people’ at a firm and just had to hold your nose and take a chance when applying for jobs.
At least now a balance of information is out there (to counter the corporate spin of the big firms) – and people can make a more informed decision about where they choose to work.
Thank you FS and keep up the good work (almost WikiLeaks-like)
LOL. What a bunch of sooks. Grow up. Posting anonymously is so lame.
Griffith students were sent a notice on 27 April 2011 by the actual Law School, not the society.
There’s a rule enforced by QUOTALS that if you are in a competition being run by QUOTALS, you are not allowed to enter the QUOTALS office for the duration of the competition, precisely to prevent people from being advantaged, even inadvertently.
Perhaps QUOTALS people will stop applying for every job they see when students do? LSS members are students as well, with all the same troubles. Given the students still had, we now know, eleven days (inclusive, because, of course, FS accounting is inclusive we’ve learned) is plenty of time to write a job application – even if any wrongdoing was established (and the evidence is tending strongly against this), do you really think firms judge candidates based on how early their applications come in? Or maybe, just maybe, firms might base potential employment on other factors, such as GPA, extracurricular activities (like a LSS, by glom by crikey), and others that might actually be relevant to the position? Who’da guessed?
Similarly, why shouldn’t LSS members be entitled to run in competitions? Can anyone explain exactly what a secretary, or a careers director, or a publications director, or a year representative could possibly have to do with the actual running of a competition? Or why suddenly it becomes a requirement that LSS members, when they become LSS members, remove themselves from the supportive and social environment that they are trying to propagate? Perhaps LSS members shouldn’t go to law balls either, despite arranging them (which is often a logistical nightmare)?
On a side note, people mention ‘rigging tables’. The only table that I could think of as potentially a ‘good’ table at a function is the ones closest to the guest speaker. The trouble with these tables is, because you’re near the guest speaker, you have to be on better behaviour because you’re visible. I’ve had friends (LSS and non-LSS) both on the main table, next to the main table and way out in the back, and the consensus is universally that you have more fun at the back…
The law society douche-baggery in this thread is approaching critical density.
Being almost 1000km away and not caring about Queensland LSSs (or LSSs generally), I think I can say with pretty much 100% objectivity:
Wow, firm spy, you really have to issue an apology and retraction here.
Much of this ‘article’ is baseless vitriol and is libelous. Perhaps more galling is the fact that you decide to turn over the decision as to whether you should apologise to your readers! Either you have the necessary sources and evidence, or you don’t (and you clearly don’t – so you shouldn’t have run the story).
Issue a retraction and an apology and, in future, wait for the LSS’s (or other person/organisation) side of the story before posting online – it’s called journalistic ethics. The LSS is a voluntary organisation that shouldn’t be expected to reply to your enquiries within 24 hours (or couldn’t an unwarranted attack on a group of volunteer students wait a day).
Retract and apologise (you shouldn’t even have to be told to do so).
I am involved in recruitment at a top tier firm. As Bleh commented above, surprisingly few LSS committee members seem to make it through the recruitment process (at least at our firm). There may be a few reasons for this.
Because LSS committee members are more likely to have had contact with the firms for the purposes of organising competition judging/sponsorship etc, they tend to be over-confident when they apply for clerkships. As a generalisation, they tend to come across as more arrogant and put in less effort and show less respect than the average candidate. It can sometimes seem that they think they are guaranteed an interview/clerkship because they have dealt with some of our HR department or lawyers in the past. Males in particular seem to suffer from this problem.
The very fact that they have dealt with our HR department in the past can come back to bite them. Some LSS committee members who have asked for our assistance/sponsorship have been very badly organised and have given our firm the run around, or they have been demanding and rude (eg providing very little prior notice and expecting immediate responses). Those things are noticed.
The habit of LSS members putting themselves on tables with law firms who sponsor events can similarly come back to bite them. There is a line between being friendly and welcoming, and being a suck up/overly familiar/arrogant/plain inappropriate (flashing underwear in full view of sponsors comes to mind – yes it happens).
We recruit some LSS committee members, and some of them have been fantastic, down to earth lawyers. But I can honestly say that being a LSS committee member is not looked upon more favourably than volunteering in any organisation/working a part time job etc.
My general advice to anyone looking to work at a law firm is to be respectful and appropriate in your dealings with law firms. Put in the effort and show you are interested. Show us that you are someone we would want to work with.
Be friendly and have a chat, but be careful not to come across as arrogant or overly familiar. Don’t suck up to partners whilst snubbing secretaries and junior lawyers. Don’t feel self entitled because of the university you went to, what your marks were like at high school or because of whatever student societies you joined – once you start working nobody cares. Really. All that matters is your ability to do good work and to get along with your colleagues and clients.
And if you have read this and fear that you may be a LSS “wanker” who has made the mistakes listed above don’t despair – there is usually at least one firm in each state who takes on a high proportion of LSS committee members. Just look at the previous committees and see where they ended up working. To everyone else – if you didn’t like your LSS committee members, you may want to avoid those firms.
One of the least interesting FS articles provokes the most responses. Predictable and sad – people running out of their comfortable holes to get all discombobulated about a non-issue.
QUOTALS are unprofessional as evidenced by their emails (that contain excessive exclamation marks and over the top excitement). The author won’t be so excited when they step into a top tier firm and realise such prose will not be acceptable. It is embarassing for QUOTALS and a terrible example to the student body.