Sack Me! Mallesons ‘Rejects’ Voluntary Redundancy Applications

We reported in July the news that Australia’s leading economist wizard law firm partner, Mallesons‘ Robert Milliner, had looked into his crystal ball, consulted with the spirit world, and decided that the time was right for a voluntary redundancy scheme.

Gandalf rejects applications

We later reported the rumour that Mallesons staff were unhappy with the size of the voluntary package. Like Elton John, we thought that Mallesons staff would therefore say goodbye to the yellow brick road out of the office.

Well, not so!

We received the following comments from an anonymous Mallesons spy yesterday:

… the voluntary redundancy package announced by Mallesons Stephen Jaques was taken up by many staff. When i say ‘many’, I mean more than the firm cared to lose… Although we haven’t been told who took it or how many took it in total, we have been told that many staff who applied for the package but were rejected.

You’ll recall that Robert Milliner announced that Mallesons had hoped to shed 5% of staff with the scheme. Presumably this means that if the above rumour from our anonymous spy is true, more than 5% applied to be made redundant. According to the BRW Top 500 Private Companies list, Mallesons has 1,842 employees and if 5% applied and were accepted, this means the firm will lose 92 employees.

If our calculations are correct and Mallesons loses 92 employees it will mean that the firm now has less employees than its nearest national competitor in terms of revenue – Minter Ellison – and a paltry 4 employees more then Freehills. Yet compared with Minters and Freehills, Mallesons can boast revenue that is higher by $59,000,000.00. Mallesons also has the fewest partners among these firms: Minters has 297; Freehills has 212; and Mallesons has 191.

Less partners + less employees + higher revenue = (you guessed it!) higher partner profit!

Will Robert treat himself to a new cape? Send the Firm Spy your news and views!