A communique sent from the offices of Cleo Magazine that it wanted ‘hot lawyers’ to enter this year’s Cleo Bachelor of the

Year Competition appears to have been an ill-conceived plan.

Unsurprisingly, the magazine is struggling to find a ‘suitable male lawyer for its Bachelor of the Year Competition’. The email asks for readers to nominate lawyers who are ‘straight, single, charismatic and good-looking’.

However, recent news from Firm Spy reveals that, far from being ‘charismatic and good-looking’, lawyers are ‘fat and arrogant’. This revelation suggests that the CLEO search for a decent lawyer will bear little fruit, but possibly some pizza!

The official call-to-arms reads as follows:

‘From musicians and chefs to athletes and surgeons, the current list od CLEO Bachelor of the Year contenders features an eclectic mix of candidates covering everything and anything EXCEPT an attractive, single lawyer!’

Do you have what it takes to be the next CLEO Bachelor of the Year? If so, send your details to jbarry@acp.com.au.

Dont send applications to the Firm Spy… but DO send us your firm news!

As was predicted rightly by the Firm Spy in the wake of graduate deferrals, it has been announced today that global

accounting giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers has made a second wave of employee redundancies. Adding to the redundancies in November last year, a total of 170 workers have now been laid off from PWC.

A spokesperson for the accounting firm remarked:

‘In light of the current economic turmoil and continuing response by our clients to reduce their costs, we too have had to make the hard decision to reduce our staffing levels. PricewaterhouseCoopers is not immune to the impacts of the slowing economic environment. As a result 170 people across the firm have been made redundant. We have not taken this decision lightly and the firm is providing the affected people with counselling and support to transition through this difficult period.’

Those workers who are now jobless in a tightening job market are no doubt sickened by the fact that PriceWaterhouseCoopers posted revenue last financial year of $28 billion.

Do you think PWC could have afforded to keep these sacked employees? Send us your comments and news!

In what has reportedly taken the annual law school tradition of ‘pub-crawling’ to a new level, 60 law students fr

om the University of Western Australia have gone on a 3.5km drinking rampage, leaving a trail of destruction, ‘vomit-bags’ and an out-of-pocket publican.

The rules of the Blackstone Law Student Society Pub Crawl of May 2008, which resulted in two Northbridge pubs receiving a $1000 fines each last week, were:

• Travel with the group of law students to 10 predetermined, licensed venues;
• Consume 1 alcoholic beverage at each ‘pit stop’;
• Wear a plastic ’vomit bag’; and
• Ensure that no vomit hits the ground by vomitting into the ‘vomit bag’ if required.

Counsel representing the pubs helpfully submitted during the trial:

‘Basically it’s a timed event by students, with no spillage (allowed)… the first one to complete the course under the rules wins the race.’

Counsel also submitted that the pubs only agreed to grant the law students entry because they thought the ‘R U Barking Pub Crawl’, the name of the event, was a charitable event. Unsurpisingly, counsel was unable to get the pubs out of the steep fine, even though the Magistrate was a former vice-president of the Blackstone Society.

Ill-fitting suits and rotund derriers have suggested for years that lawyers are overweight and unhealthy. However,

only recently has confirmation of this arrived.

The magnitude of lawyer heft is, however, something that no one could have predicted.

A study has revealed that a whopping thirty per-cent of lawyers are overweight. To put this in perspective, only one other profession eclipsed lawyers in terms of corpulence; truckies!

A spokesperson on behalf of the company conduting the study said:

‘lawyers have … temptations with lavish business lunches and nights out. They are also synonymous with driving…cars and less likely to have time of exercise while holding down such a demanding job.’

In other news, the Firm Spy can reveal that a different study has established that lawyers are ‘arrogant’. In fact, such is the pervasive arrogance of lawyers that a self-proclaimed ‘business coach’ has established an enterprise which consults lawyers on ways to ‘avoid being labelled just another arrogant attorney.’ The ‘coach’ gives helpful tips on her website.

Compounding the plight of fat and arrogant lawyers is the fact that many now have no job.

Are you a fat, arrogant job-hunter? Send us your news and views!

An unnamed source informs the Firm Spy that the Chadwicks models who recently clerked at

Minter Ellison, one of whom lodged the now infamous La Porchetta Donkey Vote, in fact used to be a couple!  A Donkey-Duo, if you will.  If true, this revelation would likely be enough to make Minter Ellison this year’s winner of the Best Office Talent Law Firm of the Year Award.

Do you think Minters has done enough? Do you think two Chadwicks models, who conceivably hooked up whilst at the firm, make Minters the BOT Law Firm of the Year? Send us your thoughts!

No comment yet from the ‘enormous donkey’ , but a very interesting development has suggested that the Donkey-vote-submitting SC’s graduate job prospects may not be limited to cooking pizzas in the wake of The La Porchetta Donkey Vote Scandal.

The particular SC was not, of course, one of the paltry ten seasonal clerks to which Minters gave priority graduate employment offers. This figure of ten incidentally is reported to be more than a 200 percent decrease in Minter Ellison Melbourne office graduate priority offers.

The report which came into The Firm Spy this morning is that in between his studies and seasonal clerking, the Seasonal Clerk in question moonlights as a Chadwicks model.  That would make him the second Chadwicks model which Minter Ellison has had seasonal clerking at the firm in the last four months! Law work has never looked so good!

One imagines that the working conditions and pay of the Parisian catwalks are more favourable than the dreary offices of the Rialto Towers, so maybe the Supermodel Donkey will ultimately make asses out of us!

Famed for fresh ingredients and delicious pizzas, La Porchetta has developed into a thriving family eatery. Such has been the tremendous popularity of the restaurant, La Porchetta has established a considerable presence in the

Australian pizza industry, selling franchises all over the country. Catchy advertising jingles and a commitment to replicating its flavourful menu with precision has seen La Porchetta develop into an iconic Italo-Australian refectory.

La Porchetta, of course, has no history in the legal industry. Sure, cost-cutting Law firms beset with Global Finacial Crisis foreboding might visit La Porchetta for a cheap client lunch, but the restaurant has never, ever been known to provide legal services or graduate training. Pizzas, pastas, cheap eats and family fun. Not law.

Until now…

‘For years now, Minter Ellison Human Resources have required aspirant seasonal clerks to complete surveys/questionnaires at the culmination of their seasonal clerkship. These surveys are regarded by HR as a particularly useful tool to gain personal insights into seasonal clerks and do some covert analysis of competing commercial law firms.

The success of these seasonal clerk surveys is attributed primarily to the fact that the surveys are ‘anonymous’ – each SC can complete the surveys with as much, or as little detail as they wish, and hide behind the cloak of this ‘anonymity’.

So why not submit a donkey vote?!

The questions on the survey itself relate to things like: the seasonal clerk’s experience on the clerkship; areas where Minters can improve the seasonal clerkship program;  the clerk’s perception of Minter Ellison in the broader commercial law firm market, etc. Most importantly for present purposes, the survey also contains the following question:

Have you completed any other seasonal clerkships? If so, please contrast that seasonal clerkship experience with your experience here at Minter Ellison.

In answer to this relatively uncontroversial question, Minter Ellison HR received the following response:

‘I completed seasonal clerkships at La Porchetta and McDonalds and both places had better pay and working conditions than this shithole.’

In a virtually instantaneous act of retreat from its published survey policy, bewildered Minters HR staff thereupon called IT, asking them to identify the seasonal clerk who had submitted the questionnaire. In seconds flat, IT had

isolated the ISP address and traced it back to the PC of a Monash University seasonal clerk.

A donkey vote from an enormous ass!

Good luck with your law graduate career making pizzas mate – apparently the pay and working conditions in the industry are great!’

We await the SC’s response.

No comment yet from Minter Ellison on whether its Chinese Walls have more structural integrity than its seasonal clerk survey anonymity policy.

The future looks dim for Deacons Melbourne as over half of its articled clerks were today told that they would not be kept on after their one-year articles contract concludes on March 2.

Global economic gloom. Deacons downturn.

Nine of the seventeen article clerks were taken into meetings with HR and their principal and given the devastating news today. At least one of the nine made redundant has aske whether it would be possible for the firm to extend their employment until the date of their admission in mid-April.

There is no official word yet on whether this request has been granted.

The sacked nine are also concerned that the firm will not bear the cost of admission, which is many hundreds of dollars.

If you have any news, rumours or gossip, let the Firm Spy know first!

Several reports coming into the Firm Spy confirm that global accounting leader PriceWaterhouseCoopers has delayed the commencement dates for many graduates in some of its Australian offices.

We can confirm at this stage that graduate positions in the Tax and Advisory groups in both Melbourne and Sydney have been deferred until July this year. The graduates affected have not been offered any compensation for the change of dates.

This deferment comes after a considerable number of staff were made redundant in November last year and amid speculation that a second wave of redundancies will follow soon. The affected grads are being encouraged by informed sources to continue to apply for alternate employment out of concern that in July, they might be told their graduate position no longer exists.

News just to hand.  Clifford Chance has become the first Magic Circle firm to announce a formal redundancy scheme for ‘a number of lawyers’.  An initial round of ‘70-80’ layoffs will be undertaken through a ‘collective consultation process’. According to the Spy’s sources, the following email was sent by the firm’s London managing partner on Thursday:

This note is to tell you that we are proposing to make a number of lawyers redundant in the London office.

The downturn in economic activity over the past year is affecting many of our clients and, as a result, many areas of our business. We believe this is likely to remain the case for some time to come. Like any organisation, we have to ensure that our staffing levels are appropriate to our volume of business activity.

As a consequence, we are proposing to make approximately 70-80 lawyers redundant and we will be entering into a collective consultation process. Note that trainees will not be affected by these proposals.

All lawyers are invited today to a series of short presentations in the Auditorium. Trainees are invited to a separate session. Please see attached a schedule showing when all these will take place. A short explanatory note will also be circulated later today to ensure those involved are fully aware of what is happening.

In addition, we will be carrying out a review of Business Services across the London office over the coming weeks; depending on the outcome of this review, there is a possibility of further redundancies in Business Services in due course. A separate communication will be sent out to Business Services shortly.

The decision to make redundancies is not one that we have made lightly but, having seen the economy deteriorate for some months now, it is clear that these actions need to be taken in order to ensure that the London office is in a strong position as and when the economic environment improves.

Jeremy

Interestingly, while ‘trainees will not be affected’ by the redundancies, they are still invited to a briefing session.  This bodes ill for associates at all London firms, and one wonders if it will set a precedent elsewhere.  Is your firm laying off?  Put the heat on: tell the Spy.