Simply exceptional Deloitte firm spying has enabled us to break yet another major story today: the disagreeably garish Giam Swiegers has been given the nod for another term.

ill catch the bastards!

Wanker Flamboyant shirts and all!

6 dissident partners in Deloitte? Are you listening KPMG, EY and PWC? And if we are doing so great, why are pay reviews and promotions still on an icy lake? ====== attached message ====== Greetings, This is a message to the whole of the firm on the results of the CEO Succession Ballot. I have advised the partners by voicemail earlier today. Deloitte is certainly different. In uncertain times we have maintained our determination to meet our plan and the overwhelming endorsement by the partners of a third term for our CEO Giam Swiegers just demonstrates the alignment and confidence of this firm. The results of the 379 votes cast in the ballot as to whether the CEO should get a third term are: YES : 373 NO : 2 ABSTAIN : 4 This is also a real credit to confidence in our CEO as we come to the end of our 2010 Plan and move to our 2015 Plan. It also goes beyond the strategic to the range of other initiatives that make us different such as our people program and the Inspiring Women Initiative. Regards Wayne Goss Chairman

Thanks for the update Wayne. Any naming and shaming of the dissidents? Giam’s iron-fisted ruling would soon see them de-equitised, one would have thought.

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Last Friday we reporte that the Mallesons partnership had decided to give staff a Christmas bonus, of sorts. In response to the Mallesons December Pay Run of the Milliner, we received the following comments:

get gandalf now

Actually many of the good staff, i.e. the solicitors that are above budget are extremely mad that a 3% one off payment is being made to all staff. It is true now there is a 7k gap between graduates billing 30% of a 6 hour budget and third year lawyers billing 145% of a 6.5 hour budget and working late nights and weekends while others toddle along at 5 to enjoy their lives.
We were told the pay freeze would be reviewed based on how the firm is tracking to budget. Now we are told the firm is not tracking to budget so the pay freeze stays but everyone is getting a 3% rise. How can MSJ justify paying those below budget the same as those smashing their budgets in a GFC? It is a slap in the face to those putting in the hours to build the firm.
MSJ may be a great place to work, in terms of the people and the work we do, but that doesn’t keep junior lawyers earning less than people at other firms happy. Add to that people billing heaps so those well below budget getting the same bonsuses - seems like a recipie for losing good junior lawyers and keeping the useless pricks.

We also received the following comments on Friday:

I am cynical enough to believe that the bean counters did the analysis and decided that this was the absolute minimum that they could get away with to prevent a mass mutiny next year.

It’s the bonus you have when you don’t have a bonus - more importantly, it doesn’t address any of the structural and cultural issues which they have created (by way of salary freezes) by paying lawyers who’ve been in the game almost 2 years now about 20c per week more than they’ll be giving to the bright but clueless young things coming through the door in Feb. Don’t expect that these people won’t notice this, Mallesons.

As such, they are probably wasting the money - people will still be pissed off because it just comes across as tight.

That said, this is a great sign for the industry as a whole and I predict will be the first of many such moves over coming weeks. Remains to be seen whether other firms are slightly less scrooge-like leading up to the Xmas period. I suspect some firms in particular will still be handing out lumps of coal in the stockings, though…

How is your firm tracking? Is it bonus season? Let the Firm Spy know first!

In an article appearing in Saturday’s Herald Sun, “Melbourne’s top 10 party girls” were asked to offer their opinions on what makes a good party and how it is that they have developed into such partying icons. The exclusively blonde association of party-animals, depicted in figure-hugging dresses, are identifiable not only by their good looks, but also their vocational stature.

look what i found in the trash!

Melissa Hetherington is a presenter on Coxy’s Big Break (not a reference to flatulence, we’re told);

Lucy McIntosh is a Chadwicks model.

Christina Hallett is a sales manager for Eyegasm Brands.

Our favourite, however, is Anna Jennings-Edquist - the girlfriend of radio disc jockey Hamish Blake. Ms Jennings Edquist is an Arts-Law student and had the following insightful things to say about her journey into partying royalty:

Lives: Elwood

Most likely party date? My boyfriend radio star Hamish Blake or favourite partners in crime Vanessa McGlynn and Cassie Lane.

What makes a good party? Good company and feeling relaxed. If you’ve got those elements the party could be held in a dumpster and it’d still be fun.

Dream plus-one? Jake Gyllenhaal so we can skip the party …

Sign that the party’s over? When you think it doesn’t matter if you take your shoes off. It does.

Handbag essential for a night out? Lip gloss, phone and wallet. And maybe mace, depending on where you’re going.

Presumably Hamish is a bit Donnie Darko that his better half is fantasising about Jake Gyllenhaal… but on the other hand, he does have this budding lawyer A-lister party animal.

Perhaps it’s time to take a leaf out of Andy Lee’s book and upgrade to a supermodel…

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We reported last week that Mallesons’ pay freeze is apparently showing no signs of thawing. This remains true, despite encouraging news received earlier today that the firm is giving staff a Christmas bonus, of sorts.

Thanks to the anonymous Mallesons spy for the following information:

Warlock Milliner has just delivered some long overdue good news - we’re getting some money out of the partnership and just in time for Christmas! Not that it is very much, mind you. “3% of your wage” in the form of a bonus in the “December pay run”. Is this the “pay run of the milliner”?

It is interesting that the partners have chosen to carefully calibrate the bonus as a one-off payment, rather than a more permanent increase in our wages, annualised in each monthly pay.  This means that when the time comes for our annual (and much anticipated) salary review in June/July 2010, the raises, if any, will come from a lower base. Clever, Gandalf!

Yes, very clever indeed! Still, some money is better than no money, even if it is only 3%. Hat tip to Mallesons for showing some merriment as this increasingly festive time of year.

Apparently even necromancers celebrate Christmas!

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We reported several weeks ago the technonological indiosyncracy of Deloitte - “send the punters voicemails, that way a bad news email cant be flicked to media”.

This is excellent in theory but in practice, if you’ve got a catalogue of disgruntled employees feverishly transcribing the contents of the voicemail, then, bad news can still travel fast.

Take, for example, the horrible news that a couple of Deloitte workers were reportedly sacked for organising a weekend bag of sniff over a Deloitte-owned communication device.

We received the following message from an anonymous Deloitte spy a few days ago:

Hi, I am a new follower of firmspy and this is my first contribution. My latest news is about Deloitte. Recently, we received two voicemails from Keith Skinner, CFO, (both on Friday afternoons) that the current pay freeze would remain in place at December but normal promotions would still occur as per normal. However, some service lines have decided to deliberately misinterpret this policy and have ruled out promotions altogether. The firm and partners have played on the uncertainty around this issue by refusing to announce which policy is correct. Some partners’ response to the issue has been whether the employees preferred redundancies or a promotion? Tough choice? Not really!

So what’s the story Skinner? Get the disagreeably garish Giam Swiegers on the phione! It’s not the old trick of increasing a worker’s charge-out rate (look, he’s now a fifth year!) but failing to increase the same worker’s wage, is it?! It is probably unsurprising that Giam and the team can afford a half million dollar partnership summit.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views.

It is very clear to us that the Firm Spy Remuneration Report has thus far been a ratings bonanza. Our internet traffic has taken off on (what our favourite special comments person would term) a “semi-ballistic trajectory”. And so, today we move onto Blake Dawson.

when enough is enough

By way of background, Blake Dawson has undergone a GFC period as tumultuous as any of the Big 6, though its partners still pocketed up to a reported $1,200,000. Distringuishable from other firms, however, Blakes has repeatedly deployed its PR machine with an almost comical modus operandi - break bad news to staff and then try to score points in the media with half-truths and distortion.

An excellent example is the Blake Dawson pay-rise-pay-freeze. At the time, the firm denied that it was introducing a blanket pay freeze, instead telling media it would still:

‘recognise exceptional performances but in a more focused way than in previous years.’

What is this “focus” rubbish? The firm later clarified, after the Firm Spy suggested that its pay position was less about “remuneration focus” and more about “remuneration f*ck-us”, that 30% of staff had received pay rises. We subsequently revealed, thanks to the excellent work of a Blakes firm spy, that the figure reported by the firm of 30% included raises given to newly admitted lawyers and elevations to SA. All of a sudden, 30% became 18%! Let’s hope that half of the 18% given pay rises weren’t support staff, otherwise less than one in ten lawyers would have received a pay rise. F*ck us? Err… maybe it is time for a “f*ck-you” strike! It wouldn’t be the first time that a revolt has been mooted. Little wonder why Blakes lawyer turn to chicanery like hijacking.

…And onto the figures reported by our anonymous Blake Dawson spies.

Firm Spy cannot guarantee the veracity of the figures quoted. They come from anonymous sources.

Sydney

Summer Clerk

Not admitted. Daily billable hours target - 5 hours. Salary - $900 per week. Comments:

Summer clerk for the upcoming break. Salary $900 incl super. Free gym membership for the 12 week period.

1-2 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2007 and June 2008. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $86,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $86,000. Perks - free gym, subsidised further education.

2-3 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2006 and June 2007. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $88,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $88,000. Perks - free gym, purchase additional leave, subsidised further education.

3-4 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2005 and June 2006. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $110,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $110,000. Perks - free gym.

6-7 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2002 and June 2003. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $128,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $128,000. Perks - blackberry, free gym, subsidised further education.

7-8 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2001 an June 2002. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $185,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $200,000. Perks - blackberry, free gym, subsidised further education.

Melbourne

0-1 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2008 and June 2009. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $67,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $70,000. Perks - purchase additional leave. Comments:

Morale is terrible. Many people I know will leave when hiring picks up again - so the firm is going to have a shortage of lawyers when many take off for greener pastures. Very small pay rise for those who were newly admitted (credit where it is due - any pay rise is better than none) from $67k to $70k. That is where the stats used to come from  - ie they gave x% of employees pay rises. The truth is, there were no pay rises for lawyers with 1, 2 and 3 years PQE. Revenue was only 1-2% down from the previous financial year [ED - it was actually lower by a mere 0.5%], staff have been shed, discretionary costs are down, lawyers are working long hours and harder than ever. By the sound of it, partners aren’t feeling any impact from the GFC. A couple of people I know did get a “bonus” in the form of a $200 gift voucher from Myer. WOW!!!

4-5 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2004 and June 2005. Daily billable hours target - 6.5hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $90,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $92,500. Perks - blackberry.

5-6 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2003 and June 2004. Daily billable hours target - 7 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $92,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $94,000. Perks - blackberry, free fruit. Comments:

The unfriendly work environment, uncollegiate atmosphere, uninteresting work, lack of support/mentoring, no emphasis on development, not enough client contact, under-resourced, not enough emphasis on expertise building, hopeless HR team [sic]*

Canberra

Graduate

Not admitted. Daily billable hours target - 6 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $68,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $68,000. Perks - free gym, subsidised further education.

[ED - another ACT grad gave us the following entry]

Graduate

Not admitted. Daily billable hours target - 5.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $61,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $61,000. Perks - free gym.

Brisbane

Graduate

Not admitted. Daily billable hours target - 6.5 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $65,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $75,000. Perks - free gym, subsidised further education.

*yes, the comments just cut off at this point.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

It has been far too long since the Firm Spy has received anything from its (formerly very lively) KPMG spies. Nothing really substantial, in fact, since we broke news that the KPMG Poo Poll had received Royal Assent from the requisite 70% of staff. The upshot of this was that if “market conditions deteriorated significantly”, KPMG partners would have the option of placing staff on a leave of absence on 30% pay, among other things.

or the whole? … lets ask an audit partner!

Now, it appears KPMG partners have decided this deal was too generous. We received the following anonymous tip from a KPMG spy last night:

KPMG are offering “voluntary” work agreements over the christmas break. In effect, divisions which are still slow on work, have been encouraged to take leave under the same terms as the temporary work agreements, but you pick when you take the leave. Therefore, voluntary - and means PR wise, the firm never exercised it’s right to put people off on 30% pay. All the while other divisions are working overtime, and they refuse to allocate staff from other slow divisions, as even though there are staff doing nothing - this would allocate the income away from their cost centres. The staff in the busier divisions are disappearing at the hint of a better offer. Perhaps KPMG needs to be thinking about the whole more than the sum of its parts, especially while it’s falling to pieces.

Oh, we get it - if enough volunteers sign up for a Christmas “voluntary work agreement” - the old scheme of forcing people to take leave at 30% pay wont be invoked. Excellent number-crunching! … is a hoarded “good” banned KPMG audit partner responsible?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

We found the following comments penned by an anonymous Minter Ellison spy in the Lawyer Remuneration Survey to be so comical that we decided to dedicate an entire post to it. A tirade of the very highest order ! If you would like the more specific details of Minter Ellison Firm Spy Remuneration Report, click here.

your Senior Associateship begins now, son

Comments

Minters must win the award for Australia’s tightest law firm. A salary wide freeze continues even though the managing partner of our firm admits we are making budget. Many SA’s don’t even get a Blackberry (all lawyers get them at some firms). Rise to the lofty height of SA and you will get a mobile phone though… What is this, the mid 90’s?!

There’s a hostile approach to technology - three people need to sign off before you get the “privilege” of being able to log in from home… apparently if they cant see you doing the work, you can’t be trusted to do it. To make it worse there’s a lot of incentive to work from home because the offices are old, the chairs are unergonomic and the fit out is falling apart (I’m being serious!).

Perks don’t even exist: even the fruit box has been stopped. The printers and photocopiers break down with amazing regularity and the library is so underfunded it has practically turned into a museum. Sadly the tightness doesn’t stop with staff - client functions are embarrassing compared to other firms … just because you offer wine doesn’t make it a classy function.

The tightness apparently doesn’t stop with the client functions either - recall last year’s Minter Ellison staff Christmas party which ran out of beer? More troubling is the question raised as to whether Minter Ellison can lawyers be trusted on their lonesome. Without detracting from the sheer brilliance of the comments, we would point out that some Minter Ellison billing narrations have been characterised as “opaque” in the past. But still, what gives!?

We agree that the firm is probably making budget. No less than NINE partners were made up earlier in the year. Given that a whopping 40% of partners are reported to have taken home $1,100,000.00 in the twelve months to June this year, it is hard to see how things can have suffered a downturn. Plus they’ve got all that extra cash laying around to throw at excellent initiatives like the Minter Ellison branded coffee cup!

If you have got a gripe that you want to tell the legal/corporate community, add your comments to the Remuneration Survey, email us direct (news@firmspy.com) or post info in the anonymous goss box.

[EDIT - thanks to the spy who informed us that Melissa no longer works at Minter Ellison, having moved first to Deacons (working in Construction underneath partner Keith Redenbach), before taking an inhouse role at Stockland. If her employment history is any indication, perhaps Melissa would make a better fist of “speed-dating” rather than internet-dating. Mel, ditch Oasis Active and click this link. Again, best of luck]

Firm Spy - Anonymous Match Maker

[EDIT # 2 - Melissa, a few Firm Spy team members have just checked your photo again (available here), and we think you are projecting an entirely decent image (in contrast to what that date-wanker suggested).  Are you seriously struggling on the dating scene? If so, then we’re here to help. If you think Melissa is a catch, send us your details either by email (news@firmspy.com) or simply say so in the comments below. Melissa, we eagerly await direct correspondence from you.]

We found the following quotes from Minter Ellison lawyer (and apparent serial dater) Melissa Hammett, reported by News.com.au in an article profiling online-dating, to be excellent material for a Tuesday:

[online dating is akin to a] a marketing war. Melissa Hammett, a lawyer from Sydney, discovered this when a date broke the news to her one night.

“During our date, I was trying to tell him about myself and my personality - just trying to be genuine - when he suddenly told me that I really needed to start focusing more on how I sell myself.  He didn’t think I was selling myself properly and needed to look at the image I was projecting.  Well, you can’t imagine Mr Darcy ever saying that to Elizabeth,” Melissa said, referring to the main characters in Jane Austen’s classic love tale Pride and Prejudice.

“What happens is that you go out on more dates, but less frequently with people you’re genuinely attracted to.  First dates used to really mean something - there was a real connection - whereas now, they’re more like a job interview.” The best romances are when you’re with a guy who’s exactly like a friend, but who you want to be with romantically.”

Hmmm … if we’re reading this right, Melissa Hammett’s job interview with Minter Ellison was like some kind of date.  Was there any… heading upstairs for a coffee?

Good luck to Melissa at this year’s Christmas party merry-go-round. Who knows, there might be a:

• fat, arrogant lawyer;
• a bloke who fancies himself as a CLEO Bachelor of the Year; or
• a bestiality-loving colleague

…who you’re “genuinely attracted to”.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Top quality Clayton Utz firm spying has enabled us to break another major story this morning. A very big thank you to the anonymous Clutz spy who sent us the following news:

size and shape IN YOUR FACE!

We don’t normally hear much about all the upstairs politics at Clayton Utz, but the place seems to be exploding over the choice of the new CEO. A group of us in Sydney pieced together the following on Friday night. We knew something was up when doors started opening and shutting furiously all Friday afternoon with partners in more animated conversation than we have seen before. Arms were waving and they seemed pretty worked up (through the walls you get some very good information when they raise their voices). Then we received an all staff email late Friday from Linda Evans (one of the board members) that Darryl McDonough from Brisbane had been appointed as the new CEO (don’t know much about him). We were not told much other than he was the former CU chairman and a director of a listed company called Super Cheap Auto (plus all the usual talk about “vision” etc etc).

But then it began to get interesting. One of us heard that McDonough was meant to be retiring soon (he is in his early sixties) but Evans had begged him to stay and be the CEO. He was the board chairman a few years ago and appointed David Fagan the current CEO. He then retired and Evans got her job as the current chairperson. Now it has come full circle back to him as CEO. But then it got really interesting. One of the senior lawyers has heard that Evans told the partners at the AGM a week ago that she wanted the firm to change its size and shape. Apparently some partners think this is code for dumping 30 to 40 partners! I guess “size and shape” sounds a lot better than “Partner Involuntary Redundancy Program”. I just hope that my partner isn’t part of all of this as I don’t like my chances if he is. Stay tuned it looks like there could be a lot more to this. Not sure how this looked in the other offices. Clutz Sydney lawyer

Our heart bleeds for the Clutz partners whose futures are now apparently clouded. These folks have delivered no less than “three blows” to Sydney graduates and have been embroiled in allegations of:

• presiding over a network of “whorebags”;
• fostering a culture of harassment;
• imposing involuntary leaves of absence on staff;
• implemented a “Claytons” involuntary redundancy scheme; and
• underhandedly introduced a pay freeze.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!