After a long year of denigrating major Australian corporate firms we thought it apt, at this festive time of year, to reverse the trend and pay homage to one firm whose conduct over the preceding year is worthy of recognition.

A round-table Firm Spy discussion was held to discuss this award (we’re giving it the fancy name “Firm Spy Corporate Firm of the Year”) and we’ve settled on Freehills. The firm has acted with considerable integrity over the last year and for a variety of reasons is deserving of this prestigious award. Yes, we’re being serious.

excellence is a habit

But before we delve into this positive stuff, let’s pause for a moment to look at what nincompoop Freehills managing partner and chief executive Gavin Bell said recently in an interview with BRW (26/11):

What is the best piece of advice you have received?

Sitting in a meeting room in Mumbai, I saw a quote from Aristotle: “You are what you do. In this sense, excellent is a habit, not a series of acts”.

A lesson you’ve never forgotten?

Don’t take your clients for granted.

How do you achieve work-life balance?

I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. Work is part of life. You need to enjoy your work. If you don’t, you will probably never achieve balance.

So on this “balanced” view you have of the world, Gav, life’s major lesson involves corporate clients and your guiding ethos, scribbled on a decaying Indian scripture, is to be “excellent” at all costs?

And what about those comments from Freehills partner Tony Woods in last week’s AFR (9/12)?

Freehills partner Tony Woods said employers had become more cautious about their legal risks from Christmas parties over the past five years and this year there was a focus on responsible drinking and monitoring employees at parties to check who was drinking too much.

“The days of unlimited beer and wine on the table are over,” he said.

These comments are at odds with our report in July that Freehills had been luring seasonal clerks with booze-fuelled parties. We quoted an ex-Freehills seasonal clerk who said:

the life of a summer clerk is about much more than research file notes, reviewing documents and client conferences. Summer is the peak period in the social calendar of law firms, with lavish practice group and firm-wide Christmas parties for [sic] to enjoy. Freehills also puts on … weekly Friday night drinks. [T]here are plenty of inter-firm clerk events, including weekly drinks … a cruise and a day at the races…

Woodsy, it doesn’t sound to us like the days of guzzling unlimted grog are over!

But alas, we’re here to award a prize and despite the familiar corporate nonsense reported above, a very deserving recipient is Freehills.

Freehills has taken a consistently measured, moderate approach over the course of a tortuous last year. The firm has not implemented a major redundancy program (AAR, Mallesons, Blake Dawson and Minter Ellison have all reduced headcount significantly since the outset of the GFC). And, unlike (in our opinion) its other major competitor Clayton Utz, when it’s media man Gavin Bell told the AFR last week that Freehills “took the view that we were going to retain people, that we were not going to lay off people, that that was a last resort”, it is actually truth. Recall the “Claytons Redundancies”?

Instead, we’re informed that the firm took the unique approach of managing staff levels by seconding an inordinate number of staff to clients, sometimes at cost. The partners therefore took a financial hit. But in the process, they fostered a deeper relationship with clients, kept staff happy with a chilled-out few months in another office, and will be able to respond to the upward trend without recourse to recruitment agencies (who charge a premium for their services).

The innovative means by which Freehills has proactively sought to retain staff is also witnessed in its development of the “executive counsel” role: a kind of pit-stop before partnership. Whereas we’re told Mallesons knocked on the door of many of its senior associates at the time of its voluntary redundancy scheme and informed them that partnership was a very distant prospect, Freehills created a new role to keep staff happy and motivated. Yes, we maligned the “executive counsel” role at the time of its introduction, but now viewed in the context of the Freehills’ conduct over the year it is clear that the firm was seeking to be innovative and to promote staff retention. Freehills was also transparent at the time about the need to maintain the value of equity points (which initially elicited our angry post).

But more than its novel, transparent approach to managing and staff, Freehills has been the first to act on pay. It is to be emphatically commended for this because, we believe, each of the other firms have been waiting for a major competitor to act before they themselves swing into action. Look at Blake Dawson for example: presently rumoured to be a whopping 20% over budget. Freehills has been transparent about its process and has had the integrity to frame its decision-making with reference to partner profit (we will share the money if partners make more money, but wont if they don’t). We haven’t seen another firm couch the pay freeze in these terms. Honesty is a wonderful thing, even if it comes from the mouths of disgustingly rich partners who are deliberating over whether their preference is for $1,500,000.00 or $1,475,000.00 this financial year.

So Mr Gavin Bell and Team Freehills, this has been an excellent adventure. The Firm Spy commends you for acting with the least disregard for employees and their interests of the major corporates in 2009. The award and the glory is yours.

An infinitely wise Greek fellow once said to me after taking a major toke of some prehistoric herb - “you are what you do. In this sense, excellent is a habit, not a series of acts”. Let’s hope we haven’t just seen a series of acts.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

This is an interesting one. We could be off the mark here, but on our reading of the below leaked email from Clayton Utz mind speaker Chief Executive Partner David Fagan, there was almost an expectation that the email would be leaked and so covert attempts have been made to score points. For example, a ridiculous number of high-profile M&A transaction are cited.

For this reason, we have used our discretion to edit some small details out of the email. The last thing we would want is for our site to be responsible for any unmerited kudos being directed at arguably Australia’s tightest corporate firm.

you blow my mind David

This from an anonymous Clayton Utz spy last night:

Its going to be a very chilly Christmas for all Clutz staff who received the following email yesterday confirming that the firm, quite outrageously, believes that it is justified in maintaining the current pay freeze.. and a very Merry Christmas to you too Mr Fagan!

As you know, earlier this year the firm made the decision to hold pay levels for all staff in anticipation of a drop in demand for legal services in FY10. In my recent office strategy briefings, I said that we would review this decision in November, based on the firm’s activity levels and following November’s release of the results of the Mercer Legal Remuneration Survey (July 2009). Although we are currently achieving our reduced financial budget, we are still experiencing lower work levels in a number of parts of the firm relative to our position in FY09. As at the end of November, on a year to date activity basis, the firm’s revenue was $11.9M behind last financial year. Plus, we are facing increasing fee pressure from clients. The legal services market remains subdued and other law firms are facing similar challenges.

The AFR (Legal Partnership Survey, published 10 &11 December) states that the major Australian law firms have shed 500 senior associates and lawyers since June 2009. By comparison, Clayton Utz has focused on retaining jobs where possible and continues to take a cautious approach to managing costs. The Mercer survey confirms that the majority of firms (including Mallesons, Allens and Freehills) held pay for all staff across all locations, including for those lawyers moving up a year of professional experience. The survey reports median pay increases in all locations for all career levels was 0%. There are, however, positive signs of improvement and we remain optimistic that the recent increase in work levels will be ongoing. For example, over the past few months we have seen a material increase in M&A activity across the firm including a number of significant and high profile matters. These include: advising XXX on the proposed acquisition of XXX; advising XXX on the sale of entities to XXX and advising XXX on its takeover offer for XXX.

On balance, we believe it would be premature to undertake firm-wide adjustments to legal remuneration now, ahead of the next legal remuneration review in July 2010. However, in line with our desire to pay for performance, we have identified a number (approximately 83) of consistently high performing lawyers who will be rewarded in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the firm throughout FY09 and FY10, in January 2010. We will review Shared Services remuneration as usual in April 2010

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continuing commitment to the firm and wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season

Regards David Fagan

Disgraceful lack of speaking your mind there David. Moreover, if there was such a focus on the retention of jobs, and if Clutz proposes to use this as a justification for for the continuance of the pay freeze, explain the repeated reports of Claytons Redundancies. Speak your mind Dave!

Perhaps the most objectionable part of the email are Fagan’s references to what other firms are doing and his deference to the Mercer remuneration survey. If the dollars are in the bank, which they are, then how other firms are acting as all but an impertinence. Act unilaterally. Be a market leader. Speak your mind David!

We thought the following comments, also received last night though from a different Clutz spy, give a good commentary as to how Clutz lawyers feel about the email:

Clayton Utz’s David Fagan has just sent out a firm wide email telling us that there will be no pay review this year. He said: - firm revenue $11.9m behind last year’s performance - bonuses will be paid to 83 high performers, “in line with our desire to pay for performance” (which means that those who don’t get bonuses can assume they didn’t “perform”?) - Clayton Utz opted to retain lawyers where possible instead of making people redundant - increasing fee pressure from clients - “On balance, we believe it would be premature to undertake firm-wide adjustments to legal remuneration now” (except for partners, obviously) - states” The Mercer survey confirms that the majority of firms (including Mallesons, Allens and Freehills) held pay for all staff across all locations, including for those lawyers moving up a year of professional experience. The survey reports median pay increases in all locations for all career levels was 0%.” (forgetting that Mallys staff got bonuses and more annual leave - we get nothing) - states that there are signs of improvement and reasons to be optimistic - “there are, however, positive signs of improvement and we remain optimistic that the recent increase in work levels will be ongoing” (i.e. reasons for partners to be optimistic that they can expect more coin, and reason for us to be pessimistic that we can expect to be doing more work for less money) All in all, not surprising at all, but still… would be nice to at least keep our salaries in line with CPI…

We agree. Do you?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

We may have missed the scoop on the Freehills ‘two-tiered’ pay-freeze thaw (a major report on Freehills will be posted tomorrow, so check back for more on this), but today the Firm Spy is back where it belongs - breaking the big stories.

Thanks to the audacious work of an anonymous Minters spy we can today reveal an email sent to all staff yesterday by Minters Chief Executive Partner John Weber:

As you know, it has been a challenging 12 months for us, as it has for all law firms and our clients.  Revenue for this financial year is down on the same time last financial year and while we have performed well against budgets, they were set well down in response to difficult market conditions.  Despite some early signs of recovery in some parts of the economy, we are yet to see a return to normal trading conditions.

Our response to the downturn, which has included ongoing expenditure management and strong strategic focus, has helped us weather the downturn relatively well.  Consistent with earlier commitments, the firm will now be conducting mid-financial year staff salary reviews.

A Minters partner hears a pay review appeal

The mid-year staff salary reviews will be performance-based, will have regard to market salary data and will be completed in December (effective 1 January 2010).  Given market conditions, increases will generally be modest or take the form of a small bonus.  As in other years, not all members of staff will have their salaries increased or receive a bonus.  Each member of staff will receive a letter notifying them of the result of their salary review.  At this stage I anticipate that we will conduct our usual salary review process with effect from 1 July 2010.

The market-wide softening in demand for legal services requires us to continue with our expenditure management program.  Our key challenges will be to continue to focus on our clients and to work as one firm, so that we emerge from this downturn a stronger and more robust firm.

I would like to thank you all once again for your contribution throughout the past year.

So… staff will get a letter informing them of the result of the “review”? Is there any procedural fairness? A right of appeal? Or do staff, once again, have to put their faith in the integrity of partners to “do the right thing” by them? We smell a rat John!

Excellent choice of language in relation to the subsequent pay review too: “I anticipate that we will conduct our usual salary review process with effect from 1 July 2010.” Sounds to us like John is foreshadowing that some staff could remain on the same wage for two years or longer. Oh, the anticipation!

Our anonymous Minters spy had the following comments to add:

Well played John.  Performance-based salary reviews are a long overdue step in the right direction.  However, will modest pay rises and small bonuses satisfy those who have been performing and are exceeding their budgets by not so modest amounts?  Good luck to the firm when it sees a return to normal trading conditions. Unless the firm can do better than modest increases and small bonuses in July 2010, the early signs of an exodus will follow closely behind.

An astute observation by the spy that an exodus will follow. Miserly partners will then have to start searching for huge dollars to pay lofty recruitment fees. Our guess is that these whopping recruitment fees haven’t been factored into the alchemistic Minters “budget”.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that Minter Ellison has remained true to its word that it would conduct a salary review at year’s end, while Mallesons apparently shelved plans for a formal review and instead gave staff a paltry 3% bonus. Moreover, an anonymous Mallesons spy sent us the following comments:

When the Mallesons pay freeze was introduced it was implemented on the basis that it would be reviewed in December against how the firm was tracking against budget.

Are we to infer that the apparently broken promise to Mallesons staff can be traced to an unrealistically high budget forecast, or is this yet more evidence that a decision has been made to “buy time” to keep the Mallesons pay freeze in place?

Has your firm moved? Let the Firm Spy know first. Send us your news and views!

Attractive. Intelligent. Successful. Funny. Endearing.

another excellent catch

These are but a few of the adjectives that we would use describe the delightful, yet surprisingly unlucky-in-love former Deacons/Minters lawyer Melissa Hammett.

We reported a few weeks ago that Hammett had taken the curious step of speaking out in media about the hell that is her reality: unable to find a decent fellow in the entire nation:

“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.”

We initially didn’t buy it. Heck, Mel strikes us as a good catch! So we asked her to get in touch with us. Melissa took the bait and wrote us the following email:

Dear Firm Spy

Thank you for your kind offer to help me pull an eligible bloke (24 November 2009).

Having said that, do you really think it’s wise to set lawyers up with other lawyers? The perils of intra-profession dating are well documented.

First, there’s the gossip. (Yes, your secretary really does read your emails. And forward them on.)

Second, as Spencer Tracy once said: ‘Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called in-breeding; from this comes idiot children…and other lawyers’.

More disturbingly, there’s always a high risk that an otherwise eligible date will vote himself off the island by seeking to discuss legal theory, budgets or (even worse) the subtle distinctions between top tier/second tier/ mid tier/ boutique firms.

On the other hand, I have noticed (and being an alleged ’serial dater’ - 24 November 2009 - feel well qualified to comment) that the words ‘I’m a lawyer’ tend to provoke horror (and occasional abuse) from  prospective beau.

I seek your counsel. Should lawyers date other lawyers? (It worked for Barack and Michelle, I suppose). Or should it be outlawed? Perhaps your readers have a view on this important topic.

And finally, for the record, yes, I do like pina coladas.

Kind regards

Mel Hammett.

I had the pleasure of spending a memorable few days in the company if Mel Hammett on a national Minter Ellison Construction Group junket to Queensland a few years back. She caught my eye even then, but as I look now at the photo you linked to, it appears that the years have been incredibly kind to her. I am now married and off the market, but think that Mel would make an excellent catch.

We received a few replies to our call yesterday for news on the way firms are handling the Christmas shut-down. In essence, we were hoping to find out if any firms were using the opportunity - a traditional down time in the calendar - to force staff to take unused annual leave.

Surprise surprise - notorious tightwads AAR are rumoured to have implemented a very tight scheme in which staff will lose almost half of their annual leave entitlements. This from an anonymous AAR spy last night:

put your annual leave in the bag, b*tch!

Re: your story on involuntary leave- Allens is closing Christmas Eve this year and re-opening on the 11th. All staff forced to take leave unless they have the approval of their section head to work during the office closure. No extra leave is given to compensate for this, so you’ve lost 8 of your 20 annual leave days for the year as the firm shifts the burden of a traditionally quiet period onto its staff (and justifies it by saying “the firm believes it is important for staff to spend this time with their families”). Interestingly, last year we re-opened a week earlier…

No doubt our best mate, AAR spokesperson Chris Fogarty, was behind the “spend time with your families” rigmarole.

Meanwhile, it appears Mallesons have finally gotten into the festive cheer by actually giving staff some extra leave. We received the following from an anonymous Mallesons spy yesterday:

Mallesons is closing on Christmas eve and will not officially reopen until 11 January. All told, staff are forced to spend 5 days of annual leave, but will receive 3.5 days of annual leave for free. If people have urgent work, they will not be required to take those 5 days, but this is subject to partner approval… I think everyone is pretty happy with the arrangement. Let’s call it a very minor solace for the sh*t that everyone has been through this year and for the almost laughable “bonus” we received.

We’re happy to call it a ” very minor solace”, but better than nothing!

What is your firm doing? Let us know - send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Rounding out the Remuneration Report into the Big 6 today is Clayton Utz. From a partnership perspective, Clutz has enjoyed one of the best financial performances over the last year. In 2008/2009, revenue for Clutz skyrocketed by a whopping 4.9% to $491,000,000.00, making it the fourth highest be revenue nationally. An incredible result, really, in the midst of a financial crisis.

Top partners are reported to have taken home $1,600,000.00.

fear not, David

But it has all come at significant cost to the firm’s reputation and brand. Myopic partners, consumed by their bank balances, will likely count the cost in years to come with a crop of dud graduates and laterals who fill the seats vacated by disillusioned staff.

The Firm Spy had a hearty chuckle at the assessment recently given by our friends at ALB to Clayton Utz Chief Executive Partner David Fagan:

While most firm revenues took an inevitable slide during the GFC - some firms declined to release their 2009 figures at all - Clayton Utz has been something of a quiet achiever, maintaining growth at a rate in excess of its comparable rivals. Fagan is an astute commentator on the industry and a rare example of a law firm boss who is not afraid to speak his mind.

Not afraid to speak his mind? Sydney graduates would beg to differ. Those folks were apparently promised $5k raises at the end of each of their rotations, only to be reportedly dodged by the partnership! Was Mr Fagan minded to tell the grads that the partners would not be delivering on the alleged promise to pay the raises?

Fagan wasn’t minded, we don’t think, to “speak his mind” in relation to the procession of claims (reported by us) that the firm was allegedly systematically managing-out staff at the height of the GFC.

And what about that shocking hullabaloo in relation to the pay freeze?! Remember - when the AFR reported the firm as having said that it had “not made a final decision yet” about legal salaries, despite staff having been earlier informed that a pay freeze was being implemented!? Was someone, perchance, afraid to speak their mind?

Now onto lawyer salaries.

Firm Spy cannot confirm the veracity of these figures. They come from anonymous sources.

Sydney

0-1 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2008 and June 2009. Billable hours target - 7hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $67,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $67,000. Perks free fruit. Comments:
All graduates were told they would receive a salary increase of at least $5k p/a at the end of each of our 3 rotations (every 6 months). A detail conveniently not included in our employment contracts, but generally accepted and relied on by the graduates. For some reason our first rotation was extended from 6 months to 7 months and finally in March 2009, the Friday before we were due to start our second rotation and when we were eagerly expecting or anticipating our pay-rise, we were taken aside by someone from HR and told that the firm had decided to ‘hold’ grad salaries at their current rate because of market conditions - and that this was basically to avoid redundancies. This was actually prior to CU announcing the firm-wide salary-freeze.

and, from another tipster:

the buggers stiffed usin March on a pay rise they had promised us

1-2 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2007 and June 2008. Billable hours target - 7 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $73,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $73,000. Perks: blackberry; free fruit; sparkling water on tap. Comments:

all overly demanding and hormonal partners; office politics; trying to avoid daggers every day from other solicitors; redundancies that have been made have been made very quietly, one day someone is in their office, then it’s empty.

3-4 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2005 and June 2006. Billable hours target - 7hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $89,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $89,000. Perks free fruit; blackberry

4-5 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2004 and June 2005. Billable hours target - 7hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $103,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $103,000. Perks free fruit, blackberry

Brisbane

0-1 Years PQE

Admitted between July 2006 and June 2007. Billable hours target - 7hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $63,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $63,000. Perks free fruit; mobile; subsidised further education

Melbourne

Paralegal

Not admitted. Billable hours target - 3 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $56,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $56,000. Perks free fruit.

Special Counsel

More than 10 years PQE. Admitted before 1999. Billable hours - 7 hours. Gross package 2008/2009 - $195,000. Gross package 2009/2010 - $205,000. Perks - blackberry; free fruit.

Canberra

With offices set to close over the Christmas break, it is interesting to see how the different firms are managing the shut down. We invite you to tell us how and for how long your office will close. Are you being given extra leave? Is it forced, involuntary leave?

EY partners missed this memo

Apparently staff at EY are none too happy with the involuntary leave being thrust upon them. This from an anonymous EY spy over the weekend:

Ernst and Young have shut down for 3 weeks during the Christmas break… this seems mighty similar to those people who were forced to take 3 weeks unpaid leave at PwC except they get to choose when to take theirs!

Indeed, PwC did implement an involuntary a leave of absence scheme earlier in the year which offered staff a choice of when they could take a total of three weeks leave over the course of the year. Similarly, KPMG implemented the “Temporary Work Arrangement” which availed to both staff and partners a range of means to manage any further reductions in work flows. However, given that work has picked up, it appears that the partners are attempting to resile from what was (we think) a reasonably generous original offer.

And this now leaves us with Ernst & Young: the firm that apparently decided against the implementation of any device to save jobs during the downturn or to give staff an opportunity to be heard in making decisions about leave. Poorly handled?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

When you’ve implemented a redundancy scheme that has given rise to a 25% constriction in the number of senior associates populating the office, it is time to speak out in media, ramp up the PR machine, and sell to staff/the public the rationale of such action.

Accordingly, we saw Mallesons Chief Executive partner Robert Milliner quoted in yesterday’s AFR as follows:

‘Milliner said the size of the firm had been adjusted to reflect falling work volumes and a recovery was not likely in the medium term… “most of our clients here and overseas have gone through cost constraints, or because of the disruption of the debt markets have not been able to raise leverage to do the [M&A] activity they have done before”.

This comes just a few days after Mallesons spokeswoman Kate Rimer was reported to be:

cautious about the recruitment market’s likely rate of recovery, particularly given prevailing conditions in former recruitment hot spots overseas. “I think overall we will see a gradual pick-up in recruitment activity, but nothing significant until at least the middle of next year,” she said. “Historically we have lagged much of the economy going into and coming out of downturns. We are seeing a similar pattern with the GFC, where law firms are lagging many of the economic indicators by six-plus months.

Err… ‘Busta’

The Australian economy added near 100,000 jobs between September and November

Putting Milliner & Rimer’s comments in the context of justifying major staff departures is one thing, but putting them beside the comments, made in today’s AFR by Freehills Chief Gavin Bell, makes them look like something of a piss-take:

”[Freehills] took the view that we were going to retain people, that we were not going to lay off people, that that was a last resort. And we kept recruiting. It will probable take a while for full activity to return but I think the trend is up, rather than down. It is a trend up from a plateau that was nowhere near as deep as we thought it would be.”

And while the Mallesons workforce has been reduced considerably, Freehills has increased non-lawyer staff by 8.5% this year. Mallesons, a firm that posted revenue that exceeded Freehills by $58million in 2008/2009, despite having less partners and apparently less staff, is forshadowing no recovery in the medium term, while Freehills thinks the trend is up.

Is Milliner ‘buying time’ to keep the pay freeze in place? Is a Freehills pay thaw on the way?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Sometimes we worry that we’re the only corporate news/gossip medium prepared to have a dig at the chiefs of corporate firms. We therefore heartily welcomed the character assassination directed by the BRW a few weeks ago to ex-Minters chief Guy Templeton:

“Traditionally, a non-lawyer at the helm of a law firm has not been considered a success. The most recent experiment with non-lawyer leadership occurred at Minter Ellison, where management consultant Guy Templeton was chief executive for five years before he left earlier this year.

“The firm went back to the traditional model appointing one of its partners, John Weber, as chief executive.”

Ouch!

Incidentally, John Weber is presiding over a firm that one staff member recently assessed in the following fashion:

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.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

“Neil” down or get taken down. Seems the good news machine at PWC continues spreading propoganda with last week a new entry to the calendar - an internal firm services town hall. these are the poor IT and Operations schleps who are at the beck and call of partners and the oddly named Chief Costs Officer “Neil” Wilson. In an effort to encourage morale Neils summonsed all 500 staff to a dark 3 star hotel ballroom for a 2 hour workshop; what staff were faced with was news that decisions on job offshoring to India would be made before christmas, some bad jokes and attempts at reaching the people and in what one person said was insulting a reference to the fact that even broom sweepers at NASA were as respected as a PwC foot soldier!!!!!!!

 Staff left confused and offended that the HR whizz kid thought this was a good idea… and only made things worse. The CCO is also behind cost cutting on the biscuits and other initiatives designed presumably that people will resign before they get retrenched. We are also informed that the CCO is a keen firmspy reader and is often seen looking at our website and enjoying the honest views of staff.

Three stars? Was there some share-room action too? It is nice to have someone to whom we can address our hostilities regarding the objectionable procession of PWC cost cuts witnessed in recent times. Brace yourself Neil!

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!