If you want to hear stories of disillusioned junior staff sticking it to the greedy partnerships that worked their fledgling fingers to the bone during the GFC, come to the Firm Spy. It has been mooted now for a couple of months, but we’re here to tell you, this 31 May 2010, that juniors are getting mobile and corporate Australia is set for a skills shortage. Our inbox is literally full of stories of recent corporate departures.

heading for the exit

But we’ll start with a focus on Ernst & Young - by far the most underreported of the Big4 accounting firms on Firm Spy. We received the following comments from an anonymous EY spy on the weekend:

Keep an eye out at Ernst & Young people walking left right and centre as EY continue to promote female technical divisions to run the practice. Over 10 seniors/manager have walked from the mid markets group in the last 6 weeks.

Are we sensing a hint of positive discrimination? Or just chauvenism from the spy?

Whatever the answer, the news of the departures must be the source of some ructions at the top of EY. Ernst & Young deputy chairman Michael Wachtel is said to have recently endorsed Gerard Dalbosco as Chief Executive based on his youth and ability to interact with juniors. As noted by BRW (14/4):

Wachtel views Dalbosco’s relative youth as a positive attribute in an industry where most staff are aged 20 to 40 years old, and staff retention is a big issue. Wachtel says:

“He might look younger compared to his [peer chief executives] but it makes him closer to the majority of the demographic in professional services firms. This is important in today’s society as leadership style. Nowadays, the notion that you lead merely by reference to those in control doesn’t exist. Younger people want to see a certain level of dynamic young leadership because they relate to it better.”

Perhaps Wachtel is too “old” to truly understand what younger people relate to. Either that, or the Ernst youngsters simply don’t find Dalbosco “dynamic” enough.

Other than being a corporate wank word, what is “dynamic” anyhow? We invite your comments. We also invite EY spies to comment on whether the relate to Dalbosco’s dynamism, or whether Wachtel and the board made a major mistake in appointing such a juvenile leader.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Thanks to the anonymous Minter Ellison spy who sent us the following humourous comments yesterday:

FINGERNAIL SIZED HOLE

The maintenance, non-fee earning staff at Minter Ellison (probably much like all Aussie law firms) need to get a clue. In our office, we have one busy-body facilities man who has somehow been empowered to bother the entire Melbourne office with emails whenever he sees fit.

Whenever he receives something which he thinks may be of interest to the firm, he flicks it on.

The trouble is, #### ##### has no idea about what is appropriate for circulation. Earlier this week, for example, he flicked around an advertisement to a sleep clinic promoting the need to ‘get your eight hours each night’. With Minters partners constantly riding us like some kind of animal, how on earth can we hope to get a solid eight hours of kip?

More importantly, does our maintenance man have an interest in this crooked enterprise?

These are valid questions and the Firm Spy seeks your comment. We would also love to hear your thoughts on the prospects of budding Minter Ellison litigator Alicia Prpich, about whom the Firm Spy received the following anonymous comments:

Firm Spy, I notice that you have declined to report on that damsel-in-distress, Minters grad Alisha Prpich, who preferred the prospect of a full-blown VCAT trial to getting out her mother’s sewing kit…

This cryptic tip-off led us to the following article from the Herald Sun a few weeks ago:

SASSY sisters Cassie and Alisha Prpich were yesterday celebrating the defeat of a clothing store that refused a refund for a faulty dress and accused them of wearing and damaging it. Cassie, 23, told VCAT… she’d bought the dress for her father’s wedding. But she said when she tried it on again … her sister [Alisha] saw a hole the size of a fingernail. But they said aggressive staff refused a refund and accused them of wearing and damaging the dress. “They told me that I didn’t buy a faulty dress and that I was wasting my time, and that I could go away and complain to Consumer Affairs if I wanted to,” Cassie told the Herald Sun.

Gasp store manager Eddie Yilmaz told the tribunal customers often bought and wore dresses, then tried to return them. He said in one case a shop assistant had even seen wedding photographs of a customer wearing a dress that she returned after swearing she had not worn it. Mr Yilmaz said it was unlikely the dress had the hole when it was sold. He said most girls took 30 to 45 minutes to pick a dress, and they would notice a fault in that time. “We all know what ladies are like,” he said. Mr Yilmaz said the dress could have been damaged afterward. But VCAT member William Holloway disagreed and ordered Gasp to refund the $300 cost.

Legal studies student Alisha, 22, said stores probably turned away young customers as a business tactic. “How many girls would just have gone away and sewn up the hole after being told to go away by the shop?” she said.

The Firm Spy thinks most people would have gone away and sewn up the hole rather than enter protracted legal proceedings. But if a Minters grad can’t stand up for her rights, who can?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

It has been way too long since we’ve written anything about Big4 accounting firm KPMG. So let’s start with a tip-off we received a couple of weeks ago from an anonymous KPMG spy:

MONTE CARLOS GONE

heard about 15 people have quit from KPMG from a source in very recent times. I think mostly from Audit. Investigate

Investigate we did. And yes, following on from our report about departures in Advisory, KPMG Audit teams are apparently leaking staff like a sieve. We received this from an anonymous KPMG spy late last week:

KPMG (Melbourne) audit is literally wasting away. The stories you have been publishing about accounting firm employee losses are 100% true. The good news is that this time the employee losses are causing partners no end of concern. Does anyone remember the GFC? You know, when 200 KPMG employees were booted out?

Yes, we remember the GFC, and in particular we remember the preparedness of KPMG partners to shed staff to maintain their bottom line. Our heart now goes out to those partners left wondering how they will fill the newly vacated seats in Audit.

The following comments from another KPMG spy several weeks ago, we believe, sum up the sentiment of the firm and go some way to explaining how KPMG patners must respond to retain staff:

Dear Firm Spy Did you see the wopping big ad that KPMG ran in last Friday’s financial review paper bragging about how we won some Accounting firm award? What a huge waste of $$$$$$ when the firm has :

• made hundreds of people redundant;
• performance managed out hundreds more;
• frozen the pay of the poor slaves left working;
• *encouraged* us to take part paid so called voluntary leave and made us take weeks of extra leave at Xmas;
• banned training; and
• ditched fruit, cream biscuits and any other benefit that might cut into partner profits.

I wouldn’t have bothered to send this in to you if I hadn’t overheard an appalling conversation in the lobby cafe. Apparently the firm’s public relations department [stand to receive big bonuses] because they have “research” showing our clients don’t think we are the best [and the receipt of the award mentioned above] was [therefore] 100% thanks to [public affairs department].

I was already choking on my coffee at [the public relations department] saying KPMG won [the award] DESPITE the hard work of staff like me and my team but when one of the PR team told the others that they would all be getting really great bonuses as a result of the award I nearly fainted!!!!!!!!!!! How can they possibly deserve bonuses more than the people who have been doing the client work and who haven’t had a pay rise or a bonus or training for two years?

3 guesses if the accounting staff are going to get a bonus this year… Everyone I work with has already found an inhouse job or is interviewing now. Last one out turn off the lights.

It is little wonder that staff seem disillusioned, and expect little from their partners in salary-review season, when this is the treatment they receive in the “festive season”:

KPMG has gave staff one free day of annual leave this year for use during the office closure (which will eat up between 4 and 12 days of annual leave this year). Oh, and we received a $100 voucher. Gee thanks KPMG!

Is your firm cutting back on fruit? How about cream biscuits and training? Will there be a major exodus if partners don’t raise pay substantially on July 1?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

In April, we published the following question on notice (15/4) asked of Mr Paul Lucas, the Queensland Deputy Premier & Health Minister:

performing in a MASSIVE building near you

“Is the Deputy Premier aware of allegations that solicitors representing Qld Health have fabricated reasons in order to obtain an innocent man’s psychiatric and medical records, without his knowledge, and deceived the Ombudsman and previous Health Minister, into believing they were ‘directly relevant’ to his wife’s medicolegal claim and, if so, will he support a public inquiry?”

The anonymous spy who tipped us off to the question on notice also sent us the following comments:

It might be of interest to Firmspy that the law firm is Minter Ellison (Brisbane), and the principal solicitor in question is Simon Alroe.

In response to this post, we received the following comments from an anonymous ex-Minters spy:

I do not know anything about the dispute between Simon Alroe and Minter Ellison as it blew up after I left Minters. However, the Question on Notice relates to a matter in which I was personally involved. Simon signed the correspondence as he was the supervising partner. I can assure you that the records WERE directly relevant to this man’s wife’s medicolegal claim. Any suggestion of dishonesty or misleading conduct is incorrect. You ought to give this feedback as much prominence as your original story rather than tucking it away as a comment.

We think we have definitely now given this feedback an appropriate amount of prominence. But let us also prominently display the comments written by the original anonymous spy in response:

Hi again, I am the man who sent you the story re Qld Parliament QON 769 concerning Simon Alroe’s illegal access to my medical and psych records (depression in 2000). I have just read the ex-employee Minters “spy” (bet it was Sarah Williams as she was also heavily involved!) stating that my records were “directly relevant” to my wife’s medicolegal Claim.

(NB: My wife’s claim to the Qld Supreme Court was one of “failing to diagnose and treat a neurological disorder” RSD/CRPS from a Brisbane vascular ward (a diagnosis they suspected, but failed to investigate).RSD/CRPS has an Australian Disease Code as an organic disorder.)

There was NO PSYCH CLAIM OF ANY KIND.

I can supply documents which will prove to you, and others, how factually incorrect the Minters “spy’s” statement is. The documents can be:

i) Wife’s Statement of Claim

ii) Simon Alroe’s “lies” (6) to the Qld Ombudsman eg that my wife was suing for psych injury

iii) My letter to Qld Ombudsman Office outlining Simon Alroe’s “lies” with supporting documents.

iv) Mike Allsopp’s Qld Health Registered Memo (he was the Fraser Coast Health District Manager at that time) stating Minter Ellison simply phoned an FOI Officer to request my health records (no Court Order, I was unaware of this happening. This breaks all PIPA Protocol).

…Whatever you want for me to prove my claims to your web site, I am more than happy to provide documents etc to you. PS I have just come out of hospital following a heart attack from all the stress of fighting this issue over 5 years + (can prove my hospital stay)…but I will NOT let this issue be buried. I even have a barrister who confirmed in a letter to me that what Simon Alroe claimed, was fraud.

We wont let this issue be buried either. So please, send us each of the documents listed above. We think our readership would like to read the facts in greater detail. We also call for Simon Alroe and/or Sarah Williams, or any other Minters employees involved in this issue, to contact the Firm Spy with any further details.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

In response to last Friday’s post regarding dodgey corporate awards, we received the following comments:

analytical review

So….. What does IFLR say about this? Have Blake Dawson and Mallesons written in to clarify? The Mallesons Wikipedia entry says that Mallesons won the IFLR “Australian Law Firm of the Year” for 2009. That’s the same award that Blake Dawson claims on their website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallesons_Stephen_Jaques I think both firms should duke it out Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome style. “Two firms enter. One firm leaves.”

At least we won’t confuse them with Dorda Brugger Jordis. They won IFLR’s “AUSTRIAN law firm of the year for 2009”. http://www.dbj.co.at/phps/Presse/Pressinfo_engl20090323.pdf

No, there will be no confusion about the Austrian winner, that’s for sure! But in an excellent scoop, it appears that the awards we identified aren’t the only ones that should be queried. We received the following very interesting comments from an anonymous spy on the weekend:

Even more dodgy are Fairfax’s CFO Magazine Awards , which have a whole heap of gongs for law, accounting and bank organisations, among others. As someone who has been close to the process I can tell you that these awards appear to go a long way to keeping the mag afloat and it is an unspoken understanding that those who take out advertising and or ‘sponsorship’ deals with CFO tend to get rewarded more than those who don’t. The judging process is strange to say the least yet huge resources are poured into the award submissions with firms eager to blab about how they met this or that criteria though it is doubtful the busy judges supposedly from the top end of town read these lengthy essays of self promotion in detail. (This is reflected in the scant reasons given for the wins). Nominees for awards are then charged handsomely to take out a table at the actual awards lunch or dinner. The proud CEO gets to be photographed with the award but not to say much if anything (as time is always tight at these awards bazaars). Once the award is in the bag, the firms rush back to issue a press release and put the win on their email footers and in every client pitch for the next 12 months until it’s time to buy (sorry win) the next award.

The Clear Forthright Open Awards?

We then received the following comments from an anonymous Mallesons spy (thanks to the white wizard, or whomever it was in the Mallesons media team that authored this):

Mallesons does not currently pay Beaton Consulting for Client Choice research, so how interesting that we still won the BRW ClientChoice award this year. Shock, horror! Maybe we won the award because clients actually consider our service to be better. The majority of legal awards are voted as a result of polling clients. Since these clients work with most of the major firms, they have no vested interest in choosing one over another, unless they think the service is better. As for IFLR, Blakes won Australian Firm of the Year and Mallesons won Regional Firm of the Year in the latest awards. A quick check of the IFLR website would confirm this. Or doesn’t Firm Spy bother with traditional journalistic principles like basic research? It’s your analysis on this one that is shonky, not the awards.

Well, we actually took the unusual step of doing some basic research on this one (although we’ve never claimed to follow traditional journalistic principles and, in a moment, we’ll get to the reasons why it is a sad case of the pot calling the kettle black for a person in a position of authority at Mallesons to characterise our analysis as “shonky”). We visited the Mallesons Wikipedia page, which claims the firm won the IFLR’ Australian Law Firm of the Year 2009 as well as the Mallesons website, which claims Mallesons won IFLR’s National Law Firm of the Year (Australia) 2009. Blakes apparently claims also to have won the same award - IFLR’s Australian Law Firm of the Year 2009 - ostensibly the same award. No, we didn’t sign up to IFLR, but we think our analysis is reasonable.

The real analysis that needs to be questioned, we think, is the transparent muddy analysis allegedly given recently by Mallesons to its staff:

Firm Spy, a few weeks ago the heads of each Mallesons practice group travelled to each center to deliver a snapshot of how the firm is travelling year-to-date. Although the numbers were confusing, the one message that seemed very clear in the presentation was that the partners have apparently earned 7% less than at this point last financial year. There were also some statistics on how lawyer utilisation numbers are down.

However, the partner who delivered my group’s presentation did a very poor job of clarifying that the figures we were shown included each of the lawyers who took the voluntary redundacy package. So it should come as no surprise that utilisation rates are down, and year-to-date revenue compared with last year. But with overheads lower, I can see no reason how the partnership can justify a less than excellent pay review in July. I wonder if all practice heads delivered their presentations similarly?

Yes, we wonder too! Sounds very shonky to us!

Of course, it is not a partner’s job to adhere to “traditional journalistic principles”, but is it fair to conjure up a range of statistics (if that’s what happened) that might arguably set staff up for downgraded expectations in their annual pay review? Or is it shonky?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

A couple of weeks ago we published a story taking a look at personal injury law firms across Australia. We queried in that post whether the many and varied indiscretions of these lawyers have the capacity to cast the entire legal profession into the “dodgey-used-car-salesmen” bracket held by our US-based equivalents.

are you afraid?

We’ll reopen that speculation by taking a fresh look at David Marrocchi’s new law firm. You’ll recall that Mr Marrocchi has previously been:

• found guilty of two counts of assaulting police -which included, but was not limited to - kicking one female officer in the chest;
• found guilty of drink driving, exceeding the legal limit by a healthy 300% after exclaiming ‘I don’t have to do anything … I’m a solicitor… prove to me I’m over [the limit]!’;
• found guilty of resisting arrest;
• pulled over by police for playing music too loudly in what police apparently considered an affront to anti-hoon laws;
• alleged to have misled the court and behaved unethically by “dipping in” to the funds awarded to a client;
• associated with a string of allegations that his old firm Keddies lawyers overcharged clients.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be very pleased to hear that despite resigning from old firm Keddies, Mr Marrochi is now back in business! Thanks to the anonymous spy who sent us the following comments last week:

David Marocci is no longer at Keddies - hasnt been for a while - he and another former lawyer from Keddies (who REALLY loved David’s old secretary) now have a firm called Paramount Lawyers they are in the MLC Centre, doing their usual….

Uh oh! We checked out the Paramount Lawyers flash new website (click here) and stumbled onto Mr Marrocchi’s (ostensibly self-authored, albeit in detached, third-person speak) profile (click here) which reads as follow:

David Marocchi is a true innovator in the legal profession, pioneering people’s compensation claims internationally… His specialist skills extend to various jurisdictions interstate and internationally. Working for the community he believes in truth, justice and honesty and with more than ten years experience in compensation law, has offered his services to the Marrickville Legal Centre and to local education initiatives as mock trial advisor and coach. Approachable and charismatic, he upholds the Paramount culture that only the best will do.

Although it is unclear where David procured these specialist international skills, perhaps it stems from the incident in which Marrocchi is alleged to have incurred unnecessary legal costs for a client-paid junket to Hong Kong.

But Mr Marrocchi does have a few people in his…erm… corner.

An interview, accompanied by a picture of Marrocchi’s best “blue steel” facial expression as well as a very curious, very suggestive “open-leg” shot, Mr Marrocchi gave an exclusive interview to his soccer club Leichardt FC (available here). In exacting detail Zoolander Marrocchi sets out in the interview how he managed to kick what sounds like a majestic goal from a free kick:

Well there isn’t much to say really. I was about 40 meters out and I knew in the back of my mind the first half was coming to an end. It was a tough half. Thirsties are a physical side and can get into your face and throw you off your game… yes there was a time when I was the free kick specialist… the others haven’t to date managed to develop the skill of taking a free kick from that distance… I knew it was close to half time and I told the younger blokes to push on and told them I’ll have a go. I knew the team needed something, so I thought I’d lead from the front… I saw the keeper very flat on his line, I said to myself if I get it right I’m half a chance here, the keeper will be left flat footed on his line. I hit the ball the with my in step, I knew once I hit it I was going to go close, and yep I was right, it sailed it to the top right corner.”

Gee, Dave, sounds like you scored a real winner there! But let’s not forget about the sponsors of the Leichardt FC wesbite, Paramount Lawyers, who are no doubt gorging on the new clientele flocking to the firm after reading this excellent interview!

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Other than the coveted suite of Firm Spy awards, including the Down Low Medal, Partner of the Year and Firm of the Year, the various prizes and trophies awarded to corporate Australian firms are a laughable marketing device. At best. You know it, and so do we.

IFLR National Possum of the Year 2010

In today’s post, we’ll take a moment to consider why some of the various awards aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

We’ll open the ledger with the BRW “client choice” awards. Last week, an anonymous Cooper Grace Ward spy sent us the following comments:

Hi - was just looking through the list of this year’s BRW client choice awards and saw that Cooper Grace Ward won the best firm for under $50 million. CGW are a great firm and deserved to win but it seems a remarkable coincidence that when the awrds first started CGW struggled to get a mention. These days the firm has certainly evolved in recent times but one has to wonder if Beaton Consulting who conduct the survey on behalf of BRW) are just a little conflicted in deciding winners. Surely if a firm comes to you asking to “take it to the next level” it has to be difficult to impartially judge its merits come awards time. Let’s not pick on CGW actually - look through the award winners and Beaton’s client list and you’ll see a heavy correlation.

We took it upon ourselves to check how BRW informs itself for the purpose of making decisions about the most deserving recipients of its “client choice” awards. And yes, as reported by our anonymous spy, the recipients are awarded with the “independent research” of Beaton. But shouldn’t BRW be contacting clients directly if these truly are “client choice” awards? Like the anonymous spy, we also found it difficult to stomach the “independence” of Beaton in circumstances where it relies on the patronage of major corporate firms to remain a going concern. It is currently advising major Australian law firms on merger proposals for chrissakes!

We also received some comments earlier this week in relation to the IFLR awards. Thanks to the anonymous spy who sent the following (this is an excellent tip off):

Who is the IFLR Australian Law Firm of the Year for 2009? The banner on the Blake Dawson website states that they won the award. http://www.blakedawson.com/x_home_page.aspx?id=18415 BUT… If you look at the Mallesons website (the 12th award down the page), they appear to be the winner too. http://www.mallesons.com/our_firm/5501514W.htm I’m unclear about this award. Was it jointly awarded to both law firms?

Indeed both firms are claiming to have won a 2009 IFLR award. Mallesons claims to have won the “IFLR National Law Firm of the Year (Australia) 2009”, while famous gay porn actor national law firm Blake Dawson is claiming to have won the “IFLR Australian Law Firm of the Year 2009”. Yes, one award named “National Law Firm of the Year (Australia)” and one named “Australian Law Firm of the Year”. Let’s hope this isn’t a case of IFLR just trying to get bums on seats by creating so many awards - each of which rewards similar conduct/achievements - that “everyone goes home with something”.

Lastly, our good friends at Roll on Friday reported last week that Mallesons Stephen Jaques and Allens Arthur Robinson had become “the first Australian firms to be accredited as Fairtrade Workplaces”. The firms are reported by RoF to have received this accreditation after committing to source all their hot drinks from Fair Trade suppliers. This must surely be a hollow victory for the Mallesons partnership when an anonymous Mallesons spy is making the following comments:

I notice that all of the reports that mention Mallesons’ new Fair Trade accreditation fail to mention that our new “Columbian” coffee looks like possum poo. Or that the fair trade tea tastes so offensive that we’re still stocking Dilmah’s finest (not fair trade). Or that our decaffeinated coffee is still the Nescafe Blend 43 (not fair trade).

Still, we’ve thankfully left behind the dark days when the firm switched to International Roast (not fair trade and certainly not fair to those forced to drink it) at the height of the financial crisis.

Anyone fancy a Friday morning cup of possum poo?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Presided over by three pompous, morbidly obese “judges”, Channel 10’s Masterchef is awash with lawyers in season 2010. Among the contestants who have featured on the show are  lawyers Claire Winton-Burn - who has since been thrown off the show - as well as current contestants Peter Kritikides and Adam Liaw.

WAX MY CHEST

We took it upon ourselves to do a bit of digging to see what we could find out about these “masterchefs”.

Peter Kritikides is a lawyer at Lander & Rogers. On February 13 2009 “Krita [had] ‘L + R’ waxed into his hairy chest … his boss [waxed] him in front of the whole firm”. Yes. Seriously.

For photos of this firm-sanctioned “L + R” chest-waxing, click here.

Later, in response to a question on how he got into cooking, Krita recounts distressing stories of his childhood:

I was a stereotypical Greek-Australian boy who was … overfed by my Mum … I spent a lot of time in the kitchen … because I knew a feed was not far away… my love of food really took off.

Clear evidence that this love of food persists to this day is available here.

But the really distressing stuff, which might even make you question a meal prepared by this masternutter masterchef, is the arguably homicidal, homophobic authorship we uncovered from ex-Kelly & Co lawyer, Masterchef contestant Adam Liaw.

Here are a few unedited comments we have extracted from Liaw’s Twitter page:

Don’t you ever sit down at your computer when there are all these windows popping at you and emails shouting at you and just think…… I could just burn all this shit to the ground.

The Weekend: Too much booze and too much blood.

Watching football on the couch with some grilled salmon, a salad and a Fujizakura microbrew. Blissful, but somehow I feel like a homo.

I believe it is a God-given right for a Prime Minister to host a secret sex party with a bunch of hookers and other Prime Ministers.

Come with me if you want to live.

Despite all this doom and homicidal, sex-party gloom, it does appear that Liaw has a heart. After all, he wanted to give the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, a send off! Unfortunately, however, he received the following notification (also published on his Twitter page)

Sorry, we regret to inform you that your registration to attend the Public Memorial Service for Michael Jackson was not selected.

But Liaw did not allow this bad news to affect his psychological balance at the time…

Naming my furniture. My fridge’s name is Steve.

Do you name your furniture? Have you waxed the initials of your firm into your chest? Do you believe K-Rudd has a God-given right to host a secret sex party with Gordon Brown and Phoney Tony Abbott?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

The outpouring of vitriol for big4 accounting firm PwC shows no sign of ending. Disillusionment, of the highest order, appears to have taken hold at the firm, despite what appears to be… err, good news.

first stop - India

We received the following comments from an anonymous PwC spy last week (thanks!):

In a move to try and retain staff at PwC, the firm has decided to have a “promote all” strategy for this years ratification period in June. As the firm has decided to keep pay rises to a maximum at 5% (with no bonuses), they have decided to implement “across the board” promotions. This is also seen as a step to forcing higher charge-out rates to clients. Clients of PwC should expect no more than three years experience for managers (many who do not have their CA) and one years expereince for seniors accountants (none who have CA). And if you are expecting experience from your Directors, think again, at almost $1000/hour you can get six years of the best. Has anyone heard of brand dilution?

Not only is PwC outsourcing work to India, and apparently charging clients the same, but, if our anonymous PwC is to be believed, it is embarking on a programme to gouge even more dollars to increase revenue at the risk of aggravating its client base.

Will they walk on?

What is your firm doing to increase its bottom line?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Yesterday we asked our spies to respond to a call for information on the rife speculation that another major international law firm merger is in the offing. This precipitated a flood of anonymous emails, a great many of which directed us to Corrs Chambers Wesgarth.

a Corrs grad arrives for work

First this:

On the topic of mega-magic-mergers, Corrs CEO John Denton also sent an email last Friday similar to the Mallesons email (ie, “single but looking”). I guess us worker bees will find out when the AFR finds out…

Then this:

Corrs Chambers Wesgarth was relatively advanced in merger negotiations with Blake Dawson at a similar time to the first merger attempt between Mallesons and Clifford Chance in 2008. The talks were stalled by the global financial crisis. All over the office I am hearing talk that partners are considering a merger proposal from a major UK firm. I am not sure of the firm (although Ashursts has been mentioned), however it would seem likely that it would … be a silver circle firm, given that to my knowledge each of the magic circle firms has a referral programme in place with other Australian firms.

Followed by this:

Corrs’ John Denton was apparently furious on Friday that the article published by the Fin Review included comments from Beaton Consulting that it had been involved in advising clients on international merger talks. He wrote an email to all staff that declined to spell out whether the firm is in fact close to a merger, but it has gone some way to confirming that something is going to happen soon…

In last Friday’s article, the AFR made the following comments:

The managing partner of Corrs Chambers Wesgarth, John Denton, said interest from overseas firms in mergers had increased this year. “I have been approached about firm mergers domestically and internationally. It’s fair to say that in the last six months there’s been a heightened level of activity in this.”

Denton does not speculate on the reasons for the heightened level of merger-interest. The Firm Spy, however, has a theory - potential suitors have been on the Corrs graduate recruitment website (www.makingcareersense.com), and have watched the video entitled “What sort of law will I practice?”. The tasteful video, which contains cartoon images of identical (white) men and women (diversity employer, anyone?) in flamboyant orange business suits, gives a tantalising insight into working life at Corrs. After profiling the firm’s various practice groups, it concludes by hypothesising:

you never know, wine law might prove more to your taste.

Have you got a proven taste for something? Does your firm have a taste for an international merger?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!