On 1 January 2001 Dibbs Crowther & Osborne merged with Barker Gosling to create the national firm Dibbs Barker. On its “about us” page, Dibbs Barker today declares that it:

progression

is a leading commercial legal service provider.  With offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth the firm comprises over 54 partners and in excess of 330 legal and support staff nationally.

A couple of years after the merger that created the firm, former Dibbs Barker CEO Paul Gregory was quoted by our friends at ALB in the following way:

Dibbs Barker CEO Paul Gregory says firms most likely to feel the squeeze are those that are neither boutique nor have the depth of practice clients increasingly require. “There’ll continue to be pressure on firms that are not of critical mass in the city,” he says. “I’d be concerned if I was a partner in a 10-partner or 15-partner firm - they’re a little bit in no man’s land… [mid-tier] is where we want to position ourselves anyway… It is difficult to provide that full service, no doubt. That was one of the reasons for the merger… we knew our size was not attractive to young lawyers; we were not seen as progressive.”

Ironically, Mr Paul Gregory now finds himself squarely in “man’s land”, although it bears no relation to his legal strategem all those years ago. No, Paul Gregory was sentenced to two year’s jail a few weeks ago for his involvement in advising Glenn Wheatley on ways to defraud the Australian Taxation Office.

As reported by our friends at AFR (22/4):

The prosecution of Paul Gregory, the 61-year-old former head of Sydney law firm Dibbs Barker Gosling… was the first of an advisor arising out of Project Wickenby… When sentencing Gregory, Victorian Supreme Court Judge Simon Whelan said he should receive a harsher penalty than his client Wheatley… because of the need to provide general deterrence to other advisors… Justice Whelan said Gregory’s conduct “involved blatant dishonesty and the exploitation of your position as a solicitor… [it was]  of the first importance that others similarly placed appreciate that the consequences of deceptive manoeuvvres will be severe”.

Funnily enough, it turns out the Gregory’s conduct occurred at or about the time he gave the above interview to ALB. As reported by the AFR:

the jury convicted Gregory after being presented with a “smoking gun”, a 2003 email chain in which Gregory planned to create “the illusion of a genuine commercial dispute” with the overseas company to allow Mr Wheatley to pay $400,00 overseas “so the appearance would be, to an outsider, that this was a legitimate payment by Mr Wheatley”.

It is unclear what the appearance would be, to an outsider, of Dibbs Barker after this forgettable episode. Is it “pregressive” and “attractive” to young lawyers?

Or is a stint in “man’s land” a better option?

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A couple of weeks ago we reported that things were “ugly” at top-tier firm Allens Arthur Robinson after we had received the following rumour from an anonymous AAR spy:

a baby boomer house

allens melbourne has now lost 6 juniors (and a junior SA) from its corporate team in a month. Morale is so low partners have been individually talking to lawyers to discuss what can be done to improve the situtation.

Soon after publishing that rumour, we received the following anonymous comments from another AAR spy:

Story about AAR is wrong - only a couple of people have left- you should correct your story.

We of course were left pondering which anonymous spy was telling us the truth. Had a swathe of juniors departed, or just a couple? With thanks to the AFR Partnership Survey, we now think it can safely be assumed that the former spy was being truthful.

In the AFR Survey, the following is reported:

While partnerships at large firms were decreasing, [AAR chief executive partner] Mr Rose said opportunities would arise for senior associates as big swathes of baby boomers who became partners in the 1970’s and early 1980’s retire.

However, earlier in the AFR Survey, the following is reported:

The downturn “has caused a shock to the system and that is causing everybody to reassess the fundamentals of the business model”, said Allens Arthur Robinson chief executive partner Michael Rose. “For the last 20 years we have been able to rely on revenue growing, the size of the firm growing, stable partnerships, pretty predictable staff turnover and regular rate increases. I think all of those things have changed.”

So what about the operating assumption that … senior associates will eventually be made up to the partnership?

In the AFR Survey it is reported that AAR has 254 SAs compared with 186 partners, a ratio of 136.6%. This ratio is worse only at Blake Dawson (by 1%), meaning that only one other major law firm has more SAs compared with partners than AAR. The conclusion (we think) that can be drawn from this statistic is that AAR has many more SA waiting for the assumed passage of SA to partnership to take effect. But will it?

The AFR Survey reports that the AAR went from a partnership of 193 in July 2009 to 186 in July 2010, a reduction of 3.6%. This compares with reductions of 5.8% at Mallesons and 11% at Clayton Utz.  So when AAR CEP Michael Rose that opportunities of partnership ascension will present to expectant SA’s at some distant, vague point in the future, should SA’s be concerned that the partnership will instead take the opportunity to further reduce the partnership (like competitors) and thus preserve the value of its equity points?

And what about the conflicting reports that many AAR lawyers, including an SA have left the firm, compared with only “a couple”? We think it is more likely that “many” young AAR lawyers are starting to see the writing on the AAR wall.

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Congratulations to the AFR legal affairs team for their excellent work last Friday. For those of you who missed it, we suggest you get your hands on last Friday’s AFR and read the annual Partnership Survey.

fanatical breast exposure NOW

The survey offers some fascinating insights into the way the legal market is moving. We intend to spend much of this week digesting the info and commenting on it.

But before we do that, let’s talk about the defection of David Poddar from Mallesons to A&O.

We received the following quip from an anonymous Mallesons spy last night:

Can the Firm Spy think of any way to tie the defection of disliked national sprinter Jana Pittman to our English rivals with the defection of the equally disliked ex-Mallesons partner David Poddar to our English rivals Allen & Overy?

Indeed - for those that missed it - Athletics Australia suffered a great loss yesterday when it emerged that “Drama” Jana Pittman would be leaving Australia to represent England. So too did Mallesons, when highly regarded partner David Poddar defected last week to English rival Allen & Overy. In the A&O media release, managing partner of A&O Australia, Grant Fuzi, said

Dave is highly respected practitioner and his joining is particularly important to our clients. With his experience, we will have the capability to provide top level advice on merger clearances, access issues and general competition matters, as well as cartel advice, which is particularly important after the recent introduction of criminal cartel laws in Australia. This expansion is yet another reflection of our commitment to strengthening the Australian offering since our launch just a few months ago.

Although Mallesons has played down the significance of the defection, we would regard Poddar’s defection as a very worrying development for the firm, given that Poddar is clearly a highly rated lawyer. The Australian noted for example:

The Allen & Overy raid on Australian law firms continued yesterday with the hiring of one of the leading members of the trade practices mafia, David Poddar, a Mallesons partner for the last 12 years.

So why would a partner at Australia’s most prestigious law firm and most profitable firm want to a move to a rival firm? We imagine that the following issues were foremost in Poddar’s mind:

• Allen & Overy probably offered a set two or three year salary, meaning no at-risk component unlike at Mallesons;
• presumably that wage is higher than he could have possibly received at Mallesons;
• With A&O’s arrival, Mallesons might have lost its domestic lustre - the Magic Circle being more prestigious; and
• perhaps Mallesons financial outlook is not as promising as it once was.

Of course we’re speculating, but the move of a young partner to A&O is a truly worrying development for the Mallesons partnership. And if Poddar is able to so readily depart, what will stop a flood of his former colleagues jumping ship if Clifford Chance arrives later this year?

In much better news for the males remainng at the firm, and still on the topic of sport, we received the following comments from an anonymous Mallesons spy over the weekend:

It might interest the Firm Spy to know that two Mallesons graduates, currently strutting their stuff in the corridors of its Melbourne office, were cited by reputable websites across the world specialising in such matters as being ‘Official World Cup Crowd Babes’ for the 2006 World Cup.

Presumably the platinum bottle-blond ‘Fanatics’ pictured to the left and right of the top photo of this link - http://fivefalcons.com/world_cup_babes_2006/australian_babes_world_cup_2006.php - are not as enraptured by their new corporate suits and computer screens…

Yes, that is interesting. Out with the old Dave “Drama” Poddar and in with the new nubile blondes! We do hope, however, that the young lady exposing her very own soccer-balls (yes, you have been warned!) mid-way through the ‘Germany 2006 - World Cup Babes Australia Gallery’ isn’t also a Mallesons lawyer.

Have you been watching the soccer? Have you been thumbing through 2010 World Cup Babes Galleries?

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The lateral mobility of junior staff in the post-GFC era has, until now, been primarily a phenomenon facing Big4 accounting firms. We have repeatedly published rumours that Big4 juniors have been emptying their desks in search of greener pastures on the back of poor treatment during the GFC, poor pay and current over-utilisation.

kicking the door down

Take the “max-assured” KPMG audit staff as an example!

Well, if the following comments from a Minter Ellison spy are to be believed, it would appear that law firm juniors are finally getting mobile too:

Dear Firmspy,

It may interest you to know that so far this year a whopping 26 lawyers have resigned from Minter Ellisons Sydney office, and there are definitely more resignations in the offing. Of the 26 who have resigned so far, 7 have been senior associates and a staggering 19 have been young lawyers, mainly in the coveted 2 -4 year post admission experience range.

Why the sudden exodus? Is it:

a) the unending pay freeze young lawyers have been subjected to while the partners prepare to celebrate yet another budget busting year;

b) the appalling treatment numerous young lawyers have been forced to suffer at the hands of their power mad superiors;

c) the frustrating impotence of a farcically inept HR team; or

d) all of the above?

Even though the construction and finance groups have been left particularly short staffed and are scrambling to find replacements for the recent departures, the partnership shows no sign of making any serious changes to the financial/working/living conditions of its young lawyers, but is instead attempting to buoy the spirits of its disenchanted workforce with such scintillating initiatives as national hard hat day (unfortunately I’m not joking). Adding to this the fact that the firm has only 9 new graduates starting in the Sydney office in the next 12 months, the question has to be asked - how many rats have to desert the ship before it is officially declared a disaster?

Why would Minter Ellison staff be looking to leave the firm? Did the firm misbehave during the GFC and in its aftermath?

A quick look back through our Minter Ellison files suggests that the answer is a resounding “yes”. For example, in announcing a firm-wide pay freeze last year, Minter Ellison chief executive partner John Weber said:

… we are not generally proposing salary increases this year… Limiting salary increases was not an easy decision, but it was one that we felt was appropriate, given the prevailing market conditions and to preserve jobs. Partners will also be lowering their earnings next financial year.

According to the AFR Law Firm Profit Survey, Minter Ellison:

… paid a bonus to many partners last year, for the third year in a row. The very top equity partners took home $1,450,000.00, while about 40% got $1,100,000.00, inclusive of bonus, last year.

Minters also reported 4.7% growth in revenue last year. These results came despite the firm’s headcount contracting by 4.5% over the last financial year, which included the departure of a highly regarded senior associate and apparently a:

property lawyer three months after the mother of five children was promoted to senior associate and six months after she was recruited to the firm from a state government position.

A mother of five … apparently made redundant 3 months after being made senior associate! Ironically, on its website, Minter Ellison makes the following bold assertion:

Minter Ellison. Building trust through business understanding.

Yes, plenty of “business understanding” in relation to the mother of five! Meanwhile, the “about us” section of the Minter Ellison website reads:

the values that drive our behaviour: integrity and trust; enduring relationships; balance; and excellence.

• With integrity and trust, we are talking about being honest, constructive, fair and ethical.

• By balance, we mean respecting the diverse contributions of our people to the firm and the needs of each individual outside work.
  

With integrity and trust, is Minter Ellison talking about - as reported by the AFR yesterday (24/6) - working for both the Port Phillip Council in Victoria and the developer in relation to the St Kilda triangle development project?

The Ombudsman was … less that happy … that Minter hosted a councillor-heavy soiree at Donovans restaurant to celebrate a Triangle project milestone.

What about other allegations of Minter Ellison partner deception?

How well is Minter Ellison maintaining its stated values? Is the firm acting with integrity, trust and balance? Or has it engendered distrust among juniors through a lack of balance and integrity?

Is the firm fostering “enduring relationships” with juniors, or is it happily opening the exit door for disillusioned (but now laterally mobile) juniors with the welcome-mat in position for the next crop of graduates?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

 Whenever the opportunity presents, we tend to heap invective on personal injury lawyers. We don’t like to generalize but we think an inordinate amount of legal doginess emanates out of PI firms. You cant really blame us when in little over 18 months the following things have happened:

• Brydens Compensation Lawyers was labelled “woeful” by the NSW Court of Appeal and was forced to foot the bill of three separate court hearings (yes - the FIRM had to pay costs!)

• repeated allegations were levelled at personal injury firm Keddies Lawyers that it overcharged clients and incurred unnecssary costs only to later bill them to a client;

• a male lawyer from Keddies Lawyers was convicted of assaulting a female police officer but not before exclaiming “I don’t have to do anything… I’m a solicitor!”;

• allegations were made that the CEO of Brydens Compensation Lawyers was embroiled in the Japanese Car Sale Harassment Debacle; and

• Hollywood has-been Erin Brokovich joined Shine Lawyers in an effort to drum up some publicity for the firm from injured mums and dads unaware that she is not a lawyer.

But today we are having a huge “shake of the sauce bottle” and congratulating national personal injury firm Slater & Gordon for helping produce Australia’s first female PM!

Yes, Rusty-crutched Gillard was once a partner at Slater & Gordon, refining her people skills on clients looking for a “no-win, no-fee”  deal. In fact, the “no win no fee” deal was introduced at Slaters one year before Gillard’s departure, in her Victorian office.

No Win - No Fee ™ lawyers Slater & Gordon believe that every Australian has the right to legal representation no matter what their financial circumstances.

Slater & Gordon’s innovative No Win - No Fee ™ arrangement is designed with exactly that purpose in mind. Introduced to Victorians in 1994, No Win - No Fee™ was created in direct response to growing community concern that access to legal justice was beyond the reach of many and increasingly restricted to those with the financial resources to pay for it.

No Win - No Fee ™ has meant that many Australians whose financial situation would otherwise deny them legal representation are now able to access the legal system. 

Access to justice, hey?

Gillard received her law degree from Melbourne University and was a lawyer at Slater & Gordon from 1987 to 1995. In 1990, Gillard was admitted as one of Slater’s first female partners.

Congratulations to Julia and to Slaters.

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For those besotted by her gorgeous flame mop (we are!), it turns out that Gillard’s de facto Tim Mathieson is a hairdresser

In an excellent article, aptly entitled Fears over performance pay, the AFR (4/6) gave an overview of the apparent shift in international legal circles from lock-step remuneration, based on experience, to performance pay. It is speculated in the article that major Australian law firms will soon also largely embrace a performance pay model.

performance pays on the catwalk

In the article, Allens Chief Executive Partner Michael Rose - who at the time was probably preparing for his annual “I’m-a-make-believe-derelict” sleep-over with 700 CEOs* - is quoted in the following way:

Allens Arthur Robinson expects to implement a performance pay regime before the end of 2011. Managing partner Michael Rose insisted the move was in line with client’s expectations. “Clients are not convinced that ratcheting lawyers salares and lawyers rates solely by reference to seniority is sensible,” he said.

We’re not sure which “clients” Rose has purportedly been speaking to, but we would anticipate that either:

• they are not lawyers; or
• they are not lawyers who have worked in a major corporate law firm where billable units are commonly reverse engineered several days, or weeks, after the fact.

In particular, we would anticipate that these “clients” have no notice that Allens Arthur Robinson was the target of one of recently retired Victorian Supreme Court Justice David Byrne’s most strident swipes at corporate law firms. Reporting Justice Byrne’s last interview as a judge, The Age noted (29/5):

In a case that still makes Byrne seethe, he lambasted Allens Arthur Robinson’s $3.7 million bill for costs in a case that ran for six years before it went to trial. The final bill was expected to hit $8 million, but this sum could not be recovered anyway because the opposing party sank into receivership. At the time, Byrne described AAR’s bill as ”a great reproach on the legal system” and said ”some restraint, some proportionality and perhaps less greed should be shown”.

Just a bit less greed, hey?

Would the removal of the “ratcheting” of the salaries of the lawyers responsible for this $3.7 million bill encourage more expedient, less greedy justice? Or would it encourage lawyers whose performance is measured on utilisation rates to chase a rabbit down every conceivable hole in order to place upward pressure on their utilisation and, hence, strengthen their greed claim for higher “performance pay”?

And how does the prospective unratcheting of lawyer salaries tie-in with the momentum we have seen from some clients toward fixed-fee billing?

We would argue that the “uncapped lawyer bonus plan” promulgated by Freehills, as well as the “unratcheted performance pay” in the Allens Arthur Robinson pipeline, is at odds with:

1. the generally enlarged inhouse legal teams across major Australian corporates;
2. the related move toward tendering and fixed-fee arrangements;
3. the rife disenchantment among junior lawyers of non-existent work/life balance; and
4. the overarching perception in government, the judiciary and society that major corporate law firms are “money-making machines”, presided over by a handful of uber-greedy corporate types, that make access to justice something of a running joke.

The AFR article made the following pertinent point:

Performance pay solely based on KPIs would result in lawyers working many more hours, NSW Young Lawyers president, Puoyan Afshar, said. This would leave the door open for the billable unit to increase its domination over lawyers’ lives. Work life balance is a key issue for junior members of the profession, with many jumping ship after two to five years, citing burn out and depression as reasons.

Is performance pay a step in the right direction, or will it leave corporate lawyers even more morally derelicte?

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*If you want to support the St Vincent De Paul’s CEO Sleepout - which we think is a fantastic charity (hat tip to Mr Rose for taking part) - click on this link.

We reported a couple of weeks ago that judicial commentators were criticising the corporate billable unit. Well, the chorus of condemnation directed at the profiteering of major law firms became a little louder on 4/6 when the AFR reported that:

I WANT ALL OF THE CHEESE

Victorian Chief Justice, Marilyn Warren, is concerned that mounting commercial pressures may be causing lawyers to forget their primary duty to the court. These include alliances between firms, incorporation, firms listing on the stock exchange, the use of litigation funders and the current national profession reforms with a focus on consumer rights.

…Warren told an ethics forum recently that firms have become ruthless money-making machines that force out experienced partners as young as 50 while young lawyers “are actively pursued or recruited”, only to be “exploited by the firm as reflected in their high attrition rates, especially young women…In the middle of the law firms are the associates, senior associates and prospective partners struggling to meet the profit demands of the modern practice… Their incentive for unfailing, relentless commitment to the firm’s profit is that they too may be made a partner, one day.”

Chief Justice Warren then went on to tie these comments into her appraisal of the recently released draft bill to create a nationally regulated legal profession:

…national profession reforms could diminish lawyers’ primary ethical duties to the court, because they were so consumer focused… “external regulation may be welcome but it must not come at the expense of the traditional role of the profession… [the proposed national reforms] do not, unfortunately, rise to the occasion”.

Warrem CJ’s comments are likely to come as a direct slap in the face to Mallesons Chief Executive Partner Robert Milliner, who also heads the Large Law Firm Group - the primary body calling for national legal regulation. Milliner told the ALB recently in respect of the draft reforms:

“The primary driver is to promote efficiency and uniformity in the regulation of the national legal profession. There is a desire to ensure that the regulatory framework facilitates the provision of best practice at the best price and in a consistent way right around Australia.”

We don’t blame you if you just spat your coffee over your computer screen. We sure did! Mr Robert Milliner… concerned to see that a regulatory framework exists that facilitates the provision of best practice at the best price. Like the Chief Justice, we smell a rat. A corporate rat!

If you had forgotten, let us remind you that Mallesons reported revenue that was $58million higher than its nearest competitor last financial year. Each equity partner reportedly took home between $1,400,000.00 and $1,600,000.00. Incredibly, Mallesons managed this remarkable profit feat despite having apparently less employees than its two nearest competitors in terms of revenue.

To join the dots for you all, we think this means two things:

1. the Chief Justice’s comments about corporate law firms (let’s use Mallesons as an example) being “money-making machines” are correct; and
2. People, including the Chief Justice, should be dubious of Robert Milliner when he professes concern that laws be introduced in order to facilitate the provision of best practice at the best price when the current state of the profession has enabled him to amass such an incredible reported profit take.

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to create a very rough, and slightly less dubious, draft bill of reforms that we think Mallesons could implement to achieve “best practice at the best price”:

• Charge less money for legal services. This will mean clients get a “better price”. Possibly the “best price”;
• Give consideration to whether “best practice” occurs at 3am, or on weekends. Or at 3am on weekends.

Can you think of any corporate rat reforms? Please tell us in the comments below.

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At various times in the last year we have reported rumours that Clifford Chance and Mallesons have been toying with the idea of a major international merger. As recently as May we reported the rumour that Mallesons was in renewed discussions with Clifford Chance, following the breakdown of merger talks in late 2008 by reason of the then emerging GFC.

Today, we can report the most compelling (and in our opinion most logical) rumour yet - that Clifford Chance will open shop in Sydney later this year, on its own terms.  And yes folks, the bidding war for profitable Australian partners is set to begin.

We received the following anonymous comments from a Clifford Chance spy a couple of days ago:

‘which magic circle firm is now well past the due diligence phase of orchestrating it’s very own Aussie assault? Allen & Overy? Wrong. As an employee working very closely with the project, I can tell you that Clifford Chance is coming to Australia, sooner rather than later.”

We then received the following comments from another anonymous Clifford Chance spy yesterday:

Rumours wildly circulating London offices this week that Clifford Chance will soon go public with its plans to make a foray Down Under. Investigate.

The Firm Spy’s immediate gut reaction to this news was, well, wouldn’t a magic circle firm considering an assault at least wait for further clarity on the RSPT? Sovereign risk in Australia is being blamed for a recent weakening in domestic markets, so wouldn’t they wait to see if the “Mad Monk”, Tony Abbott, has the mettle to take out the election and reverse Krudd mining tax policy?

Perhaps not, if the European economy is facing a prtotracted economic struggle and Australia is seen - at least by one of it’s major competitors - as a profitable destination (albeit a conclusion reached pre-RSPT).The rumour is also buttressed by the very credible report penned by our friends at RoF.

So where will the Clifford Chance partners come from? RoF speculates that Corrs will be targeted. We beg to differ.

As early as February we have heard credible reports that Clifford Chance is targetting young, dynamic Mallesons partners to head up it’s Australian office. Given the close affiliation existing between the firms, this is not hard to believe.

But the primary hurdle to getting these partners across, in our view, is the likelihood that access to the Clifford Chance equity pool will not represent a major economic windfall in the same way A&O did to the defecting Clutz partners (the weakening Euro doesn’t help either). However, this “hurdle” is tempered by the fact (we think, at least)that the Mallesons lock step model is exasperatingly long and populated by regular “performance reviews”.

So if Clifford Chance either promised prospective Mallesons defectors a set wage for, say, three years, or guaranteed quicker ascension (compared with that at Mallesons) up the equity pile, it might suddenly become an attractive bargain.

The appeal of Australia to magic circle firms is a topic which has been overwrought by commentators (including us) in 2010. But now, more than at any other stage in this year or during the GFC, the urgency is clear. And if you’ve already exhaustively considered the prospect, got ready access to the top talent who’ll be enticed by the right bargain, then why not?

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If someone had told us at the start of the year that we might see the corporate collapse of a major Australian firm, we wouldn’t have believed it. Today, however, we hold very grave, very genuine concerns for the viability of Clayton Utz.

We were sent the following link by an anonymous Clayton Utz spy earlier in the week. It is an interlocutory decision of the NSW Supreme Court relating to DEFAMATION PROCEEDINGS AGAINST CLAYTON UTZ BROUGHT BY A FORMER EMPLOYEE.

This brings to three the number of proceedings currently afoot or contemplated that involve Clayton Utz:

1. the sexual harassment claims being brought against the firm by former employee Michael “Trench” Mitchell;
2. the alleged breach of fiduciary duty action being brought by the firm against mastermind defector Grant Fuzi; and
3. the new emergence of defamation claims being brought by former employee Bridgette Styles against the firm.

For our accounting firm readers (and this is obvious, but we’ll point it out just to be certain), this is a remarkable situation because lawyers are customarily involved in representing clients in court proceedings, as opposed to appearing in court proceedings on their own behalf.

Our good friends at RoF reported this story a few weeks ago. We too had been tipped off to the story but, after contacting Ms Styles, agreed with her that we would wait for the interlocutory decision to be handed down before further reportage.

So what does the interlocutory judgment tell us?

To begin with, it tells us that Clayton Utz has done a miserable job at contesting Styles’ application to amend her pleadings, having comprehensively lost the hearing. More importantly, the judgment tells us that Bridgette Styles is alleging that her former firm defamed her. The genesis of that defamation can be directly traced to the alleged publication of the following alleged statement to Joe Catanzariti by a lawyer named Luis Izzo:

“Bridgette Styles, your new graduate solicitor, is making extremely serious and unjustified allegations about Abraham Ashe, Cilla Robinson and James Simpson and I. She is accusing us of conspiring to place pictures of me in Abe’s office. She is saying that she has been sexually harassed by the pictures and she is threatening to use the sexual harassment allegations as bargaining chips against the firm, to force us to let her stay in the Workplace Group after her rotation finishes. She was very aggressive and even grabbed me even though I was backing away. I don’t want to come back from secondment to the Workplace Group if she’s in it.”

Styles alleges that the “sense and substance” of the above statement (that she alleges is defamatory of her) was subsequently republished widely both inside and outside the firm, including “the general population” of legal practitioners in Sydney. Joe Catanzariti - the partner alleged to have originally received Izzo’s allegedly defamatory statement - is the current President of the Law Society of New South Wales.

We reported a few weeks ago the rumour that Clayton Utz was “lowering the bar” by promoting a lawyer with a mere 2 years PQE to senior associateship. At the very same time that the announcement was made in respect of that junior lawyer, one Luis Izzo - a gentleman embroiled in very serious defamation proceedings arising out of his employment - was also made senior associate. An alleged corporate defamer … made SA!

How close is Clayton Utz to doomsday midnight?

We would suggest that every further incident we add to this list of nuclear bombs is another second closer to the end. In 2010:

• 14 very profitable, well respected partners defected from Clayton Utz to build two Australian offices of Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy;
• Clayton Utz sacked over 30% of its Melbourne graduates;
• a former employee was given leave to pursue further claims against the Clutz for alleged sexual harassment and bullying;
• the firm was stripped of its credentials as an employer of choice for women by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency;
• a librarian has created considerable controversy by hording an inordinate amount of firm fruit;
• a Clutz lawyer appearing on a reality TV show revealed her homewrecking past, cooking up a dish of office romance with a side of “single-mother-left-with-three-young-kids”; and
• it emerged that another former lawyer is alleging the firm defamed her.

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When we reported a couple of weeks ago that Masterchef contestants Peter Kritikides and Adam Liaw, both lawyers, had variously:

that office "burn"

• participated in a firm-sanctioned chest-waxing; and
• proclaimed a belief that “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”,

we thought we had adequately exposed the dirt on this year’s show. Oh how we burnt the toast on that one!

A trickle of anonymous comments began filtering through last week in relation to something slightly fishy. First we received this, from an anonymous Clutz spy:

Which Clayton Utz employee is currently sweating like, shall we say, a Masterchef contestant in the “pressure cooker”?

At that point, we had no idea what was going on, but surmised that it must have involved Clayton Utz lawyer Claire Winton Burn (for those keeping score - we incorrectly stated that she’d been voted off the show in our earlier Masterchef post). But we never would have guessed that it involved Claire’s entangelment in a sizzling office romance with a Clayton Utz lawyer. Or that the relevant Clayton Utz lawyer is, in his spare time, a father to three young children.

In an article entitled How Claire’s affair sizzled, the Daily Telegraph walks readers ingredient by ingredient step by step through Claire Winton Burn’s corporate love affair. And the news isn’t good for beleagured Clayton Utz partners:

[Claire] is in a relationship with a work colleague at … Clayton Utz, which made her so miserable she joined the reality show searching for a better life. The problem is, the colleague left his wife and three children for Claire just after the birth of his third child. A recent interview Claire gave to New Idea set a cat among the pigeons at the law firm when Claire named the man as her “partner”, something which also shocked the ex who is struggling at home alone with a baby and two other young ones. Claire refused to comment on the relationship when we contacted her. Her partner was tight-lipped, but offered this when we called for comment. I don’t really want to talk to the press about anything, Claire’s told me,” he said. “I don’t really have anything to contribute, thank you.”

We were preparing last night to report on this kitchen nightmare when the following email came through:

I have been following the claire winton burn story with regards to her alleged relationship with a clayton utz lawyer. We have his name and he was apparently off work yesterday and at this stage I disclose I am a freelance tabloid photojournalist.

We photographed the alleged ‘partner’ read not a law firm partner, in Melbourne today.

The funny thing is pictures which were online of the male party have since been removed so we are unable to corroborate our pictures. Its seems Clayton Utz or the male party concerned are doing everything they can to isolate the firm from the story.

If I send you a picture of the male person for your use, (publication) can you please try to corroborate the identity of the person in the picture, assuming it is the name of the male lawyer in the construction division that Claire once worked.

I am available to email both the name of the alleged male in the relationship and a photo taken today which I believe is that person. I can be contacted on 04######## or ####@#########.com.au

Regards,

Jamie Fawcett

Yes, Jamie Fawcett - the same esteemed paparazzo who made headlines in 2005 for placing a listening device under the water meter outside Nicole Kidman’s home. He was thereafter labelled Sydney’s “most disliked freelance photographer”.

At this stage Jamie, in the interests of protecting the welfare and livelihood of the three young children (not to mention their poor mother) whose lives appear poised to be irrevocably shaped by your prospective “naming and shaming” of their father, we will decline to name the man in question. So perhaps you should place that photo under your water meter. Or in your oven. Just dont bother sending it through to us.

It is difficult to believe that the pantry full of 2010 misfortune could grow any mouldier for Clayton Utz. But it has. So far in 2010:

• 14 very profitable, well respected partners defected from the Clayton Utz to build two Australian offices of Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy;
• Clayton Utz sacked over 30% of its Melbourne graduates;
• a former employee was given leave to pursue further claims against the Clutz for alleged sexual harassment and bullying;
• the firm was stripped of its credentials as an employer of choice for women by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency;
• a librarian has created considerable controversy by hording an inordinate amount of firm fruit; and
• a Clutz lawyer appearing on a reality TV show revealed her homewrecking past, cooking up a dish of office romance with a side of “single-mother-left-with-three-young-kids”.

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