Outplayed; Minter Ellison Partner Simon Alroe Voted Off the Island

Ever since the story broke in July that former Minter Ellison staff partner Simon Alroe had been suspended indefinitely by the firm, pending the outcome of criminal harassment proceedings, the Firm Spy has been tireless in its efforts trying to find out the real story.

the tribe has spoken

When we later revealed that the person Mr Alroe is alleged to have harassed is a fellow Minters partner who is an expert on laws relating Equal Employment Opportunity, we smelled a rat. Experts in this field often have questionable views on how offices should run and what amounts to harassing conduct. Take the example in today’s earlier post on the laughable views of Clayton Utz partner Joe Catanzariti on what he considers stalking, harassment and intimidation (a simple message!).

So we re-opened the file. We dug a little deeper.

We can reveal today that on his Twitter account, Simon Alroe posted the following comments two weeks ago:

Preparing to contest minters ludicrous decision to remove me from the partnership by board minute making ‘Survivor’ look like a democracy…

This revelation comes after Alroe said, outside the courtroom following his first court appearance on the stalking allegations, that his plan was to:

negotiate my way out of this thing …[and] negotiate my way out of the partnership.

It appears that via a single board minute, the Minters partnership has managed to unilaterally ‘negotiate’ Alroe out of the partnership. Was Trent Forno at the partnership meeting? Did he vote?

Our sources at the Sydney Bar inform us that prior to this brand of unilateral negotiation, senior mediation practitioner Ian Hangar QC approached Minter Ellison with an offer to mediate the partnership dispute. But rather than mediate, it appears Minters just voted Alroe off the island!

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!