When news is slow (like this week), the team at the Firm Spy needs to work a little harder. But our pain is your gain with this little gem that almost slipped through the cracks!

We reported in May the news that dozens of Minter Ellison workers were made redundant by the firm in the immediate wake of the announcement of a firm-wide pay freeze. At that stage, all we knew of the workers made redundant was what we read in the AFR:

the lawyers range from senior associates to juniors in the property, construction and finance practice areas.

We have since stumbled upon a BRW article casting more light on the targets of the redundancy programme. The article reports:

very harsh cut backs

Minter Ellison retrenched a senior lawyer months after the firm’s management had singled him out as a rising star. A senior associate in Construction, Ronan MacSweeney was one of only 11 lawyers made redundant in the firm’s restructure… management asked MacSweeney to appear in a video being shown at the firm’s biannual address to staff…MacSweeney was selected to front the video campaign because his six-month secondment… was considered so successful that it was identified as a highlight of the firm’s performance…insiders say the decision to let MacSweeney go - in a restructure that affected only 1 per cent of staff - surprised many employees.

Although it is difficult to fathom a more reprehensible course of conduct by corporate partners, it is revealed later in the article that:

Word also leaked out that the retrenchment of a [Minter Ellison] 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.

These redundancies serve as a timely reminder for corporate employees (other than partners, of course) that no matter how hard you work, no matter how highly you achieve, no matter how much your personal circumstances and history warrant your continued presence at your firm, fulsome corporate partners can sack you in one fell swoop.

A swing of the samurai sword, if you will!

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