Maddocks, HWL Ebsworth Partner Implicated in Burwood Council Corruption Investigation, Staff Harrassment

Update: apparently there are now allegations of racial harrassment as well.  Zing.

We received this salacious tip from an “insider” at east coast mid-tier HWL Ebsworth Lawyers.  It seems that David Baird, a partner formerly at Maddocks and now at HWL Ebsworth, was enjoying some mighty fine wining and dining — not to mention inclusion on the Council’s legal services panel, without any of that nasty red tape — courtesy of a certain Burwood council minister (a Mr Pat Romano) who has since been accused of corrupt conduct, defrauding the council and obtaining financial advantages by deception.

According to the final report by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), the alleged corrupt practices included the following:

• HWL Ebsworth was selected for the Council’s Legal Services Panel without tender, in breach of the Council’s obligations which required a fair and open tender for suppliers above $150,000;
• Mr Baird and other lawyers from HWL Ebsworth and Maddocks were taken out to lunch repeatedly by Mr Romano, including a $347.00 splurge-fest at the Pier, a $198.90 lunch at Summit, and a $153 lunch at Otto’s Ristorante;
• Mr Romano claimed for parking fees totalling $2,977.98 when attending meetings at Maddocks’s offices, despite Maddocks offering to give free parking vouchers.

Okay, we thought, so some partners get to enjoy a few boozy lunches at ratepayers’ expense.  Hardly unknown.  Unfortunately for Mr Baird, things get worse: read on for all the salacious details…

And salacious details they are.  According to the report, the appointment of HWL Ebsworth required a formal tender process:

This needed to be done either through a fresh tendering process or, as required by the [Local Government Act], through the passing of a Council resolution … Neither approach was applied.  Les Hullick, Director Executive Services, arranged for the Council to affirm HWL Ebsworth Lawyers’ placement on the Panel.  Such an approach was contrary to section 55 of the LGA.

Mr Hullick received no legal advice in relation to the management of this issue. Mr Baird, the Council’s usual source of legal advice, had an obvious conflict of interest that prevented him from assisting on this issue.

Uh oh.  Looks like someone’s source of cushy council advice work is about to dry up.  And they’ve been such a good client, from the sound of things.  Clearly, it’s of significant concern that a firm doing government work should be appointed to a panel in this way, when it either did or must have known that its appointment was in breach of the very Act upon which it was called to routinely advise.

Let’s move on to the lunches and car parking.  The report describes their extravagence in the following terms:

In the course of the Commission’s investigation and public inquiry, it closely examined Mr Romano’s expenditure of Council funds as General Manager. There were numerous examples where Mr Romano charged hospitality and other expenses to the Council.  These included:

• $561.60 for coffees and lunches …
• $1,917.80 for lunches and coffees with the legal firms Maddocks or HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, generally with David Baird, since January 2007. This included paying for meals at the following restaurants, Otto’s Ristorante (for $153.00), Machiavelli Ristorante Italiano (for $184.50), the Pier Restaurant (for $347.00), and the Summit Restaurant (for $198.90) [FS: at least they have good taste in dining]
• parking at Maddocks from January 2007 at a cost of $2,977.98, when Maddocks provided vouchers for clients to park for free. Mr Romano was asked why he did not accept vouchers, but incurred a cost for the Council, and he responded, “I like to pay my own way”.

Brilliant stuff. You could not make this up if you tried.  In the spirit of “paying his own way”, Mr Romano apparently refused the gracious offer of free parking from Maddocks, only to chargeback the expenses to the Council.  Either there were a lot of meetings, or that’s some seriously expensive parking Maddocks has there.

But back to Mr Baird, the HWL Ebsworth partner who provided the advice and ate the lunches.  He has appeared and spoken at length in various council meetings (see for example this one), presumably giving sage advise about how to extricate themselves from Mr Romano’s impending hailstorm of crap in between belches and burps from the long lunches.  We don’t really know: those parts of the minutes have been stricken from the public record on grounds of privilege.

Mr Baird was doubtless mindful to ensure that he emerged from the fiasco unscathed.  Certainly he left no stone unturned in putting his defence with the aid of two silks:

Mr Baird is the lawyer who was at the centre of the Burwood Council ICAC investigation. During the investigation he retained two silks (a QC and an SC) thinking that insurance would cover their fees. It did not and he has not paid. A claim has now been made by the barristers and is being defended by the firm. Talk about tight – to me this is ridiculous that anyone is entertaining the idea that the money is not owed.

Oh but David, don’t forget you need to “pay your own way” too!  Nobody likes a penny-pinching lawyer, least of all their unpaid counsel.   But our source suggests that he may be short of change, if not Office Presence:

His business has virtually dived since the investigation (with his equity points being reduced accordingly) but he still swans around like he owns the place. None of the other partners particularly like him and combined with his lack of business I am not sure why he is still there…

In another tip, our insider goes on to draw our attention to a very interesting, but wholly unsubstantiated, rumour surrounding a recent outburst in the office:

HWL now have an ex Land and Environment Court judge working for them as a consultant.  When he came he brought across one of his associates who had recently been admitted.  English is apparently not her first language.

A partner in the planning and environment group [FS: that apparently would be our favourite David Baird] apparently went into her office and said the following:

1. “All the partners in this group know that you are having an affair with the judge and we all think that it is inappropriate.”

2. “I am going to teach you to speak English.”

The junior has since made a complaint – but by all accounts the partner is in the pocket of Mr Martinez [HWL managing partner] and so unlikely to feel any wrath even though he has been underperforming for a number of months now.

Apparently not content with schmoozing off the taxpayer dime, now he wants to subject a junior member of staff to racial and sexual harrassment and make (presumably) unfounded allegations about an office affair.  Ultimately, our tipster thinks Baird “is held in quite high regard by the managing partner, so it is unlikely anything will come of it”.  Do you think he should get away with it?

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