No seriously, that’s his name – Wayne Spanner. He has been a partner at Norton Rose (and Deacons) since 2002 and will take the role as Australian managing partner on 1 January 2012.
If rumours we have been sent by an anonymous Norton Rose spy are to be believed, Wayne will certainly have his work cut out for him in his new role.
We received the following comments yesterday:
Rumours abound in Canberra that Norton Rose will be closing up its office, just 6 Months after launching its new premises. The gamble has paid no rewards. The office continues to struggle with a low revenue from Commonwealth clients, a lack of talented government lawyers and a revolving door of professional staff.
Only equity partner Vince Sharma continues to put off side his collegues in Sydney and lose senior staff. He has lost all of his senior associates to rival firms this year alone. The firm has failed to lure any new partners despite numerous offers and the early retirement of long term underperforming partner [name redacted].
2 of the leading partners from DLA Piper that drove the move to HWL Ebsworth, made the extraordinary offer to move to Norton Rose with the other 4 ex DLA Piper partners if Vince Sharma was to depart the firm.
Paul Amarego, formerly Clayton Utz, has been brought on board as a Special Counsel (rumoured to be an exceptionally high offer for a semi retired small firm proprietor with a declining client base) in a desperate attempt to win work, respect and to keep its staff and office afloat.
Ben Allen (formerly Special Counsel in Sydney office, now Canberra partner), Noni Shannon (Special Counsel) and Alena Titterton (Senior Associate) have all been brought up from the Sydney office to try to shore up its Canberra client based workflow. Canberra government clients are apparently not happy with the continuing lack of govt experience amongst the leadership team.
Bill Kritheras (SA, Sydney) declined the offer of a Canberra promotion to partner, preferring to move to Sparke Helmore. Alena Titterton now takes that role as an SA, working for Sydney rainmaking Parter Michael Tooma, whose working relationship with Vince Sharma can only be described as [difficult]. Adrian D’Amico, partner and office chairman, continues to struggle with a lack of work and no direct report professional staff.
Wayne: No way!!!???
FS: Way.
If true, the rumour above is a totally amazing, excellent discovery! So we emailed Norton Rose seeking a comment on it. A spokesperson wrote the following to us this morning:
We have recently opened our new Canberra premises and we continue to grow and support the practice. There is no truth to the suggestion from Firm Spy that Norton Rose is to close its Canberra office.
The firm declined to comment on all the other material contained in the tip-off, which we forwarded them. So we turned to the Wayne’s World script for some guidance on what is possibly going on:
Stacy: Happy anniversary, Wayne.
Wayne: Stacy, we broke up two months ago.
Stacy: Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t still go out, does it?
Wayne: Well, it does actually, that’s what breaking up is.
Do you think Norton Rose Canberra is breaking up, but the message just hasn’t gotten through yet?
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“The office continues to struggle with a low revenue from Commonwealth clients, a lack of talented government lawyers and a revolving door of professional staff.”
Lack of talented lawyers should be something that NR is an expert in.
does that mean they are expert lawyers then?
“NRA: Expertly untalented”… I like that. This truly is crowdsourcing in its prime.
So where will Boyd pop up?
I sense that Wayne Spanner is a tool
I don’t know if the office is closing, but it certainly is struggling. I think somehow the national partnership thought good will from the Commonwealth seeking to spread its legal spend and a new office would be enough to cover over the cracks. Problem for Wayne et al is that it takes more than a nice office and some benevolence from clients to make a good law firm. It takes some half decent hard working lawyers too.
Not so good in the Brisbane office at the moment either. Aaron Anderson is acting for BDO in a big case against a former partner and got his arse handed to him in the first round at the Supreme Court on Friday after a marathon session. Angry partner=unhappy associates
A Norton Rose colleague put it best, you can change the name and merge with an English firm, but that won’t change the bad culture of some really greedy and stupid partners.
Yep. A pig in a tutu is still a pig….