Always quick to act when partner profits are jeopardised, having been among the very first firms to sack workers at
We received the following anonymous tip this evening:
Its expected that at least half of the 2008 DLA Phillips Fox Articled Clerks in the Melbourne office will be made redundant tomorrow. The ACs haven’t been placed in their permenant teams yet, despite being admitted in April. HR has been promising to tell them who is staying and who is going for a while now, but finally set this Friday as the day in the past week. They will be called in individually tomorrow sometime. A good source at the firm states that this is a prelude to much larger redundancies, and that all lawyers are nervous. Also, due to the pay freeze recently announced, the 2009 graduates who have just started are being paid more than their 2008 counterparts (while they still have a salary of course).
If true, this would make DLA Phillips Fox the first national law firm to make two-waves of redundancies and freeze lawyer pay. Added to that, Melbourne ACs have been left out in the cold for many months.
Update: another “Ex-Fox” source has confirmed that “lawyers were laid off this afternoon (at least in Melbourne)”. Looks like the axe has been swung. More news at it comes to hand.
Further update: the bitter tirades from ex-Foxers continue to pour in. Another tipster wrote to us with details of this morning’s redundancies at DLA:
3 of our 2008 ACs got the boot today, but many of the remainder got put on only 5 or 12 month contracts, very few were made permenant offers. Time to polish up the CVs. A host of second year and above lawyers also got the heave-ho today. Ruthless stuff.
Ruthless indeed. If true, this is a devastating blow to all concerned. The move to short-term contracts — with their obvious appeal to firm management, who get the best of both worlds — bodes ill for junior professionals everywhere.
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The firm has placed 11 out of 14 of its Melbourne-based article clerks. All but one are on permanent contracts.
The three that were not placed were amongst 20 legal staff made redundant last week, in addition to 26 support staff. The firm has a total of approximately 1300 employees.
The firm has not implemented a pay freeze, and will continue to reward exceptional performance with promotions and pay increases.
Forgive my cynicism but as an ex-Foxer I think I can look behind Clare Buttner’s email.
Firstly, I expect that the “exceptional performance” threshold for pay rises might be very difficult to reach in 2008/09…
I also doubt that the fact that the firm has 1300 employees (something Clare seems to find extremely relevant) will be of much comfort to the 46 poor sods who now have to find employment in the current market. Especially given that the Fox very charitably decided to sack only those of its lawyers with the very least experience… I guess this is just payback for all those years when it couldn’t hold onto its own junior lawyers.
Further, it is fair to expect (knowing the firm as I do) that the redundancy payout would have been something on the lower side of miniscule.
Clare is, of course, welcome to rebut any of the above statements. She is also welcome to explain why those partners at the firm infamous for averaging 2-3 billable hours per day were saved from the savaging given to their younger colleagues.
Finally, in a time of uncertainty it is pleasing to see, after the 5 or so years since my escape, that PF’s support teams are still wedded to the concept of “article clerks”. Who I presume must spend their days writing or reading articles or something.
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