Well, our general lack of intel on Gadens was to some extent explained by an anonymous spy earlier this week, who took a very welcome opportunity to add a new page to the GSF:
Good to see some info about Gadens Lawyers Melbourne hitting Firm Spy. Gadens (internally) pride themselves on not encouraging employees to mix with members of the legal profession so its hard to get info out. They say they don’t encourage networking because its not billable but I think its because they don’t want their lawyers to realise there are better options out there.
There is a toxic culture at Gadens (Melbourne). Staff are under paid, senior associates (who actually aren’t that senior compared to the rest of the profession) yell at junior staff or cry because they are so stressed and many of the partners only care about billing. Like any place there are some exceptions to the rule but all in all its a horrible place to be – just look at the junior lawyers – there is next to no lawyers at the second, third or fourth year level that did their articles with the firm – they just wont put up with bad pay and bad treatment with the only benefit being “interesting work and a lot of responsibility”. Funny that people wont just work forever with rubbish pay, bad hours just for the sake of being “given” work.
Yep, that sure is funny… not. Another anonymous tipster sent us this appraisal, following our post last week:
I spent a few weeks clerking at Gadens and it was like the university library in exam week … ON STEROIDS! I’ve never seen a group of more stressed out people in my life. People were almost jogging in the corridors to get to and from the loo. It was insane. Everyone also had a really noticeable “office-shine” on their faces too – a sign that they’ve been sitting too long at the desk, or that they need a wash. Or both, for that matter.
BOTH INDEED. Jeepers, Gadens, what about a facewasher? Or better yet, what about a shower? We’re popping this straight in the GSF. Do you have anything to add?
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There’s slot of oily faces at my office too. We need a KFC moist towelette dispenser!
Gadens coerce (to put it mildly) staff who have who have complained about bullying, or who have raised concerns about being intimidated by snr staff, to quit. They then withhold their pay & payout until they sign a confidentiality agreement…. hence the thin shame file. This happened to at least 3 of my (ex) colleagues in the Sydney office, not to mention the countless numbers of people who just went to HR and never came back! As the bullying and intimidation campaign against certain staff members heightened, of course their work suffered. This poor quality work was then sited as the reason that they had to leave (Sydney office).