EXCLUSIVE: Blake Dawson Loses 3 Partners + Marketing Team in “AssHurts” Exodus

Since the Blake Dawson link up with Ashurst was formally revealed in late September, there have been some interesting developments. In September, Legal Week reported that it had spoken to an Ashurst partner (who preferred to remain anonymous) who suggested that:

The ultimate success of the merger will depend entirely upon whether Blakes can be whipped into shape.

This led Ashurst to engage in a fully fledged PR offensive – on 18/11/2011 the AFR ran a full-page and highly merger-friendly piece which contained a truckload of self-congratulatory balderdash:

But when it comes to culture, the feeling seems to be that there is not a lot of work required. “The thing everybody comments on is the superb cultural fit… it’s easy to get a bit too objective and focus on the numbers [but] if the strategy is brilliant and the cultures are incompatible it won’t work,” Ashurst Managing Partner Simon Bromwich said.

It is interesting that Ashurst would suggest that numbers are conceivably a subsidiary issue to cultural fit when the firm has baulked at the opportunity to financially integrate with Blake Dawson, instead shelving a vote on the issue until 2014, presumably during which time Blakes can be “whipped into shape”. Nevertheless, Ashurst’s top brass were very quick to distance themselves from the anonymous partnership jibe to Legal Week, with the firm’s figurehead Charlie Geffen directly addressing the comment by saying:

I don’t know who said it, but it was utterly ignorant and wrong.

Shucks, it sounds like that errant Ashurst partner totally got it wrong. There is a fantastic cultural fit, after all. But … what about the comments Blake Dawson’s very own CEP, John Carrington, made in July (15/7/11) regarding the firm’s apparent inability to adapt to market pressures? He told the AFR:

There continues to be very substantial salary pressure and high demand for lawyers. That gives rise to a business issue, becuase on the other hand, we continue to be constrained in terms of price increases … We now have a far more substantial part of our overall revenue derived through fee arrangements which are other than standard fee arrangements.

That is, market forces are compelling Blakes to pay their lawyers more whilst at the same time it is receiving less revenue because fixeed-fee billing. In other words, profit is being squeezed… and in need of substantial British Whipping. It should come as little surprise, then, that some of Blake Dawson’s young stars are ready to exit stage left. To that end, we received the following comments from a Blake Dawson insider over the weekend:

Why no coverage of the mass exodus of young stars from Blakes? In the last month alone I have seen Peter Stirling go to Mallies, Les Koltai go to DLA and now Melinda Upton is heading to DLA too. Why are these top performers heading for the hills? Perhaps an international hook-up with Ass-hurts isn’t the promised land after all?

And why are Peter and Melinda still being spruiked on the Blake website? Wouldn’t have anything to do with all the marketing people having followed the last marketing director after he headed for the exit at the start of the year?

Very good question! Indeed, Peter Stirling is still on the Blakes website (here is a Google cache should his profile mysteriously disappear), as is Melinda Upton (profile here, Google cache here). They sound like huge losses too: Mr Stirling being recognised by Chambers Global as a leading lawyer and Ms Upton is regarded as an emerging IP lawyer. Let’s not forget about Les Koltai, either – he’s apparently an “internationally recognised real estate agent lawyer”. So long, farewell also the marketing team apparently – the team who won an award for the successful rebranding of Blake Dawson Waldron to namesake for gay porn star Blake Dawson. They’ll be missed too.

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