Throughout history, people have flocked to see great leaders speak.

On October 20, 2008, for example, people flocked from all corners of the globe to watch former US president George W. Bush speak about the state of financial markets. He kept a Louisiana audience captivated with his charisma, funny anecdotes, and “Bushisms”. Bush had the opportunity, at this epochal event, to show the strength of his economics pedigree by telling the audience, in response to a query on market liquidity, that:

“This thaw — took a while to thaw, it’s going to take a while to unthaw”

But that momentous occasion, and indeed those populating the annals of history in which great leaders have spoken, are dwarfed by the momentous occasion that will occur on this very day.

ROBERT MILLINER WILL SPEAK!

You’ll recall that the Firm Spy has, for many months now, taken delight in dispraising Mallesons Chief Executive Partner Robert Milliner and his views on economics. We christened him “Gandalf” when, notwithstanding the RBA Governor’s assertion hours earlier that the GFC was over, Milliner declared that markets were, in fact, trending down.

Durrrrrrr … thems markets gotsta unthaw!

Today, the Milliner clairvoyant roadshow moves on. And the partnership is flocking to see him.

Two anonymous Mallesons spies sent us the following email, apparently sent by Milliner to the firm yesterday:

…We have our annual partners conference this weekend in Melbourne. Starting with meetings of our global practice teams on Friday morning our discussion over the next 2 days will cover our plans for the next few years under the theme “Brave New World”. The partners and I are looking forward to this opportunity to review the rapid changes to our landscape over the last 18 months, coming into and emerging from the GFC, and agreeing on the refinements we will make to our strategies to reflect the longer term impacts of those changes.

..remember that we cannot afford to let our client service slip - we have done extremely well to make an observable service difference part of our DNA. Pay attention to the details; focus on quality at every step. Make every day count.

Kind regards,

Robert Milliner

Pay attention to the details; focus on quality at every step. Make every day count.

Forgive us, for a moment, as we disgorge our brekky on our keyboard! Golly gosh - we can see parts of our DNA … all over the computer!

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we

But today is so much more than a handful of wanker corporate idioms. Today is the first day of The Brave New World. What will happen in this new world, you ask?

Well, in the book authored by Aldous Huxley, of the same name:

the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of futurism.

The white wizard dabbling in the future? Nothing “new” there. Perhaps a “brave” approach to staff remuneration will herald something “new”.

However, hopes that Milliner and the partnership might resolve today at the partners conference to lift purportedly oppressive pay conditions being placed on overworked staff, are dealt a blow by the following comments, received from an anonymous Mallesons spy last week:

Those readers of your forum from Mallesons, responding to your “weekly poll” that we’ll be the last to unfreeze pay, ought to take pause and consider that the firm paid staff a healthy bonus just prior to Christmas. That bonus will very likely exceed annualised CPI for this financial year. To my mind, none of our major competitors have acted so generously with staff at a time when revenue is falling across the legal market.

So where will pay go over the next few months, as signs of a more general market thaw become apparent? Employee salaries will remain frozen until the pay review cycle foreshadowed to staff in December, meaning no pay rises will take effect until July 1.

As an aside, there is much talk that our competitor Freehills will, in effect, give staff “two” pay reviews in the period that we will give staff one review, the latter of which will take effect on July 1. The Mallesons pay review will have the effect of lifting staff salaries as of July 1 2010. We paid staff Christmas bonuses which largely offset CPI. Placed side by side, the patterns of  thawing remuneration freezes between Mallesons and Freehills are therefore probably quite similar.

A “Brave New World”, or the boring old rubbish that lawyers are fed up with?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

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