‘Hookers & Blow’; Masterchef Winner Adam Liaw Interview with Kelly & Co Lawyers

When you received your $900 Kevin Rudd stimulus cash, what was your first thought? A flat screen TV? A new dishwasher? How about a couple of prostitutes and a bag of sniff?

ok Ill bring the hookers

This is what Masterchef winner – and former Kelly & Co lawyer – Adam Liaw said on his (incredibly still accessible) Twitter account (5:50pm, 10/4/2009):

Free economic stimulus money application form came in the post. Now the inevitable question: Hookers or blow?

Inevitable indeed .But what will Adam do with the Masterchef winner’s $100,000 … err… booty?

We had a hunch yesterday that Masterchef contestant Adam Liaw – better known amongst Firm Spy readers as the fellow who believes “it is a God-given right for a Prime Minister to host a secret sex party with a bunch of hookers and other Prime Ministers“* – would win the popular Channel 10 TV show for season 2010. So we took the very unusual step of picking up the phone to call Kelly & Co lawyers and spoke with Chairman Michael Durrant to find out a little bit more about Adam Liaw the junior lawyer.

We introduced ourselves as the Firm Spy and thankfully Mr Durrant was unfamiliar with our site. He therefore willingly gave us some information about his recollections of Adam, before reluctantly declining the offer to answer some scripted questions until he had informed himself of our site.

Mr Durrant ultimately looked at our site, spoke with some of his colleagues, and declined an interview with us on the topic of Adam Liaw.

But this didn’t stop us from loosely transcribing the tantalising, off-the-cuff insights he gave us on our first phone call.

Mr Durrant divulged that Adam (who incredibly started with the firm as a 20yo graduate) returned to Kelly & Co a few weeks earlier for a some catch-up drinks. We naturally pondered – was there a gourmet debrecina in a bun with cheese at the catch-up drinks, Mr Durran?

MD: … The fridge and pantry is always stocked-up here at Kelly & Co, so there was plenty to eat and drink!

Really? Food and drink, bought by the firm?

Yes. According to Durran, and to our own very intensive independent research, Kelly & Co Lawyers have taken the lead of major modern-day corporations such as Google by generously providing staff with food and drinks in the firm’s break room. Not “possum poo” fair trade coffee or cancelled cream biscuits, but healthy food, drinks, and a willingness to make junior lawyers feel like an integral part of the firm.

MD: we operate with a much flatter structure than major Australian firms so junior lawyers feel much less like they are simply a cog in a big machine.

And with all this free food and drink around, it is probably little wonder that budding lawyer Adam Liaw developed a taste for the kitchen fineries that would one day lead him to Australia’s most famous kitchen. Thankfully, the break room treats apparently didn’t stop Adam from focusing on his work, with Durrant mentioning that Liaw was regarded by his mentors as a diligent and focused junior lawyer.

But did Mr Liaw give the Kelly & Co break-room fridge a name? Unfortunately, we didnt get a clear answer on this one, although Liaw does appear to have history in naming inanimate kitchen objects:

Naming my furniture. My fridge’s name is Steve.*

Also disappointingly, we didn’t get the opportunity to ask Mr Durrant whether Liaw’s time at Kelly & Co may have prompted Liaw to make the following comment on his Twitter account:

Don’t you ever sit down at your computer when there are all these windows popping at you and emails shouting at you and just think…… I could just burn all this shit to the ground.*

Likewise, we missed the chance to ask Mr Durrant whether he agrees that drinking a Fujizakura microbrew with a side of grilled salmon can turn an ordinary heterosexual male into a “blissful homo”  (from Liaw’s Twitter account):

Watching football on the couch with some grilled salmon, a salad and a Fujizakura microbrew. Blissful, but somehow I feel like a homo.*

But all of this is moot anyhow, because the jury is back in and Adam Liaw is a Masterchef! And by our reckoning, Liaw is Australia’s first Masterchef who apparently has a taste for:

• hookers;
• blow;
• secret sex parties;
  
• blissful homos; and
• burning shit to the ground.

Will you order the “chef’s special” at Liaw’s restaurant?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

* These comments have been deleted from Adam Liaw’s Twitter account since our post of 20 May 2010.