Thanks to the anonymous spy who tipped us off to the life-long male bosom saga confronting PwC Chief Operatios Officer Neil Wilson. Had we had our collective melons screwed on correctly we probably would have seen the AFR article (4/3) in the first place!

In a remarkable “men’s health” piece appearing in last Thursday’s AFR, PwC partner Wilson, the figure we once rebuked for allegedly sending Australian PwC jobs offshore to India, walks us step by step through a life living with man boobs.

“Since his chubby adolescence [Wilson] had silently lived with male breasts, feeling self-conscious but never knowing anything could be done about them. As a youth he had been embarrassed changing in the locker room and as an adult… he never wore tight tops. Polo shirts were out… and so was lycra, even though he was a committed cyclist. He was was always comfortable going to work at PwC … because loose-fitting business shirts with buttons and a pocket provided some disguise.”

Breast distress! What is a corporate partner to do when he is jugg-a-lugg full of melon-choly?

As luck would have it, Wilson, whilst thumbing through the paper one morning discovered that breast-reduction surgery was an option.

“whilst reading the paper over breakfast in London last year, Wilson’s attention was caught by [a story] which said that increasing numbers of men are now having breast-reduction surgery… [Soon after] he had himself referred to a cosmetic breast surgeon. At the first consultation the surgeon asked him to remove his shirt. ”Wow!” he said. “These are whoppers, I’ve never seen any as big as these.”

Wilson knew his breasts looked fleshy. 

In subsequent breast reduction surgery, the sugeon is reported to have removed 160 grams of breast tissue which the doctor described as “a lot”.

Now, several months after the surgery, Wilson is satisfied with his new chest. With that familiar degree of corporate partner modesty,  Wilson told the AFR:

“At 50, I didn’t expect I would come out with a male model chest, but I’ve been working hard with weights and can wear a skin-tight top and look reasonable.”

Does your chest look reasonable? Do you suffer from bitch-tits?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Here at the Firm Spy we make an effort not to just hijack the content published on other websites, in particular those operating in the same space as us (namely ALB, Lawyers Weekly, and The New Lawyer). However, in the last week we have read two articles published by our good friends at The New Lawyer that we considered so compelling,  so pertinent, that we have decided to republish them here.

Unsurprisingly, both articles are a slap in the face to the modern-day corporate law firm partner.

The first article was written by a former associate to Michael Kirby. Nick James:

The nature of the top tier law firm has fundamentally shifted in the last three decades, writes Nick James, so isn’t it natural that those most adversely affected would begin to cast around for new alternatives?

OBSERVERS of the legal industry have for a while been describing a new set of behaviors and attitudes displayed by emerging lawyers. Generation Y in particular is described as a challenge and sometimes a problem for the existing law firm model.

The new generations, we are told, are less interested in doing the work required to become a partner and are more interested in:

• profit share at an earlier age
• flexibility
• being given greater responsibility and client access
• experiencing an individual connection with their personal values and the subject matter of their work.

While both Gen Y and X are different from the generations before them, it is important to note that many of the ‘changes’ in attitude ascribed to them are in fact natural responses and adjustment to dramatic changes in the large law firm environments they are inheriting.

Today’s mega law firm juggernaut is a relatively recent phenomenon. The very largest law firms in Australia in 1980 had only just exceeded 30 partners. They also operated under a very different set of conditions. In 1979 an article comprehensively surveying the phenomenon of the emergence of the “corporate” law firm in Australia, noted that “one firm has gone so far as to … specify weekly minimum billing targets for its partners and employee solicitors”. The article continued “other law firms have clung longer to a sense of individual autonomy in the partners”.

As law firms have grown since then, in only a few decades, what once was a system of a community of partners bounded by either personal friendship or acquaintance evolved into a highly impersonal/competitive/corporatised and semi-political structure. Its decision making model: Requiring the consensus of a large group of partner-owners who have a window in their career to collect profits before retirement; has (arguably inevitably) driven management decisions which have over time tended to serve the short-term profit interests of the equity partner-owners at the expense of other important interests, including those of the emerging lawyers and even of the firms’ clients.

The fall-out has been a large factor in the crisis in our legal profession of unhappy lawyers (even in partnership ranks) and dissatisfied clients, not to mention a decline in the general level of community respect for the profession. Increasingly higher fees; higher hours worked by lawyers; behavior driven by billing targets; the overheating of the leverage model; the creation of salaried partner/special counsel roles; and the increasing delay of promotion both to and beyond senior associate; are all a result of the intense focus on profits-per-equity-partner as the fundamental goal sitting at the centre of the top tier firm.

Ultimately these sorts of observations don’t mean much in a business sense unless they necessarily lead to two conclusions:

a) Factors inherent in the current large law firm model actually make the model bad at what it must do in the long term in order to remain sustainable and successful; which is to keep its workforce and its clients happy.

And therefore:

b) The current large law firm model is vulnerable to new structures that can do a better job of giving lawyers a better place to work and clients better service and value while being able to accommodate the scale of needs of modern globalised corporations.

The structure which will win in the long term will need more than the simple advantages of incumbency which make the modern top tier law firms appear invincible at this point in time. Any new structure must, to be successful, rebalance the needs of lawyers for conditions which were once an embedded part of their working life as well as provide a dynamic engine capable of driving the growth of the business. How this is to be done is the task for the next generation of lawyers; those who have inherited a large law firm model which they can now plainly see is flawed and requires rethinking. The urgency of this task is heightened as they increasingly realise they themselves are among the primary victims of its basic dynamic and the cost to their lives as well as their professional enjoyment is too great to continue working within the existing model.

It is important to remember, that emerging alternative visions for the future for top tier practice, like the aspirations of the new generation of lawyers, are not a radical departure from the history of the legal profession. It is instead the overheated, current big firm model which is the aberration. It seems arguable that ‘new’ visions for the practice of law in fact represent a continuation of the sorts of things we have always wanted from our workplaces and which are only resurfacing now because they have been left behind for a while too long.

Nick James is the founder and director of the Sydney-based law firm Optim Legal. He is an alumnus of two top tier firms and was an associate to Justice Michael Kirby at the High Court of Australia. Comments can be left online or sent privately to nick@optimlegal.com.au.

The second article was written by Michael Bradley. Bradley, you’ll recall, has previously been the subject of some Firm Spy criticism. Until now, we thought Bradley was some kind of space cadet. We censured him over forcing graduate job applicants to his firm Marque Lawyers (named after a wallet) to write a 500-word application essay featuring the word “jazzy”. We wrote our own application and published it. We also criticized Bradley over the advice he gave to seasonal clerks on how they should comport themselves at their job interview.

We thank Bradley for having the courage to write an article which broadcasts the problems of the modern-day partnership, and necessarily implicates his former firm Gadens where he is an erstwhile managing partner.

Being a partner no longer means having a say in how the business is run, among other things. Michael Bradley asks, what is partnership now, anyway?

“…I looked around at the partners and I thought, ‘I don’t want your life’.” So the senior associate from a very large firm told me in describing his reasons for leaving secure employment and the path to partnership. That’s of course a very personal thing. There are plenty of lawyers who are at least prepared to live that life for the reward of partnership. But what is partnership these days?

It used to mean ownership, a direct financial stake and a say in how the business was run. But in most large firms, the role of the “partner” has had its scope defined progressively more narrowly over the past 30 years to what is now pretty much a single dimension.

The risk/reward proposition in private practice never really stacked up. The available pay per hour worked is, even at the most profitable firms, paltry by comparison with some alternative career paths. The trade-off was the addition of job satisfaction – intellectual, emotional, proprietorial. You could aspire to own a real piece of something special, and enjoy the benefits that went wit h it. These included loads of social status and a soft landing at the back end of your career – a leisurely slide out with a corner office and some board seats, supported by the next generation of partners who were in a carriage further back on the same perpetual train.

It became noticeable by the early 90s that this system had an inbuilt defect, due to the lawyer’s natural imperative to think myopically. The spectacle of ageing partners living off the fat for years after their prime became rapidly annoying and ultimately intolerable for the young Turks. Firms responded by, first, implementing a gracefully staged slide down the equity pole. This quickly escalated into an entrenched “up and out” philosophy throughout the profession which dictates that every partner will progress upwards in power and profitability until they can go no higher; and then they are taken out the back and shot.

It’s a classically human mode of organisation. Human, but not humane. Law firms have accepted that they are not places for the faint hearted, which might be okay if the slices of pie had gotten bigger to compensate for the loss of long term job security. But it hasn’t. Partners still derive all their income during their stay at the firm; they have no access to capital gain and no opportunity to cash out (unless they float the firm). And their incomes, while still high, haven’t climbed in the exponential way that, for example, public company CEOs’ salaries have.

At the same time as finding themselves participating in what is now quite literally a rat race, partners have progressively given up most of their traditional role. Driven by the two complementary theories that “good lawyers make bad managers” and “partners should stick to their knitting”, the era of “professional management” in law firms has arisen and is now firmly in control. Whether or not the guy (yes, it’s a guy) at the top is or isn’t a lawyer, there is a phalanx of COOs, CFOs, HR, BD and KM Directors in complete charge of every aspect of the management and administration of the firm.

The partner’s role is now reduced to this – ensure that (a) you and every member of your team/cell/unit has the requisite number of chargeable hours on their timesheet every day; and (b) the fees under your “control” (however that’s measured) are adequate to justify your continued progression up the greasy pole. How you achieve that is not so centrally controlled, but the consequences of failure certainly are. Pressure? Yeah, just a bit.

It’s efficient, definitely. But for the partner in the trenches, is it what you bargained for? I’d argue that, if you have no real say over hiring, firing, remuneration or progression, and you don’t frequently participate in an open forum with your partners to talk about your business in whatever terms and on whatever agenda you choose, then you are an owner in nothing but name. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that not everyone wants to be you anymore.

Will we see a day when a group of corporate lawyers/accountants assemble together and simply say to partners “give us a bigger slice of the pie or we’ll leave and your firm will disintegrate”?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

It is probably little surprise that Gabrielle Moss, half of the cooking duo “Mossy & Gabe” appearing in the new blockbuster series My Kitchen Rules (ie the reject version of Channel 10’s Masterchef), is such a methodical whiz in the kitchen.

True, she undercooked the cheesecake and misconceived appropriate serving sizes in episode 1, but Mossy & Gabe were the first ”MKR”  (we think this acronym is a giant wank, by the way) duo to show audiences their culinary wares and cooking methodology.

But methods should come easy to Gabe. After all, she has over 20 years experience at McCourts Lawyers, an outfit famed for pioneering the Simplicitor Client Management System. In explaining this system, McCourts Lawyers boldly claim on their website:

We’ve taken the time to make the process behind every legal procedure and transaction as simple and clear as possible. Our Simplicitor Client Management System outlines all the possible steps for each matter. This allows you to quickly see where your particular project is up to, and what the next steps are.

Under the category “Suing & Being Sued”, McCourt offer some very helpful ‘steps’, for example:

Before you see your Lawyer, get all your paperwork together. A client who has done their homework will get the best result from their Lawyer.

Since when did the word ‘lawyer’ command capitalisation? Meanwhile, under the category “Buying and Selling a Business” the very first step in the ‘project’ is provided to consumers of the Simplicitor:

Identify businesses to be bought. Make independent inquiries about industry in which business operates.

With all this simplicity, is it even necessary for McCourts Lawyers to go to work? Or can they whittle away the hours thumbing through the Channel 7 gazette advertising auditions for forthcoming shows? Better still, can lawyers come to work for a legal cook-off?

In Gabe’s case, it seems office cook-offs were squarely on the agenda. Her profile on the McCourts Lawyers website reads:

Gabe has over 20 years experience as a Property Lawyer. She started her career with Rob McCourt in 1986… building her reputation as a Property Lawyer… Gabe has come full circle returning to McCourts as a Consultant… enjoying the social aspects of our small yet busy office.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

In an article appearing in Saturday’s Herald Sun, “Melbourne’s top 10 party girls” were asked to offer their opinions on what makes a good party and how it is that they have developed into such partying icons. The exclusively blonde association of party-animals, depicted in figure-hugging dresses, are identifiable not only by their good looks, but also their vocational stature.

look what i found in the trash!

Melissa Hetherington is a presenter on Coxy’s Big Break (not a reference to flatulence, we’re told);

Lucy McIntosh is a Chadwicks model.

Christina Hallett is a sales manager for Eyegasm Brands.

Our favourite, however, is Anna Jennings-Edquist - the girlfriend of radio disc jockey Hamish Blake. Ms Jennings Edquist is an Arts-Law student and had the following insightful things to say about her journey into partying royalty:

Lives: Elwood

Most likely party date? My boyfriend radio star Hamish Blake or favourite partners in crime Vanessa McGlynn and Cassie Lane.

What makes a good party? Good company and feeling relaxed. If you’ve got those elements the party could be held in a dumpster and it’d still be fun.

Dream plus-one? Jake Gyllenhaal so we can skip the party …

Sign that the party’s over? When you think it doesn’t matter if you take your shoes off. It does.

Handbag essential for a night out? Lip gloss, phone and wallet. And maybe mace, depending on where you’re going.

Presumably Hamish is a bit Donnie Darko that his better half is fantasising about Jake Gyllenhaal… but on the other hand, he does have this budding lawyer A-lister party animal.

Perhaps it’s time to take a leaf out of Andy Lee’s book and upgrade to a supermodel…

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

It probably won’t surprise many of our readers that we’ve been on the receiving end of a few nastygrams over the past few months. Some more amusing than others.  We thought it as good a time as any to clarify the intention of the site, which is to pass on gossip whose veracity is (by definition, duh) uncertain.  Unless we’re reporting confirmed news, we try to temper our comments or characterise them as “rumours”.

Of course, our readers are sometimes a scurrilous bunch, and there may be instances where rumours turn out to untrue.  If you think something has been posted about you (or your employer) which is untrue, in the first instance, please just contact Firm Spy directly. Our email address is news@firmspy.com. Don’t send us nasty letters; it’s a waste of time, and we’re reasonable people.  If you ask us to remove a post or comment in accordance with our Terms of Use, chances are, we’ll happily remove the offending item and, if necessary, issue a public apology.

Other than submitting comments, email is the only way to contact us directly.  The reason we encourage people to do this in the first instance is that it will avoid the incurring of unnecessary legal fees which will never be recovered. We don’t exist, remember.

So contact us directly! Don’t let your hard-earned dollars line the pockets of already grossly rich corporate law firm partners.

We received the following query via email yesterday that immediately induced belly-laughter in the team here at FS:

I am writing a book (my 24th) about gossip and want to include Firm Spy. I know that you are secretive but can you tell me where you are located (Sydney?)and the names of the founders? If anonymous, can you tell me anything, such as “Founded by three lawyers in Sydney.” Thank you and best wishes! Richard Weiner…

We immediately thought this was some kind of joke. who on earth would curse their child with a name routinely shortened to a title that doubles as a famous reference to a man’s member, when the kid’s surname is also a reference to male genitalia?!

Alas, Dick Weiner is a real dude! A public relations consultant, no less!

Dick, we would be honoured if we could be a leading part of your cock-and-bull story, so by all means include us.

For obvious reasons though, we can not reveal our identities or more info than already appears on our about page. No, not even for the famous uber-godlike PR Chosen One Penis Penis.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

News media was awash yesterday with the feel-good news story about the entrepreneurial young Aussie who has created a thong that folds. As reported by The Daily Telegraph:

have you got a spare pair of thongs shit-lips?

A BAD night out on the town has inspired two mates to revolutionise the Aussie thong. Former lawyer Ben Lipschitz, 25 stumbled on the idea for a pair of fold-up thongs on a night out a year ago when his girlfriend at the time was left sore and tired after a night in stilettos… ”She was wishing out loud that she had a pair of thongs with her but said she didn’t want to be carrying a big pair around in her bag,” Mr Lipschitz said.  Surprised that nothing of the sort had been invented, Mr Lipschitz called on mate Rick Munitz, also 25, an industrial designer, to tackle the project.

But Shit-lips’ entrepreneurial flair does not stop with the humble flip-flop. Our friends at Bored of Studies once alerted subscribers to a “clerkship coaching scam” masterminded by Ben Lipschitz.

We have extracted the following edited posts from this thread.

First this:

Someone calling themselves ben has been putting up posters advertising a ‘clerkship coaching service’. this bastard is charging 60 bucks an hour to tell you things you can get from anyone who has either done a clerkship, or from here.  If you see those posters, stop your friends from getting ripped off - tear them down.

Then another poster pasted the “clerkship coaching” advertisement:

Hello

This year a Clerkship Coaching service will be offered across UNSW, Sydney University, UTS and Macquarie University. The service will help clients maximise their chance of securing an 08/09 summer clerkship. The service will offer resume review, cover letter review, mock interviewing using actual questions asked by the law firms, and will also provide take-home materials on how to prepare for the summer clerkship application process. The price is $40 for a 1 hour coaching session, and $70 for a 2 hour coaching session. I am confident law students will find the service very useful, and I would like to create awareness of Clerkship Coaching.

Thank you
Ben
— 
©lerkship ©oaching
Secure yourself a summer clerkship

Another poster then wrote:

i personally know ben (lipschitz, in case you’re wondering) and he’s a nice bloke… however, i do find this scheme a bit entrepreneurial..

Unfortunately for the entrepreneurial Ben, the label “nice bloke” was soon controverted by another poster who wrote:

Ben’s a douche.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Last week Channel 9 launched the Australian version of the hit US television show The Apprentice.

youre fired!

Whilst there is no Donald Trump on the domestic version, the Firm Spy can report that there is a budding lawyer in the ranks; 19 year old Queensland law student Sam Hooper.

His profile on The Apprentice website reads:

Age: 19
Hometown: Adelaide, South Australia
Relationship status: has a girlfriend

Quote: “I’m gen Y. I work to live, not the reverse. But that doesn’t mean I’m not in this to win.”This second-year law student’s dream job is to be a managing partner at a law firm. Samuel has OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and is very particular about the neatness of the environment around him.

His talents include debating and public speaking. Sam loves working the room, networking and meeting new people.

Sam’s parents are successful finance brokers who’ve shown him that you can work hard and have a loving, happy family. His favourite book is The Pinstripe Prison by Lisa Pryor.

He looks up to his Dad; Lleyton Hewitt for his diverse range of interests both on and off the court and Gaily Kelly (Westpac) for her leadership skills and risk taking in the business world.

The Firm Spy wishes Sam the best of luck!

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Mere weeks after being embroiled in one of the most embarassing case-management stuff-ups of 2009, Brydens Compensation Lawyers are apparently involved in yet another, though potentially more damaging, public spat. (Thanks very much the anonymous tipster alerting us to this gold.)

By way of background, a website apparently exists in which ordinary, non-legal folks can post legally oriented questions; lawyers then frequent the site (www.justanswer.com) and help these people with their question for a small fee (we think).

We were sent a link to the following incredible legal query and its associated responses:

hardly surprising that one would jump off the planet

My wife advertised her car for sale and had an email response from a very overbearing person, he was dictating to her, what he was going to do. It frightened her… she asked me to reply, which i did… I then received 8 emails in a row. Now the person is openly defaming me, calling me a psychotic. drug user, a liar, a loser, insane and the list goes on… he has sent some 50 emails from his place of employment…It’s no use going to his employers, he’s the CEO, and it’s a law firm… how do I stop him? …The car sales site clearly showed my wife to be japanese by her name, and I believe he was trying to intimidate her from teh beginning… he has gone completely off the planet.

This query was reponded to by lawyer “Maurice” who advised:

…if he has placed your wife in the state of mind you have described where she feels threatened you neeed to call the police… communicating with the owners of the law firm needs to be the next step… it goes to the very heart of how the law firm want to be represented in the market place… I would put a call into the firm and ask the question “who are the owners”, or “if one were to lodge a complaint against the CEO of the firm who would I need to contact or speak to?” If you dont get the information you need you may need to contact the local media in QLD…”

Finally, the disgruntled salesman wrote this:

Without doubt he is the CEO. I have ascertained who one of the partners is…’ he is a councillor of the Law Society. I went to the law firm yesterday; to be shepherded by a solicitor who says it’s nothing to do with the firm, it’s a private matter. I’m going to name names now Maurice; his name is XXXX XXXXXXXX, he is the CEO/General Manager of Brydens Compensation Lawyers in Sydney. I have just now emailed Robert Bryden, partner, and have requested an urgent response.

The dialogue ends at this point and it is unclear how, or even if, Brydens Lawyers have resolved the matter.

Are you ready to go ‘completely off the planet’ on this fabulous Friday?

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

Occasionally, the Firm Spy’s posts provoke some sparring in the ‘comments’ section found below every post. We love hearing your comments and feedback (please write to us about anything at news@firmspy.com!), and think it is excellent when we can bring together two people from opposite sides of the spectrum to ‘duke-it-out’.

everyone loves an intellectual behemoth

When a particularly entertaining exchange takes place, we sometimes publish it in the main body of the site.

And so, today we thought it was worth bringing forward the comments that are now buried fairly deep in the site that were written in response to our post of several weeks ago ‘Crooked Marriages & the AFR Law Firm Profit Survey’. These comments are truly of the highest order:

Sleepy afternoon said on :21/Sep/2009 at 04:09

… the relevance of these [AFR Profit] reports, in light of the near-unethical behaviour of larger law firm partners during the last 18 months to 2 years, has never been greater.

…partners [should] consider the meaning of the phrase ‘fit and proper person’.

A Portsea mortgage just isn’t worth your self-respect.

To which the following response was received:

Blobby said on :23/Sep/2009 at 05:09

What is the “unethical behaviour” of which you complain? Retrenching people? How would that land an employee in a private company in hot water, particularly as so many of those companies also retrenched people? Really.

This (we think) elicited a degree of ire in our friend Sleepy Afternoon:

Sleepy afternoon said on :28/Sep/2009 at 04:09

Just to clarify, Blobby, the “near-unethical” behaviour of which I’m contemplating relates to: pay freezes across all junior lawyers irrespective of charge-out rate increases, promotions (i.e. lawyer to SA) or budgets, on the back of largely incorrect and opague predictions of economic disaster; making empty and insulting promises to redistribute equity to staff ‘when things turn around’ without any intention of actually doing so beyond existing bonuses; using the GFC and people’s fears of it to - in the words of several Corrs partners - correct ‘inflated’ juniors lawyers’ wages (despite earning proportionally similar amounts).

I think lying to staff, or at best, recklessly ignoring the actual state of the economy so you can fu*k the people that prop up your business, is near-unethical.

Further, solicitors are to be held to a higher standard than most. Maybe those of us who took the oath more recently (or affirmation, such as it is), can remind these test-tube babies what it is to be a ‘fit and proper person’.

Then the great Blob retorted:

Blobby said on :29/Sep/2009 at 08:09

Oh good grief. When you understand that the purpose of a business is to reward the owners (whether it be a law firm, the shareholders of an incorporated entity etc) then perhaps you will grow up.

I love your reference to “redistribute equity”- like that’ll ever happen!

As a newly admitted lawyer, the one thing you will have to understand is that this is not the first recession that has hit law firms- and it won’t be the last. In those times, everyone suffers- incl the partners, although your quoting of stats that are based on guesswork had led you to believe this is not the case.

I didn’t see any lawyers saying over the last few years “gosh, I really think my 20% year on year salary increases are not sustainable” or “I think I’ll show loyalty to the firm that hired me rather than bugger off after a years training just so I can earn more money in London/Dubai/Abu Dhabi”. Everyone in this game is out to maximise the benefits for themselves- it’s just that the cycle has turned against employees for the moment- and I can guarantee it will turn back in their favour again in due course….

And the final instalment received (so far) from Sleepy Afternoon yesterday:

Sleepy afternoon said on :30/Sep/2009 at 06:09

Blobby, thank you for passing the epsom salts under my nose; that was just the reality check I required.

For the record, readers, the response from the intellectual behemoth, ‘Blobby’, has had me rechecking my “stats” (although it is clearly due to my naivety that I cannot find a single rudding “stat” in either of my posts), all the while glancing at my newly-minted practising certificate for affirmation of my self-worth.

You, sir, are a buffoon of the highest order. I would suggest your use of the term ‘good grief’ already pegs you as a baby boomer, sustained only on the tears of innocents and the blood of puppies, and completely unable to sustain a cogent counter-argument that doesn’t conclude with “bloody Gen-Y”.

Apparently generalisms are not tolerated by the older folk, despite Blobby’s wildly accurate assertions that there are no lawyers questioning continued pay increases or remaining at a law firm for longer than 1 year. It’s like a bloody merry-go-round of pay rises that I can’t get off. Except I do so. Every year. Apparently.

Besides failed investments in Opes Prime, B&B and Blobby’s fitness camp, how have top-tier law firm partners suffered in this downturn? Revenues up and costs down… that seems to suggest double-digit increases in pie pieces in the last FY? And that is based on the figures published on this website and AFR. Not quite guesswork. 2007/2008 saw most top-tiers hit budget. Where is the pain?

So.

I have outed myself as an ungrateful, good-for-nothing, disloyal third year - what’s your stake, Blobby?

We invite Blobby & Sleepy Afternoon to continue this exchange in their very own post by now adding comments below.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!