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Brian Ward Partners Archive

Page 1 of 11

“Emotional Interaction”; Freehills’ Mark Rigotti Introduces Psycho Empty Chair Technique

12 February 2011

Our English-based pals at Roll on Friday delivered an excellent scoop a few days ago regarding the implementation of a new initiative at Freehills: Freehills has taken mad management group-think t...

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Minter Ellison Redundancies; Dozens Sacked After Pay Freeze

14 May 2009

It has emerged that Minter Ellison has sacked dozens of lawyers and support staff mere weeks after implementing a firm-wide pay freeze. As noted in the Financial Review: the lawyers range from ...

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Big4 Accounting Firm Parental Leave Policies & the Freehills (in)Significant Cost

13 May 2010

A couple of weeks ago, the AFR published an interesting article profiling parental leave policies amongst the Big4 accounting firms. In that article, the following was written: From July 1, KPMG w...

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“FYI. New Clunge”; PwC Top 10 Female Rating Scandal Hits New Brand

12 November 2010

A couple of weeks ago we published a report on PwC's rebranding and how insiders at the firm consider that the firm's new emblem evokes the image of a defecating butterfly. In fact, the contrast of...

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New Details Emerge about Clayton Utz Involuntary Leave of Absence

19 June 2009

We revealed in May rumours that Clayton Utz had asked some of its employees to take an involuntary leave of absence, only to subsequently slap a firm-wide pay freeze on them. Yesterday an anonym...

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2011 Graduate Intake: Top 30 Australian Law Firms By Revenue & Clerk to Grad Progression

13 December 2011

In 2009 we published a highly popular report in which we calculated the probability of a vacation clerk progressing to a graduate position at a selected number of firms. There is a bit of a theory ...

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More PWC Cost Cuts; The Christmas Gift of Taking Away

13 November 2009

Thanks to the anonymous PWC who alerted us to this link. Yes, PwC is not giving actual Christmas cards to clients this year! Instead, the firm is directing its clients to this webpage. Forget se...

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Double-Downer; Clayton Utz Forces Support Staff to Wear Name-Badges

30 March 2011

Apparently unlike the rest of Australia, we took one look at the KFC double-down "burger" and thought: good source of protein; delicious; one quarter of your daily caloric intake in a cheap...

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Simon Alroe & The Jeopardy of the Minter Ellison Thawing Pay Freeze

15 January 2010

We reported in late December the revelation that Minter Ellison was intending to lift its pay freeze. At the time, we thought that the thaw was dubious, however, because only particular staff would be given good news in the "letter notifying them of the result of their review". Sounds a lot like Minters & Chief Executive Partner John Weber only intend to increase the wages of those members of staff it is fearful of losing. Over the break the Firm Spy received some disastrous gossip for the small few who genuinely hope to get a pay rise after the review. This from an anonymous - and apparently high-ranking - Minters spy: recently exiled Minter Ellison partner Simon Alroe has had the criminal charges against him dropped. This must be one hell of a slap in the face to his former...

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ANZ Announces Hundreds of Reudundancies After Several Months of Rumoured Hushed Exits

18 January 2012

The year has opened on a gloomy note indeed for those in Australia's financial sector with news earlier this week that ANZ intends to drastically shave headcount. On Tuesday, the cuts got underway ...

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