In the City: Getting Mad and Getting Even

27th August 2009 – Times Online

No surrender

I see from the legal trade press that a couple of salaried partners from Clifford Chance’s German practice are claiming that they have been unfairly dismissed as part of the firm’s redundancy programme. I have no idea of the merits of the case but it sounds like a classic example of German bunker mentality. Why can’t they just accept the inevitable and come out with their hands up like everybody else?

Maybe what they need is the tender care of an outplacement service. According to Simon North, of the One Life Partnership, more and more law firms – including at least one “magic circle” firm – are “recognising their commitment to departing lawyers and are offering a sophisticated package of support that includes holistic coaching methods”.

Actually this is where it all gets New Agey. The redundant lawyers are encouraged to look at “all aspects of their life” and “explore how their talents can next be harnessed (which may not be within the legal sphere), rebuilding any lost confidence and self-esteem along the way”. Somehow I don’t think that’s our German friends’ problem. Having got mad, I guess they now just want to get even.

Cui bono?

I was intrigued by the Law Society’s recommendation that law firms should keep up or increase their pro bono work in the midst of the economic crisis on the ground that, “with solicitors’ corporate social responsibility credentials taking on more importance for many clients, having pro bono work on the books is a vital marketing tool”.

Hang on a moment, isn’t that getting two quite separate activities confused? Pro bono is normally taken to mean free work for charitable or educational organisations or “deserving” individuals who cannot afford the fees. What the Law Society is talking about is the equivalent of a self-interested introductory “free offer” incentive for potential future clients. If pro bono starts to get tarred with a self-serving marketing brush then its status will assuredly be put at risk.

Swiss cheese

Hogan & Hartson is organising a seminar in a couple of weeks with the Economic Promotion Office of the canton of Zug on the “virtues of moving to Switzerland for the hedge fund industry”. Excuse me? The “benefits” of moving to Switzerland I can readily understand. But where exactly are the “virtues”?

Looks like justice

My compliments to those beady-eyed readers who pointed out that in the heat and dust of a steamy article about law, Bolognese-style, I slightly over-riffed on the accoutrements of Justice attributing to her a blindfold as well as scales, sword etc.

Mind you, I recall an August article some years ago when I suggested that Justice wore wraparound shades and drove a Ferrari. Nobody objected to that. But maybe we are living in less delusional times.