Bigging ‘im up
I was surprised, but relieved, to be informed by the press team at Irwin Mitchell that the firm is “ambitious”.
In fact, it was the first thing it said when announcing: “Ambitious national law firm Irwin Mitchell has made another high-profile appointment with the announcement that partner Tom Flanagan is joining the firm as its head of employment.”
It’s good to know because otherwise one would imagine that Irwin Mitchell is just a bunch of demotivated deadbeats like the other 499 firms who make up the Legal 500.
It is also encouraging that Flanagan is “another” high-profile appointment. But best of all was the kindly steer that Mr Flanagan is a “heavy hitter” — just in case one might have suspected that he was a lightweight merely recruited to bulk up the numbers.
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But anyway, as Niall Baker, head of business at the firm, observed: “[Tom’s] appointment represents another important piece in the Irwin Mitchell business-to-business jigsaw.” Needless to say, it is a high-profile, ambitious and heavy-hitting jigsaw (5,000 pieces).
Euro staycationers
DLA Piper has published its 2011 European Hospitality Outlook Survey. On the upside, 67 per cent of respondents described their 12-month outlook for the industry as “bullish”. That compares with a mere 27 per cent in 2010, so it is a massive endorsement of European holidaymaking.
But does this reflect a strengthening of the economy? Or is it that in terms of natural disaster, civil unrest and the threat of piracy and terrorism the world beyond Europe now looks a much more threatening place? Yes, we’re all Euro-campers now.
Wear and tear
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This Saturday’s debate Women in the Law, organised by Eversheds as part of the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre, features big names from the legal world including Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, QC, and Caroline Stroud (global HR partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer).
The focus is not on the number of female entrants to the profession (that is above 50 per cent) but the “unacceptable female attrition rate”. Attrition, of course, means “gradual wearing out”. And that’s the issue in a nutshell. How do you stop the law wearing you out?
Talent competition
Hogan Lovells’ worldwide Diversity Awareness Month reflects well on its intentions. But here’s the fly in the ointment. The firms says that its “comprehensive strategy” to enhance diversity aims to ensure an “inclusive atmosphere in the workplace, which means a commitment to recruit, nurture, develop and advance the most talented law students, graduates, lawyers and support personnel”.
But the “most talented” hardly sounds the most inclusive. In fact, it sounds the most elitist.