Dentons has made a significant break from law firm tradition by announcing that it will no longer publish its profit figures.
All major firms have published their profits for years - the exception being Slaughter and May, the most profitable outfit in the City. But many of the recent international mergers have used a verein structure where merged firms in different jurisdictions have separate profit pools. This has muddied the water to such an extent that Dentons (which merged three times in as many years) has announced that it will no longer publish any global profit information at all. Just turnover and number of partners.
In a letter to American Lawyer Magazine, the firm's CEO and Chairman split an infinitive in their excitement to explain the reasons why they have chosen "to no longer report average, aggregate annual profit numbers". Which are, essentially, that it doesn't make any sense when firms operate in both mature and emerging markets, that in some markets reporting profits has never been the norm, that it is "yet another example of law firms being concerned more about themselves than about serving the client" and that these figures are "too frequently, and erroneously, used as an indication of the quality of a firm".
An uncharitable observer might point out that the firm would have leapt on this with less alacrity had its profits been stronger (£452,000 last year, compared to £721,000 at Hogan Lovells). But it's hard to fault the logic, and it'll be interesting to see who else jumps on the bandwagon. The firm's letter rather hopefully says "we invite other firms to join us".
STOP PRESS: Last night the firm's US office put out this superb passive aggressive statement saying that the editor of AL couldn't count.
Tip Off ROF
All major firms have published their profits for years - the exception being Slaughter and May, the most profitable outfit in the City. But many of the recent international mergers have used a verein structure where merged firms in different jurisdictions have separate profit pools. This has muddied the water to such an extent that Dentons (which merged three times in as many years) has announced that it will no longer publish any global profit information at all. Just turnover and number of partners.
In a letter to American Lawyer Magazine, the firm's CEO and Chairman split an infinitive in their excitement to explain the reasons why they have chosen "to no longer report average, aggregate annual profit numbers". Which are, essentially, that it doesn't make any sense when firms operate in both mature and emerging markets, that in some markets reporting profits has never been the norm, that it is "yet another example of law firms being concerned more about themselves than about serving the client" and that these figures are "too frequently, and erroneously, used as an indication of the quality of a firm".
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Never mind the profit, feel the quality |
An uncharitable observer might point out that the firm would have leapt on this with less alacrity had its profits been stronger (£452,000 last year, compared to £721,000 at Hogan Lovells). But it's hard to fault the logic, and it'll be interesting to see who else jumps on the bandwagon. The firm's letter rather hopefully says "we invite other firms to join us".
STOP PRESS: Last night the firm's US office put out this superb passive aggressive statement saying that the editor of AL couldn't count.
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1: Because you feel that the rules of English ought to conform to the grammatical precepts of a language that died a thousand years ago.
2: Because you wish to cling to a pointless affectation of usage that is without the support of any recognized authority of the last 200 years, even at the cost of composing sentences that are ambiguous, inelegant, and patently contorted.
It is exceedingly difficult to find any authority who condemns the split infinitive - Theodore Bernstein, H. W. Fowler, Ernest Gowers, Eric Partridge, Rudolph Flesch, Wilson Follett, Roy H. Copperud, and others too tedious to enumerate here all agree that there is no logical reason not to split an infinitive.
-- Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue, 1990
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it probably is. But it still (to my ear at least) sounds wrong. It should be possible for an articulate lawyer to construct a sentence which is clear, elegant and precise without resorting to it.
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well, for a start the firm's financial health is important to current and prospective employees who don't want to be made redundant. especially for a firm which exists as a result of a lot of weak shops with lots of problems merging in the space of only a few years. and for a firm which has had relatively weak profits year on year. it's one thing for slaughters, the most profitable firm in the city, and quite another for a two-bit merged outfit to try the same thing. and yes, profitability might not be the same as quality - but who are dentons trying to kid by pretending they are about quality? they are ALL about QUANTITY. they're not travers smith or macfarlanes. no one but a PR monkey is going to buy these very sorry excuses of "apples and oranges". cry harder.
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