Several things you didn’t know about post-rebranded Fieldfisher: the partners like posh lunches, preferably game bird-orientated; they don’t always get what they want; and their children are privy to internal memos
In the high-octane world of City legal practice, it has become accepted that only wimps eat lunch. Anyone grabbing more than quick cheese and tomato on granary is considered to have too much time on his hands and therefore ripe for downsizing.
But — as an internal email posted on Twitter reveals — there is still the odd City firm where apparently old-school traditions tenaciously hold on. Indeed, it seems at Fieldfisher, the partners lunch big time.
Earlier this month, the firm’s catering manager emailed corporate partner Andrew Blankfield with the crushing news that pheasant was not going to be on the luncheon menu the next day. Unfortunately, the firm’s game stockists had confessed that the most recently bagged birds were too thin, and therefore not up to the Fieldfisher partnerships’ expectations.
The beleaguered catering manager, one Hamish Thorn, did the best he could in the circumstances, proffering the substitute of wild mallard.
All quite jolly — doubtless the Fieldfisher partners got well and truly stuck into Jemima Puddle-Duck and her unfortunate chums along with a few glasses of the red stuff while pontificating on their recent rebranding exercise that saw the firm radically change from Field Fisher Waterhouse.
But how did the original memo find its way into the Twittersphere? Look no further than Blankfield’s daughter, Izzy. Somehow the cheeky monkey got hold of papa’s internal correspondence and decided to tweet it to her 240-odd followers for a bit of a laugh.
They will have giggled themselves silly for a few seconds before moving on to more serious subjects worthy of young female minds. But will Andrew Blankfield’s partners see the humorous side?
While the replacement of pheasant with duck hardly ranks as a huge breach of data security, the idea that the children of Fieldfisher partners can shotgun internal correspondence across cyberspace should probably cause a spot of nausea round the management table.
Today it’s a note about lunch and the difficulties of rustling up suitable game; tomorrow it might be details about a client — in which case the lawyers would be hung up to dry.
Indeed, chapter 4 of the 2011 Solicitors Regulation Authority principles state a requirement for…
“…a solicitor/firm to keep the affairs of clients confidential unless disclosure is required or permitted by law or the client consents. Any firm not achieving the outcome would be open to possible disciplinary action”.
However, the SRA declined to comment on the specific instance of Izzy Blankfield’s tweet. And for its part, Fieldfisher was keeping its head down, also refusing to comment.