Freshfields' Affiliate Faux Pas
After attracting criticism for the rather ominous ‘It’s not good news’ voicemails to certain trainees last week; Freshfields is in the spotlight again. This time however, the firm has not actually attracted any controversey itself but has been associated with it through its affiliation with Saudi firm The Law Firm of Salah Al-Hejailan (LFSH). US blog Above the Law has revealed details of a new attorney hiring by LFSH… "The firm sent out an email …
After attracting criticism for the rather ominous ‘It’s not good news’ voicemails to certain trainees last week; Freshfields is in the spotlight again. This time however, the firm has not actually attracted any controversey itself but has been associated with it through its affiliation with Saudi firm The Law Firm of Salah Al-Hejailan (LFSH).
US blog Above the Law has revealed details of a new attorney hiring by LFSH…
"The firm sent out an email to the recruiting agencies it works with. But the firm was looking for someone with very specific qualifications. Some might argue that the qualifications were too specific. Here is the email that LFSH sent to recruiters:"
We are interested in recruiting one senior Anglo-Saxon lawyer (with 7+ PQE), preferably with Saudi, but at the very least with GCC work experience to play a corporate/commercial role in our Jeddah office. By Anglo-Saxon we mean of Caucasian ethnicity as opposed to lawyers from the MENA or Asian Sub-Continent who happen to have UK or US nationality/qualifications. Please bear in mind that, as a general legal practice, we expect the successful candidate to have sufficient maturity/acumen to handle a broad range of legal work rather being specialised in one particular field.
We are also keen to recruit one junior Anglo-Saxon lawyer (with 3 – 5 years PQE) for the Riyadh office to support our general corporate/commercial practice. [Emphasis in the original]
Given the potentially damaging effects of the email, ATL gave the firms an opportunity to set the record straight with a statment from each.
STATEMENT FROM FRESHFIELDS:
The recruitment was being conducted by The Law Firm of Salah Al Hejailan (LFSH), not for Freshfields. We were not aware of the recruitment, and clearly do not endorse nor condone the wording in the brief provided by LFSH to the recruitment agency. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is an equal opportunity employer and we actively promote and encourage diversity at all levels within the firm.
STATEMENT FROM THE LAW FIRM OF SALAH AL HEJAILAN:
The Law Firm of Salah Al Hejailan (LFSH) is a very diverse organisation. It employs more than 25 lawyers of many nationalities including Saudi, Egyptian, Sudanese, Syrian, American, German, French and New Zealand, and it is firm policy to employ lawyers and support staff from a wide range of nationalities. In this case we were looking for a person who speaks fluent English to a very high professional standard. LFSH accepts that its brief to a recruitment agency should have been more appropriately worded and procedures will be put in place to ensure that communications by any member of its staff in the future are monitored and properly reflect LFSH’s diversity as an organisation.
June 17, 2009
Fairly specific requirements alright.
June 17, 2009
In an age of return key commnication, who really puts stuff like that in an e-mail. Come on the moron should be publicly flogged. (Only kidding)
June 17, 2009
doooh
June 18, 2009
nice to see an honest and straightforward job advert – not a lot of margin for misunderstanding there! Would love to see what their brief was for other linguistic requirements!
June 18, 2009
Bravo LFSH. Not for the spineless response to ATL, but for the Ad in the first place. What people have to remember is that in this overly-PC world of ours, the GCC is (sometimes refreshingly) one of the few places left on earth that allows you to still call a spade a spade. While HR directors in other countries are tying themselves in knots trying to draft an instruction to recruiters that has the same EFFECT as the LFSH brief, but does not directly say it (and lets not kid ourselves, we all know it happens), LFSH and other companies in the GCC can freely place ads and recruit for specific people (or even fire them) with specific characteristics usually without fear of public or regulatory reprisals. Until, that is, some do-gooder on a US blog on the other side of the world (probably with no perception or understanding of the regional, cultural, poitical or legal sensitivities) makes a big fuss about it. Knowing the region, it was in all likelyhood an attempt to bring in MORE diversity into thier legal team (because they may have too many local or regional lawyers), rather than LESS and by stiring the pot, ATL has done nothing more than cost the firm precious time and money.
June 19, 2009
@above
Spade a spade!? That’s not racist.
Maybe will can start burning independently spirited women? That would be nice.