Australian firm Blake Dawson has had its Wikipedia page invaded with an unknown contributor adding details of the firm’s job cuts to the online encyclopedia.
The entry to the reader-written webpage said that the firm’s partnership was looking to cut up to 100 staff “in a bid to slash costs and preserve profit”.
The entry continued: “Blake Dawson is the first top tier law firm in Australia to announce anticipated redundancies during the 2009 economic downturn.
“While other major law firms Allens Arthur Robinson and Freehills have assured staff that there will be no redundancies, partners of Blake Dawson announced on 24 February 2008 that they would sack up to 100 staff instead of reducing their individual profit share.
“The firm’s partners receive an average of $850,000 each per annum.”
At the time of writing the firm was unavailable for comment or to confirm the accuracy of the profit per partner figure, although the 100 job cuts have been widely reported in the Australian press.
It is unclear whether Allens Arthur Robinson, Freehills or any other firm has assured staff that they will not be making redundancies.
Most major law firms now have a Wikipedia entry, although these tend to avoid ongoing developments and focus instead on long-term characteristics.
The Wikipedia entries for Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters, for instance, make no reference to their recent redundancy programmes.
Blake Dawson has offices across Australia and in Singapore, Shanghai and Papua New Guinea.
Naivety
What the author doesn’t seem to realise is that Wikipedia pages aren’t written or edited by the firms themselves, so the page has hardly been ‘invaded’. The details might perhaps be wrong (hardly a first for Wikipedia), but the fact that someone has written something that the firm doesn’t like is entirely par for the course.
STOP PRESS! Wikipedia is not gospel shock
Wikipedia is a collaborative website whose content can be edited by anyone. Stuff that’s added gets modified but only after a certain amount of time. This makes it both brilliant but highly flawed. I once read on Wikipedia that Kylie had died of a brain haemmorhage only to find out shortly after that it was a ‘joke’ and that Ms Minogue was alive and well.
Agreed
The only real information I gained from this article is that thelawyer has a fundamental misunderstanding of wikipedia. Maybe I’ll go update thelawyer’s entry on wikipedia to reflect that.
Wikipedia
As Wikipedia is a user-edited, open-access information source, it’s hardly hijacking if someone edits it to include information that may or may not be true.
Now, perhaps if they’d completely replaced the content with the information of a ‘rival’ firm, then hijacking might be a slightly more appropriate term.
It’s true – they have sacked 100
Nothing was hijacked!! Let it be know, profits first – people second! Fellow expats, who wants to go home now? Seems its no better there.
Some truth there
The press in OZ have published that Blakes will make up to 100 staff cuts (not sure how many legal/non-legal) following a consultation process which is happening at the moment. I’ve heard that Deacons and Corrs have also made a small number of cuts but nothing has appeared about it in any of the press. There is a slight feeling of insecurity in the market here. However, Australians generally remain optimistic that the finances of the big 4 banks are robust enough to get them through the global downturn without the need to replicate the level of cuts that are happening in the UK and US. Guess only time will tell.
Is this news?
Agree with many of the comments below this article reflects poorly on The Lawyer. Wikipedia pages are often vandalised. The vandalism is usually corrected very quickly and I would imagine if you checked the Wikipaedia pages of most major law firms many would have had some vandals attack them at some stage. Wikipaedia pages can’t be hijacked, you just log in and amend. Slow news day today?
Fair enough…
All the firms are doing it…at least they are up front about it…not ideal to have plastered all over wiki, but I guess that is what wiki is for…
Told off
This notice is to state that the author has now been formally told off by the legal profession for using the term ‘highjack’ in relation to the Wikipedia story. It is understood that he will not make that error again and pleads with the profession not to b*llock him any more about it.
Who is telling off whom?
Is the teacher going to be told off for ‘highjack’ (sic)?