Talk:Slaughter and May

Question

Could an external link to WikiJob.co.uk be considered for this profile? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redsuperted (talk • contribs) 09:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Significance of 28 redundancies

There are no sources that demonstrate that the loss of 28 staff (out of ~1100) is a "significant event in the firm's history". Please also note that the source only says that "28 full-time equivalent roles will be cut" it does not confirm that all of them will be compulsory redundancies or if any will be through natural wastage. Mtking ^(edits) 09:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Are you seriously arguing that sources need to state explicitly that an event is a significant event in a topic's history in order to be included in an article on the said topic? That is patently not WP policy, and it is left to editors to judge using their common sense.

The cut amounts to 28 out of 165 London-based secretaries (London is by far the firm's largest office). That is a significant cut, particularly for a firm which seldom makes redundancies on any scale, as is stated in this source: [1]. It is also interesting because the cuts reflect the changing support structure within the firm and greater use of technology.

BTW "natural wastage" means staff not being replaced when they leave or retire, which is not a redundancy and not something which would be announced in this manner. Rangoon11 (talk) 14:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes I am, a cut in of less than 3% of the work force does not appear to be in the least bit significant, so if as you say it is significant there should be no problem in finding a reliable source that confirms your view.

oh and BTW I am aware what "natural wastage" means, my point is that the announcement as reported does not make it clear that all of the job loses would be through redundancies. Mtking ^(edits) 19:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

OK I will start an RfC on this as I know from experience that further discussion with you will not be productive. I suggest that you read up on WP policy, which does not require sources to state explicitly "this is/was a significant event in the history of..." in order for mention of the said event to be included in an article on the topic. Were this a requirement then vast chunks of WP would have to be deleted. Rangoon11 (talk) 20:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Mention of redundancies

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Whether the following text be added to the History section of the article: "In October 2012 Slaughter and May announced that it would be making 28 of its 165 London-based secretarial staff redundant, citing technological change.[2][3]"Rangoon11 (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose the inclusion of this, there is no indication that this is a significant enough event in the firm's history to be included in an encyclopedia entry. The firm is over 122 years old and this only covers about 2.5% of the staff. The History section of the article is extremely biased towards the last few years the insertion of the proposed text will only make the matter worse more effort is needed to balance out the section to cover the whole history. Looking at the article published on The Lawyer website there is no analysis of the event, it is just a WP:PRIMARYNEWS report, probably based on a press release; can't comment on the Legal Week one as it is behind a paywall but likely to be just the same. Mtking ^(edits) 08:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The History section is very short and generally requires expansion. So what. The issue is whether this specific event is significant.

If this firm regularly engaged in redundancy programmes then there might be a case that this is merely a routine event. It is not. A declared redundacy process involving this number of staff is in fact unheard of for this firm and 28 of 165 London-based secretarial staff is a significant number. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose inclusion as per Mtking. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as undue emphasis (and I say this with reluctance, as president of a union local made up mostly of clerical workers). This is recentism at its most trivializing. Until and unless the firing becomes more notable and attracts broader attention outside the industry, it's not encyclopedic content. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Why would it attract attention outside of the legal industry? That is a very curious yardstick. Neither would the firm opening an office or closing one or virtually anything which the firm might do. The sole issue is whether this is a significant event in the history of the topic of this article, not in the history of the UK economy or British society (unlike, say the closing of a major car factory or steel plant). And since redunancy programmes at this firm are very rare, as is clear from the sources, it is. Rangoon11 (talk) 14:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment If we consider this redundancy to be an 'event', there is guidance on what makes an event notable or otherwise here: Wikipedia:Notability (events)

I think that that guidance primarily concerns whether an event qualifies for its own article, not whether it can be included in an existing article on a notable topic.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:40, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Right you are! Thom2002 (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Orangemike. Redundancy in the UK is commonplace at the moment, as it is in any recession.isfutile:P (talk) 20:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• Slightly reluctant oppose - it is recentism or undue weight (or both) depending how you look at it. Rich Farmbrough, 14:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC).
  
• OpposeThe loss of less than 3% of the staff is - sad to say - a comparatively minor event in the existence of any company in recent decades. An outline in the History section of the overall growth and/or decline of staffing levels over the years would be much more illuminating and certainly preferable to the, frankly, promotional bullet-pointed list of the firm's offerings. NebY (talk) 20:07, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That would rather depend upon the company. For a business which generally never makes redundancies on any scale it might be notable, for a business which frequently makes them, it might not. For this business it was a rare and significant event.Rangoon11 (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Can rarity be shown - that is, what is the history of staffing levels at this company? Can significance be shown - that is, what does it signify? NebY (talk) 21:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Both of the sources mention rarity. Per significance, that is a hugely subjective thing. The world economy could collapse tomorrow and this would then be an insignificant event in the history of the topic, ditto if all of London were destoyed or the firm was involved in a huge scandal and was then broken up. From the perspective of today, looking back at the overall history of the firm, in which large scale redundancy programmes like this have been essentially unheard of, it is in my view a significant event in the history of the firm. For me the cuts are interesting because they show that even this most profitable and conservative of firms has been affected by technological change and the economic crisis.

I fully agree with criticisms that the article otherwise lacks detail, but that seems no reason to exclude this information. Rangoon11 (talk) 02:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The only source that is visible to me, The Lawyer, makes no mention of rarity, merely saying that this is the largest batch of redundancies in the firm this year. It makes no mention of job losses in "the overall history of the firm". Again I ask, what is the history of staffing levels at this company? Or to be more particular, how did they change in the depression of 1921-22, in the Great Depression, during the difficulties of the 1970s, in the recession of the early 1980s or in the replacement of typewriters by word processors? Meanwhile, is it really of lasting interest that one more wave in the tide of technological change and economic crisis has travelled over this particular grain of sand on the beach? NebY (talk) 08:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Apologies only the Legal Week source mentioned rarity. Historical information would be interesting but I expect hard to find. It's in the nature of these things that coverage has gotten ever more sophisticated as time has gone on. Rangoon11 (talk) 00:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - I may have missed the source that interprets these layoffs with respect to the state of the business. If it is supposed to suggest the company is in decline, we'd need a source that makes that claim and not leave it for the reader to infer. Jojalozzo 21:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Jobs come and go with the tide. Not relevant. The Banner _talk 20:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

COI

There have been several IP addresses making repetitive attempts to puff up the article. Indications of paid writer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Histnewbie (talk • contribs) 00:11, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Again on 11 September 2020, 09:42 by "2a02:c7f:6c7a:1300:69b2:b407:f107:4c51" - undo. Emenay (talk) 10:05, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Slaughter and May

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Slaughter and May's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "legalbusiness":

• From Burges Salmon: "Financial results 2013: steady as she goes for Burges Salmon - www.legalbusiness.co.uk". legalbusiness.co.uk. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
• From Stephenson Harwood: "20% revenue growth at Stephenson Harwood sees turnover top £145m with PEP surging to £763,000 | www.legalbusiness.co.uk". legalbusiness.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-03-07.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:37, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Carillion

Is Slaughter_and_May#Carillion_collapse really important enough for inclusion? The Law Soc Gazette piece is pretty short and the FT piece mentions that it was the Big Four that got the most flak for their work on Carillion. If anything, this should be at Carillion rather than here given that big law firms have a large number of engagements with similar coverage. This section is not really about Slaughter and May themselves. 129.67.116.120 (talk) 19:57, 9 July 2022 (UTC)