Wednesday, February 19, 2025
HomeBusiness LawBig Law Walks a Tightrope But Herbert Smith Freehills Refuses to Lose...

Big Law Walks a Tightrope But Herbert Smith Freehills Refuses to Lose Its Footing

Hebert Smith Freehills fired a longtime partner last week.

Law firms have to do a lot of balancing to be successful. They are like tightrope walkers moving from point A to point B, hoping they make sound decisions and don’t lose their footing. At the same time, every partner has a responsibility to the firm partnership, to associates, and of course, to clients, to ensure they uphold—or at least do no damage—to the reputation of the firm. They also share responsibility for the firm’s financial health and are expected to contribute to the firm’s growth and success while maintaining high ethical standards.

That’s where the HSF partner, Damien Hazard, went wrong. He failed to fulfill his obligation as a partner. He demonstrated deafness to what was going on around him, both in Australia and in his firm. And he showed a staggering lack of judgment, a quality expected of any law firm partner.

The story requires some background. After last year’s Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing Israeli military attacks that have devastated Gaza and killed more than 40,000 people, Melbourne and other cities in Australia have seen frequent anti-Israel protests, vandalism and bomb threats directed at synagogues, and antisemitic slurs directed at Jews. On December 6, this all came to a head when an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue destroyed much of the temple.

In the wake of the incident, Jeremy Leibler, a prominent partner at the well-known Melbourne firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, who is also president of the Zionist Federation of Australia and a recognized leader of Australia’s Jewish community, posted comments about the incident.

“The firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne appears to be another shocking escalation of the hate that we have seen brazenly displayed on the streets of Melbourne every week for over a year,” he wrote. “No one should be surprised; this violent attack is a direct consequence of words turning into actions. Jew-hatred, left unchecked, endangers all Australians.”

In response, Hazard accused Leibler in a post on X of politicizing the incident. “Never too soon for @jeremyleibler to just invent a link with anti-genocide protests,” Hazard said according to media reports. He accused Leibler of “cynically politicising this crime” and sowing a “life long disinformation campaign” that conflates the “genuine evil of anti-semitism with the basic humanism of condemning Israeli genocide.”

That post reportedly prompted some HSF employees to send a letter to HSF Executive Partner Kristin Stammer and Director of Culture and Inclusion Daniell Kelly, alleging Hazard had made additional offensive tweets that showed a “singular and obsessive focus on Israel” and displayed “classic traits” of antisemitism—invoking tropes about “Jewish power and “Jews as murderous and blood thirsty.”

It also clearly didn’t help that HSF clients expressed their displeasure about the matter. One of the firm’s clients is Goldman Sachs Australia. The Australian arm of the investment bank is headed by the country’s former Australian treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, a prominent Jewish leader who has frequently spoken of his mother and great-aunt, who were Holocaust survivors.

It’s also worth noting that Jeremy Leibler, who was the object of Hazard’s tweet, is the son of Mark Leibler, senior partner at Arnold Bloch Leibler, a firm that historically was associated with Melbourne’s Jewish community, as its early clients were mostly Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi Europe. The elder Leibler told Law.com International’s Christopher Niesche last year that he joined the firm because as a Jewish lawyer, none of the establishment firms would take him on. (Today the firm has grown in size and prestige, and clients include politicians, billionaires and leaders of industry.)

The pending merger is subject to a vote that will take place in mid-February, and if approved, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer will be an officially integrated firm as of May 1, 2025. Leaders of both firms said the vote requires 75% approval from both sides, and they told Law.com they would be spending the months between the November announcement and the February vote talking to their respective partnerships about the rationale behind the deal. Kramer Levin co-managing partner Howard Spilko added that the management was not taking the vote for granted. Australia and New York may be as far from one another as you can get, on opposite sides of the Earth, but neither firm wants a well-publicized incident that some perceive as imbued with antisemitism to derail the merger.

So it’s not surprising that HSF chair and senior partner Rebecca Maslen-Stannage, who is based in Australia, took quick action: She publicly stated that HSF had apologized to Leibler and his firm, promptly reached out to Jews within HSF to reassure them and lend support, and then announced that the firm leadership had voted to fire Hazard, serving him notice to end his involvement with the firm.

I don’t know if there’s been pushback within the firm from people unhappy about Hazard’s dismissal. But I have spoken with a few people familiar with the story who thought the action taken against Hazard was “harsh.”

To be clear, I firmly believe it is legitimate to criticize the Israeli government for its actions in Gaza and elsewhere, and I do not believe that such criticism necessarily amounts to antisemitism. But there is a fine line—an increasingly blurry one.

In this case, context is everything. And the Hazard incident is another example of how law firms can be pushed into the role of tightrope walker when confronted with the world around them.

Many may be reluctant to take a stance on social and political issues. In the U.S., for example, firms that supported Kamala Harris in the presidential election are keeping their heads down as they await President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Or, firms may not want to speak out because they have interests in a region or represent a government that is in the line of fire.

But as I wrote in October of 2023 after the Hamas attack on Israel, sometimes the sound of silence is deafening. There are occasions when firms find they have to take action. Following the murder of George Floyd and protests against police brutality and racial injustice, top U.S. law firms, including Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, donated millions of dollars to social justice organizations and initiatives and upped their pro bono work to address these issues. The #MeToo Movement brought increased attention to issues of gender inequality in the workplace, which resulted in more law firms focusing on DEI issues. When Russia invaded Ukraine, law firms were tripping over each other to denounce the action and shutter their offices in Moscow.

And even amid devastation in the Middle East, firms have not buried their heads in the sand. Immediately after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton and Garrison chair Brad Karp issued a firmwide email condemning the action. Winston & Strawn even rescinded an offer to an incoming associate who described the violence as a “necessary” form of “Palestinian resistance.” About a week later, Davis Polk & Wardwell rescinded job offers to three Harvard and Columbia law students because of a statement they’d published that the firm said was “inconsistent” with the firm’s values. Sidley Austin also fired an associate for similar reasons.

Damien Hazard is entitled to his opinions but he did not consider how his tweets would reflect on his firm. He was a partner and representative of a prestigious global law firm. His comments risked reputational damage, defections by other partners and associates, the loss of clients and the derailment of a merger. He truly presented a hazard.

In the context of Australia’s continued protests and allegations of antisemitism, combined with HSF’s eagerness to complete a merger that would create a $2 billion revenue firm with more than 2,700 lawyers and give it a foothold in the U.S., there was probably little debate among the leadership about what the firm should do.

After all, when tightrope walkers take one wrong step, they fall.

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