Daily Diary

Diary Top 10: Manners maketh the Mintz

Posted 23/05/2007 by The Daily Diary

Following the new last week that top US outfit Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo (catchy, huh?) is to brush up its solicitors’ social skills with a few tips on etiquette, the fabled Diary Top 10 returns after a lengthy break to solve your wining-and-dining dilemmas.

The Diary’s exclusive top 10 dos and don’ts for avoiding those associate faux pas are:

1. DON’T mention the war (especially at Freshfields)
2. DO exactly what the client does – drink what he drinks, snort what he snorts, shag who he shags
3. DON’T make eye-contact with notoriously trigger-happy senior partner across the dinner table during ominous conversation about improving firmwide profitability
4. DO congratulate said senior partner on his ability to weed out the troublemakers after watching the chap in the next office clear his desk
5. DON’T ask top banking client whether his pathological obesity is genetic or gluttony-based
6. DO make deliciously wry comic aside about the size of his ‘bulge bracket’ after he’s left the table
7. DON’T refer to highly-respected female employment lawyer as ‘sweetcheeks’
8. DO subtly compliment her on the stylishly feminine interpretation she gave of Section 43, paragraph two of the TUPE Regulations 2006
9. DON’T give in to Patrick Bateman-style homicidal impulses when everyone else produces a much classier business card than yours
10. Okay, DO. It might help with that Linklaters application.