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Volume 9, Issue 6 It’s Wednesday at 4PM and my Microsoft Outlook alert has gone off. I put aside my research on whether our client (a Liechtenstein company for tax purposes) is a ‘person’ that can acquire a firearms licence in Australia. It seems like a stretch, but the client is pretty adamant so I’ll be spending the next few days researching ways to make it happen. It’s time for another practice group presentation to the clerks. Today the employment team has come to speak to us. I am excited. Employment is about people. I like people. Maybe this is where I want to work. The presentation gets off to a good start. The nice senior associate tells us why she chose to specialise as an employment lawyer. “For me, it’s really about the people”. I immediately decide to sacrifice the best years of my life working as an employment lawyer at this firm. The second presenter, a partner, gets up and says “Yeah, I agree, this is a really unique area of law where you can help a lot of people”. I will give my firstborn child to be in this team. I was born to be an employment lawyer. Things then take a turn for the worse. The partner continues “bosses and employers really need our help. The unions are truly out of control these days”. For the next hour, we learn of the numerous occasions in which the employment team stopped ‘frivolous’ unfair dismissal claims, prevented the ‘abuse’ of the right to strike and advised the Liberal Party on its industrial relations policy (perhaps strategically, the name ‘WorkChoices’ was avoided). Several ministers of the current government, we are informed, are alumni of this very team. At the end, it has become clear to me that the employment team is largely concerned with crushing people. I decide to stick with helping companies.  The rest of this week’s issue of De Minimis:
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