On 15 October, 2002, a group of New York associates at Clifford Chance (CC) sent a memo to the partners in which they requested, among other things, a bigger fridge and free fruit. The memo might have brought down the firm, although it was not the bit about the fridge that caused all the fuss when the missive found its way on to the internet and subsequently the front pages of the world’s media.
As former managing partner Peter Cornell reveals in an interview on the editor’s blog today (legalweek.com/editors blog, 9 November), at the time he felt what came to be known as ‘Padding-gate’ could have sunk the firm if the media storm had been allowed to build for another 48 hours.
