What happens in an annual firm retreat?

Have been invited to my first firm retreat. How much is business and how much is pleasure?

Heh at muttley 

Basically you listen to the partners Wang on about how great they are then get drunk to forget how much you hate the partners wanging on about how great they are 

 

Do you remember that scene in the Bois de Boulogne, from The Sexual Life of Catherine M. ?

It will be like that and the Catherine M. role is played by newbies who haven't been on retreat before.

You do a bit of BD planning / brainstorming type stuff then go for dinner.  Then hope you don't have to do any more BD planning the next morning with a hangover.

In my CC days we had a retreat in Lisbon. Was a good gig. As a wind up, I suggested to the partners that the word "retreat" was really unsuitable.  A litigation team should never retreat nor be seen to describe itself as doing so. I noted that even Churchill had not called Dunkirk a "retreat" but a "miracle of deliverance" and a "victorious evacuation". Feeling I might have overcooked it on that last point I suggested we just called it a departmental "advance" and they actually talked that through and it made me laugh deep, deep down inside like a case of happy indigestion. 

Over a few days there is probably polite chat, lots of presentations, lots of slides, a motivational speaker maybe, then a couple of dinners with more polite chat, after dinner drinks, then the boring ones go to bed and the rest stay up to drink, have fun, and bitch about the others and how the company has no direction or goals but no one really cares. 

Chambers30 Jun 22 12:16

Reply | Report

Its another word for an appraisal. Listen diligently, don't get drunk, abusive and don't stay up late. You'll be fine.

 

Drink until your eyes operate independently of each other. 

Pester the partners when drunk for information about what's going on with the difficult people in the team, who will be a partner and who won't, who gets paid what, etc etc

Ask partners about strategy and business, then when they are answering put your hands over your ears and shout "LALALALALALA I CANNOT HEAR HIM. DAVID IS TALKING BUT I AM NOT LISTENING LALALALALA"

Be sick in the claims partner's briefcase

Moon the finance guy

Wedgies for anyone over 100% utilisation. Treacherous bstards. 

etc until dawn then crawl into the seminar by Chambo type on business development plans and fart really eggy hot chemical-Ali type stinkbombs throughout. Groan loudly.

Eat a lot at lunch. You're gonna need it. Go heavy on carbs.

Treble espressos all round then back in the room to hear Simon Shitbag on costs updates 

Die, enjoy blessed relief of the dark tunnel of closure.

Heh, I think we must have overlapped for a a few years at CC Muttley. I would have marked you down as a trouble causer.

An eventful one was a Lovells retreat in Paris. Turned out A&O were holding theirs at the same time in the hotel next door.

There was some. err.. interaction.

Aggressive litigators largely to blame.

 

You’re there to listen to give the partners a captive audience as they preen about BD as though they’re the greatest salesman on earth. 
 

If you’re a hot woman you’re also there for partners to look at whilst they preen

Oi, davos u penoir, don't sulky the brand!

 

Ahh law firm fights.  The famous battle of aldersgate st between the print room boys of the two big firms there.  In the hogshead.  Smashed bottles of hooper's hooch.

gr7days

I went on one of these at BLG, as then was. During one of the Chambers esque BD speeches I had everyone playing management bullsh1t bingo. Someone actually called out "Bingo!" at the top of their voice after the speaker said "synergies". I was so proud.

Chambers30 Jun 22 12:50

Reply | 

Report

Heh, I think we must have overlapped for a a few years at CC Muttley. I would have marked you down as a trouble causer.

An eventful one was a Lovells retreat in Paris. Turned out A&O were holding theirs at the same time in the hotel next door.

There was some. err.. interaction.

Aggressive litigators largely to blame.

 

The legal equivalent of the Old Firm scheduling pre-season friendlies in the same city on the same day.

‘The legal equivalent of the Old Firm scheduling pre-season friendlies in the same city on the same day’

more like Hamas and the IDF double booking the same shooting range m7

That one ended well. A few initial skirmishes about which was the better litigation firm, then they found a common enemy in their respective corporate departments and ended up taking over the same bar.

They always had some tit-head who spoiled the vibe on the Friday by saying "don't forget tomorrow's session on CPR updates starts at 9am sharp and attendance is not voluntary" and we all thought "come the revolution, you're getting it" and carried on drinking.  We had one Friday evening when a person who is now a partner of said firm started to present on something terrifically dull on the Saturday and he had been really going for it until about 4am. Was still outside quite a lot of alcohol so not in great shape and as he spoke he cleared his throat - we thought - but he was actually gargling back a near vom and it all went silent.  Then he went "oh shitting hell" but only got "shiddingheh" out and before the "ll" he leant sideways and absolutely fired out a mayonnaise Niagra much to the hilarity of all concerned 

if it's a good one, the police will appear at the back of the room on morning two.  A ripple will spread across the room, and a few people (minimum 5%) will start to look furtively at them, then swiftly away.  This will go on for about 10 excruciating minutes.  Then Two people will, simultaneously, make a bolt for an emergency exit.  Plod will pursue one of them.  The other will be the top banter boy (the bantasaurus rex) that evening.  The other (pursued one) will be never spoken of again.

The first one I went to I walked in the auditorium and realised that being a new partner just meant you were at the bottom of a very complicated ladder that you might one day work out how to climb

by the fifth I was working out how to enjoy the social without the plenary sessions - catching up with mates and contacts from around the world without having to listen to lectures from barely competent exec committee partners pretending they’d discovered AI and blockchain or mithering / letching over a female client who’d agreed to speak about something

by the 10th I was happy to ‘hold the fort’ whilst others went to it 

I've always enjoyed them but I'm an extrovert who loves booze and planes, and they normally involve them. 

The best one I went to was in a ski resort. The worst one I went to was all in EC2.

I don't know what sort of offsites you lot have been to.  But I'm my experience:-

-arrival day = write off.  Those travelling short haul would arrive whenever and piss off to sightsee or drink.  Those travelling long haul try to fight jetlag, sightsee or drink.

- sessions invariably a bit of a pisstake.  One of the main presentations was basically a stand-up comedy routine under the guise of talking about some deal.

- the few serious sessions usually poorly attended as 80% of people were either pretending to work in the business centre, asleep/hungover or at the bar.

- epic dinner, followed by epic drinking.

Boredom. 

Or, in the case of my last firm, pick up a couple of prostitutes and attempt to sneek them in under the guise of "old school friends we came across in the harbour".

I jest not.

If you’re in a US firm, you’ll find that many of them they see more than one glass of wine as an invitation to consort with Satan and a surprising number of them will want to go to church on Sunday (presumably because they’re insufferable c*unts 6/7).

Can the human mind conceive of a more pathetic, shameful spectacle than a man fighting with another human being because they’re employed by another law firm? Why can’t we deport these people* to Rwanda instead?

 

*I acknowledge that this is a chambers story and so is 98% lies 

  • Chambers, are you going to out people involved in these interactions?
  • Or have you docilely logged in to the Lego forum and out them there?
  • I seen you out a RoF user on that forum last week.
  •  

A German partner took a question from the audience. When he asked the name of the person asking the question someone shouted "don't give him your name Pike"

 

Great days

Great days, indeed, runnersknee.

At one of our conferences many years ago, the guest speaker was a famous (and controversial) British comedian.  This was just after a merger.  He was asked to be on his best behaviour and to bear in mind our new, European, colleagues.

Of course he didn't do that.  His first "words" were to impersonate an air raid siren.  Give the Germans their due, they said "you English are weird".