The Weekly Wind-down: Lawyers’ birthday bash and cricketing ties that bind
IT IS perhaps not the most traditional of metrics to measure the quality of a law firm, but the ability to put on a good bash to mark the first anniversary of arriving in a city is almost certainly an underrated KPI.
Although if you can’t find a way to get the Yorkshire business community a little bit wobbly with the offer of free drinks, then a job that requires plenty of persuasion and negotiation probably isn’t the right career path for you.
But Freeths showed they’d made a big splash in Leeds at their birthday bash at the White Cloth Gallery.
A good crowd with plenty of bonhomie showed that Freeths have been very active building relationships in their first 12 months while news that the firm had been named in the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to Work For in the UK 2015 turned the event into a double celebration.
A caricature artist was working the room producing momentos for the 100-plus guests. It all created plenty of laughs, and when corporate partner Dahren Naidoo received his, his face was a picture.
With the growth plans they have in place, the second birthday party could be epic.
IT WAS a slightly more sedate affair at Yorkshire County Cricket Club for the corporate launch of cricketer Rich Pyrah’s benefit year.
PwC’s Arif Ahmad is chairman of the benefit committee and he was flitting about ensuring everyone was enjoying the lunch and making sure wallets were becoming looser.
He also unveiled a hitherto-unseen side: as a first-class tie salesman. With the aplomb of a Charles Tyrwhitt salesperson…well, at least one of the guys at TM Lewin in the railway station…he persuaded a good proportion of the gentlemen in the room to buy a testimonial tie.
His greatest achievement was selling one to a Lancastrian. Not just because of the cricketing and historic rivalries, but he also managed to prise £15 out of a grip so tight-fisted it resembled the red rose the county is famous for.
With his sales work done, Arif then had to dash off to an audit committee meeting of one of the region’s bigger companies where laughs and frivolities are a long time between drinks at the moment. After all the hard work that had gone in to arranging the event, that just wasn’t cricket.
