Client alert

Office anthropology™ Go Premium Another blessed COVID-19 thought-piece, yesterday The JC puts on his pith-helmet, grabs his butterfly net and a rucksack full of marmalade sandwiches, and heads into the concrete jungleIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Work anthropology Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

We would like to know the critical path of the law firm client alert. We know that no-one actually reads them — surely no one reads more than one, right? — but yet they defy the tooth and claw of red nature and not only survive, but flourish. We suppose there must be armies of trainees tethered to a monstrous wheel, cranking these things out night and day — EMIR refit news; Senior Manager Regime enforcement updates, COVID-19 contingency planning tips for litigators — and this must cost something — a lot of somethings, if Roll On Friday is anywhere near accurate about starting salaries — and they must fulfil some evolutionary purpose, though our latest theory is that, like a peacock’s tail — a heavy, useless flamboyant impediment that gets in the way if a predator is around; that is some kind of snub to the nose of natural selection — some kind of analogue to sexual selection.

Still, it is hard to imagine someone wanting to shag a client bulletin.

Can anyone enlighten us as to what role they play in the undulating topography of modern legal practice?

See also

• Client communications
• Continuing professional development