MinterEllison CEO Annette Kimmitt has stepped down over Christian Porter email
Attention turns to who Annette Kimmitt consulted in firm before hitting send on her all staff email about Minter’s representation of Christian Porter.
The head of the nation’s largest law firm has left the firm after sending an email to all staff last week to tell them the firm’s representation of Attorney-General Christian Porter had “triggered hurt” for her.
MinterEllison board chairman David O’Brien sent an email to all staff at about 10pm on Wednesday to advise them that chief executive and managing partner Annette Kimmitt had agreed to leave the firm. He also sent a separate email to partners.
MARGIN CALL: Just what did MinterEllison expect when it hired Annette Kimmitt?
In the email sent to all staff last night, Mr O’Brien said: “I am writing to let you know that we have mutually agreed with Annette Kimmitt, our chief executive officer and managing partner of the firm since 2018 that she will leave the firm on 10 March 2021. Virginia Briggs will be our acting chief executive officer whilst the board considers who will become our new CEO.”
He said Ms Briggs would bring experience and skills to the role, as a leader of the firm’s executive. He said he had thanked Ms Kimmitt for her service and said the firm was grateful for her leadership during the pandemic.
MinterEllison has experienced strong profit and revenue growth over the past five years, outstripping many of its rivals. Nevertheless, many partners believe a lawyer should be appointed as the firm’s next chief executive. Neither Ms Kimmitt nor her predecessor Tony Harrington were lawyers but came from large consulting firms.
The email came after Mr O’Brien told Ms Kimmitt her services were no longer required after a board meeting on Tuesday.
The firm has updated its website to reflect the change in management, but has chosen to make no public comment since Ms Kimmitt’s email was sent to all staff on March 3 despite a barrage of bad publicity for the firm.
Partners were appalled by the email in which Ms Kimmitt apologised to staff for any “pain” they might be experiencing because of the firm’s representation of Mr Porter. The Attorney-General is accused of raping a 16-year-old 33 years ago. He has denied the allegations.
Attention has now focused on who Ms Kimmitt consulted before sending the all-staff email. It is believed she consulted with members of the firm’s executive leadership team, who are not elected to their role by partners but are appointed by the chief executive and are among the highest-paid members of the firm.
Ms Kimmitt also sent a separate email to all partners on March 3 in which she criticised partner Peter Bartlett, one of Australia’s leading defamation experts and a former MinterEllison chairman, for accepting the Attorney-General’s instructions without consulting with the executive.
It is understood that other than checking for conflicts, the firm does not have a specific process that partners are required to follow to open a new file.
“I want you to be aware that Peter did not consult with me, Theo (Kindynis, the firm’s general counsel and head of risk and compliance) or members of the firm’s executive leadership or board in accepting these instructions,” Ms Kimmitt wrote in the email to partners. “The fact that we are acting in this matter came as a complete surprise to me and I’m sure, most of the partnership, via the media reports last night.
“I would like to remind every partner of the firm that we have a process that we follow when accepting new work. If this process had been followed, the decision to act would have been based on the alignment to our purposes and values and the risks to the firm’s reputation and standing.”
Ms Kimmitt had been told she should work from home while she and the firm work on a negotiated settlement and public statement, according to the Australian Financial Review.
It is understood partners had been contacting board members to express their concern about the emails and tell them they believed Ms Kimmitt’s position was no longer tenable.
In a reply to Ms Kimmitt sent to all partners on Wednesday last week, Mr Bartlett said he was “still coming to grips” with Ms Kimmitt’s emails, and thanked the “many partners and staff” who had contacted him to offer support. He said he would have thought a majority of partners believed “everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence and legal representation”.
He said the Attorney-General had first sought his advice in October over a YouTube video. He later sought Mr Bartlett’s advice on how to respond to questions raised by Four Corners and did not open a new file.
Mr Porter had again sought his advice after the ABC revealed that a cabinet minister was facing rape allegations, he said.
Some have pointed out that the firm’s workplace relations group regularly acts for company executives facing allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.
MinterEllison does tens of millions of dollars of work a year for federal government departments.
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