Employment
Would you like to work at our firm?
We are – and will remain – a specialist firm.
Although we unfortunately have no vacancies for full time positions at the moment, we are always happy to receive applications for casual or part time employment from law students as law clerks or from final year law students to complete their Practical Legal Training with our firm.
We are lawyers with vision; we are progressive and dedicated to helping our clients. We work as a team, both in the firm and with our clients. We have a common objective with our clients.
Although we have a corporate client base, we are not a city megafirm. Our primary focus is as lawyers to assist our clients in achieving the best possible commercial results.
fountain+bönig is a boutique corporate dispute resolution firm formed in 1993 by John Fountain and Ralph Bönig. Although senior partners in a major city firm at the time, John and Ralph left that firm to start their own niche dispute resolution firm. Since inception we have been regarded as leaders in our areas of practice. We specialise in a number of key commercial litigation areas, particularly professional indemnity and general insurance, medical malpractice, workers compensation, workplace relations, occupational health and safety and commercial dispute resolution. Those areas remain the firm’s core areas of practice.
We work hard, but unlike a lot of our competitors, we enjoy doing so.
We would like to say a word about applications for employment. We are well aware of how much easier the internet has made life for us. In a few short years, the internet has become an indispensable to our daily lives. Unsurprisingly therefore, it is common for us to receive applications for employment by email. It is simple for applicants and it is efficient.
What is surprising however, particularly at present – a time when it is difficult for students and graduates to obtain their first job – is the trend of what we call “generic” employment applications. These do not name us as a firm. They contain no name of a person to whom the application is addressed. Indeed, they do not even contain our address or other contact details. They seek to apply for employment “within your firm”. They are clearly written as a form application, which presumably go out in a completely unmodified manner to all and sundry.
Our hiring policy is to employ staff, hopefully for the long term. We trust that those who wish to obtain a position with us have a genuine interest in practising in a specialist dispute resolution legal firm.
We are unprepared to reply to “generic” applications for employment. We regard them as discourteous, so please do not waste your time or our time in making such an application. There will be no reply. That said, we are always prepared to consider applications from those we believe might have the right qualities to fit into our firm.
Updated November 2009
