November 2022: Edwards Gibson’s copyright infringement scandal reported in RollOnFriday

Earlier this month, Director Scott Gibson wrote on LinkedIn after discovering that New York based legal headhunter Clinton Brown (Managing Partner of a US outfit called C.T. Brown) had plagiarised almost verbatim one of his articles. Mr Brown had the article titled ‘The Partnership Track and Moving for Immediate Partnership’ – the exact title used by Edwards Gibson when it first published the article in 2010 – posted at the top of his LinkedIn page, purporting to be the author of it.

In a RollOnFriday article, a forensic comparison of the two articles concludes that the articles are identical bar some minor alterations by Mr Brown in an attempt to better appeal to his US audience, including the replacement of “PQE” with “years experience” and the substitution of “UK associates” for “US associates”.

According to RollOnFriday, Mr Brown wholly denies knowledge that the article was copyrighted, and instead contends that he outsourced his research to a third party based in Germany. At the time of writing, Mr Brown has failed to produce any evidence to support this.

For anyone interested, Scott’s original LinkedIn post said:

Oscar Wilde once said “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” so I was (sort of) flattered when a lawyer friend I know forwarded me “an informative and well-written article” on law firm partner recruitment by a New York- based headhunter Clinton Brown (Managing Partner of a U.S. outfit called C.T. Brown). At the time of writing Mr Brown has the article entitled “The Partnership Track and Moving for Immediate Partnership” posted at the top of his LinkedIn page, with his name prominently displayed as the author.

In my opinion it is indeed “informative and well-written,” I certainly thought so when I first wrote the article back in 2010 and so, presumably, did Legalweek Law (now Law.com) when it kindly published it citing me as the author a full ten years before Mr Brown miraculously re-created it (almost) verbatim - no mean feat for a c.5,000 word article! - but I suppose if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters … 

To be fair to Mr Brown, the article, which remains on our website, has been updated with new statistics several times since 2010 and about 0.5% of the words Mr Brown has written do appear to differ from those which I wrote – he has, for example, used the word “attorney” in place of “solicitor,” although I am unclear whether his (presumably) New York attorney audience will find the reference to UK specific employment tax schedules too helpful …  

For anyone looking to read the original article - coincidently also titled “The Partnership Track and Moving for Immediate Partnership” please see below. 

In the meantime, Mr Brown who purports to run “the world’s preeminent Legal Search Firm,” might want to consider using his undoubted headhunting skills to search for a copyright lawyer.

Click here to read Scott Gibson's LinkedIn Post

Click here to read our article, The Partnership Track and Moving for Immediate Partnership