RollOnFriday Highlights Edwards Gibson’s Work in Plagiarism Controversy

RollOnFriday has spotlighted Edwards Gibson’s “The Partnership Track and Moving for Immediate Partnership” as the subject of a plagiarism controversy involving New York-based recruiter Clinton Brown. Originally published by Legal Week in 2010, Edwards Gibson’s Director Scott Gibson’s insightful analysis on partnership progression was copied and passed off as a new article by Brown’s firm, C.T. Brown, with only minor edits to adapt it for the US market.

Addressing the incident on LinkedIn Scott 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 …

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.

After investigating the matter and speaking to RollOnFriday, Clinton Brown denied direct responsibility, explaining that the plagiarized article was the result of outsourced research conducted by a third-party provider in Germany. Brown claimed he had “spent a ton of money” on the resource and was “none the wiser” that it had been copied. He described the incident as “highly embarrassing” and promised to search through his records to identify the third party responsible.

RollOnFriday followed up by comparing the original and plagiarized articles, which were near-identical aside from minor cosmetic changes. The findings were redlined to illustrate the striking similarities. Aside from a few revisions to tailor it for a US audience, such as substituting “PQE” with “years experience” and removing references to UK-specific terms like “PAYE”, the two works were nearly identical. Despite Brown’s assurances, as of publication, the plagiarized article remained on his LinkedIn page with his name listed as the author.

Read the full RollOnFriday article here.

Read Scott’s original Linkedin post here.

Read Scott’s original article (clearly so good that a New York headhunter copied it verbatim) here.