Allen & Overy, Lawyer of the Day, Layoffs, Sex, Sex Scandals

(Laid-off) Lawyer of the Day: Sex Novelist Deidre Dare Sues Allen & Overy

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Deidre Dare was our Lawyer of the Day Weekend back in January. Judging from the traffic on that post, we assume most of you know her story. If not, here are the quick and dirty details:

Dare, a Columbia Law grad, was a senior associate in Allen & Overy’s Moscow office. She was having fun expat adventures and decided to write about them in an online novella that included lots of alcohol, drugs, sex, donkeys, and dwarves. A&O was not a fan of one of its lawyers publishing porn online and made her stop writing it. Then, A&O fired her.

And the firm, unwisely perhaps, revealed exactly why it fired her (instead of just silently including her in the 10% layoff sweep, which resulted in the booting of many in the Moscow office, including Deidre’s Russian boyfriend). From a firm statement published by the Lawyer at the time:

Following our normal disciplinary process, we found that Ms Dare’s behaviour – in publishing the material she did in the professional name under which she practises, and the way that she has responded to a number of reasonable requests from us since – was unacceptable and totally at odds with the standards of behaviour that we expect from all of our people.

We’ve therefore terminated her employment.

Well, Deidre e-mailed us this morning with an update on her situation:

I know how you all love to hate me, so I thought you’d be interested in the following news!

Sex novelist lawyer Deidre Dare sues for being sacked

Obviously, Deidre doesn’t know us well, if she thinks we would hate a lawyer-turned-porn-writer. We couldn’t imagine much out there that we’d rather write about. While we wait for her to accept our Facebook friend request, we’ll tell you a bit more about what Deidre’s up to these days.

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Hint: rather than legal memos, she’s penning lines like, “I am a dirty girl. I am dirty in bed and I’m happy to be dirty anywhere else if the need arises.”


After being fired by Allen & Overy, Deidre Dare decided to stay in Moscow. Now, she’s writing a column for the Moscow News called sExpat (see recent columns here and here). She told the Bitter Lawyer in February:

I love writing it. I love being a columnist. I love my editor. I love the paper. It is the coolest job ever.

She also told the Bitter Lawyer that she plans to “sex up” her online novel, make its heroine Dasha much sluttier, and then publish it.

Until then though, she’s focusing on her lawsuit. She told us:

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I filed in the UK at their employment tribunal but my lawyer (who is a plaintiff contingency dude) says that we are also going to high court. I’ll take this to the European Commission on Human Rights if I have to. I mean, it still boggles my mind: fired for writing a book? Ridiculous.

I’d have preferred to sue in States but there were too many jurisdictional questions. I guess we’ll find out about UK but with the sexual obsession/love triangle bit and then they fire me: I’m pretty confident even the UK (which is very establishment, obviously) will see how unfair it all was.

Our response was along the lines of, “Huh? Sexual obsession/love triangle bit?”

Oh. I fooled around with [important person at A&O] and then he got all upset b/c I started dating a younger Russian guy and then he told me to get another job and then I filed a grievance against him (b/c I was a big rainmaker and it was ridiculous of him to get rid of me) and then he complained about the website to London (it had been up FOREVER and read by everyone) and then they fired me. All reeks of witch hunt/retaliation.

We promise to continue to keep you posted about Deidre’s adventures moving forward… or at least the ones that occur at the courthouse.

Earlier: Lawyer of the Weekend: Deidre Dare

A&O sacks erotic-fiction writing associate [The Lawyer]

News Review interview: Deidre Dare [Times Online]

Philosophy Can Be Sexy [Deidre Dare]

Miss Dare, the £150,000 lawyer, told to stop putting porn on the net [Daily Mail]

Sex novelist lawyer Deidre Dare sues for being sacked [The Mirror]

Era of Deidre [Bitter Lawyer]

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