Talk:DLA Piper/Archives/2012

Concern that the Services section may be unencyclopedic and should be deleted

In an article about a law firm, it would be hard to describe the substance of the practice without addressing the practice areas. As such, the content of this section should remain in the article. However, the list does seem rather unencyclopedic. Perhaps a better approach would be a prosaic list of the practice areas, or an explanation of the substance of the firm's work, minus the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.188.40 (talk) 03:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC) Looks like the services section has been removed so why is this causing an error?

Second Largest Firm

See the following links, [1], [2], [3], [4]. [[Guest9999 (talk) 11:00, 15 December 2007 (UTC)]] There is no reference to 'second largest' so why is this causing an error? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.20 (talk) 10:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Dlapipernew.JPG

Image:Dlapipernew.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC) There is no image file so, again, why is this still causing an issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.20 (talk) 10:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Flags and office locations

How anyone can think that a list of offices and flags is either encyclopaedic or appropriate and should be removed unless other examples can be given of other companies that have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VHarris44 (talk • contribs) 10:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

It is encyclopaedic, appropriate, entirely factual, does not give any contact details for the offices and is completely in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines.

Other law firm articles which have the same information include Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Baker & McKenzie, Jones Day, Gide Loyrette Nouel, K&L Gates, Linklaters and Greenberg Traurig.Rangoon11 (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of those articles are much more succinct in listing the office locations. I agree that the very long exhaustive lists and (especially!) the flags really should be trimmed down, and not only in this article but in Baker & McKenzie, Linklaters and most of the others as well. Wikipedia is not a phone book; users who really need to know exactly where all of the law offices are can visit the company's web site. —Tim Pierce (talk) 16:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

What is the particular issue with the flags? Why would writing the country names out as words be any improvement, just because it would look less attractive. If a company has an attractive logo, should that be banned? If a company has an attractive looking building, should photos of that be banned? If a car company produces attractive vehicles, should photos of them be banned?Rangoon11 (talk) 16:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the flags is that that, plus the extended list takes up half of the article. If we just the countries and the number of the "stores", then problem solved. It shows the expanse of the "empire", and still allows the article to be prose.--TalkToMe_c^intelati 16:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:PROSE seems to have been redirected and I can't see anything in Wikipedia:Manual of Style that precludes a list of offices. Some information is simply better conveyed in a list than in prose.

The fact that the rest of the article is relatively short is not an argument for making it even shorter by deleting the list of offices. The history section could certainly be expanded and improved, but that will not be helped by deleting the list of offices.

As noted previously, it is very standard in Wikipedia for articles on law firms to list the firms offices. This is as natural as listing the cars that a car comapany produces or the planes that an aircraft maker produces, it is absolutely fundamental information for understanding the topic.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Baker & McKenzie, Jones Day, Gide Loyrette Nouel, K&L Gates, Linklaters, Greenberg Traurig and many, many other law firm articles list the offices of the firm. Is the problem here that the list looks impressive so should be deleted? So we can't have any information about a commercial organisation which is impressive? That is crazy.

If the problem is that the flags look too 'nice' and a law firm should not be allowed to have an attractive looking page then that is simply petty in my view. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

how does it make it encyclopaedic it is like a yellow pages advert "look this is where we have office we are big !" —Preceding unsigned comment added by VHarris44 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

DLA Piper is very large, it is the largest law firm in the world in fact. And it does have a lot of offices, it is not advertising to state so and to list them, merely a statement of fact. Rangoon11 (talk) 15:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose inclusion of the flags. Excessive coverage, undue weight, Wikipedia is not a directory. Examples in other decent articles on huge conglomerates have no need of this excess puffery; e.g. Microsoft manages to do just fine with just saying it is multinational, without a need to elaborate. The flags do not add to understanding of the subject of this article, and it merely puffs up the topic, making it advert-like. Totally inappropriate.  Chzz  ►  16:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

How is it excessive coverage in a law firm article to list that firm's offices? Microsoft is a very different type of business but there are whole articles for many of its products e.g. Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I see nothing in WP:NOTDIR precluding a law firm article having a list of offices. No contact information is given here, there is no sales catalogue and the information is not loosely connected it is absolutely fundamental.Rangoon11 (talk) 17:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

All the flags do is describe the country pictorally, I cannot understand how that is advertising. A law firm is quite different from a company like Microsoft in that its offices ARE its business. Lists of offices are very common on law firm articles and very often have flags, which merely replaces the country name.

When I started editing this article it did contain a lot of advertising-lite and I have made heavy edits to the page which have made it much more neutral (I should add that I have absolutely no connection with DLA Piper). I am happy with the deletion of uncited awards and the company slogan, and will make those edits now. The list of offices is in my firm view quite appropriate though and completely consistent with many other law firm articles..Rangoon11 (talk) 16:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

but how is that encyclopaedic, the page on Marks and Spencers does not list all of the stores and selling from stores is more of M&S's businesses than offices of a Law firm —Preceding unsigned comment added by VHarris44 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a whole article devoted to List of Marks & Spencer brands and a whole article devoted to List of IKEA stores.Rangoon11 (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

That's the difference. This is a article not a list. TalkToMe_c^intelati 16:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

also they are shops where members of the public go to buy things, not law firms, and in the case of the ikea page, it does not list every store. VHarris44 (talk) 16:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that the Ikea page is not completely accurate is beside the point, you seem to be accepting the principal that it appropriate information for Wikipedia. And the fact that they are shops where the public goes to would seem to me to be an argument against not in favour of an article listing them vis-a-vis the offices of a law firm - law firm clients very often never go to the office.Rangoon11 (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

that was not what I was saying. but others here have made the point better than me, there appears no valid reason to list the cities that DLAP have offices in other than ones of advertising. You seem to be the only one of the 5 users here that thinks it should stay. It should be removed and be left with "DLA Piper has 69 offices in 30 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australasia and Europe" VHarris44 (talk) 17:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that I am currently outnumbered does not make me wrong. That sounds a rather desperate line of debate.Rangoon11 (talk) 17:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"describing the country pictorially" in this case amounts to distracting the eye with a lot of color that doesn't serve to improve understanding of the article. In fact, that is essentially what advertising is. That's why the flags makes the article look like an advert. I've looked through the article history and I can see that you really have done quite a lot to remove puffery from the article and to add necessary references, so I want to acknowledge and thank you for that work, and to recognize that your heart is in the right place. I still have to agree with Chzz and VHarris44 that the flags really should go, not just in this article but in other company-related articles. —Tim Pierce (talk) 16:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, a flag is not a uncited claim, it is merely a visual representation of the country name.

Yes the flags do look attractive, but our job as editors is not to make the articles of commercial organisations look unattractive just for the sake of it. And many other law firm articles use flags in exactly the same way. I completely agree that we should avoid any advertising type material, but equally we should not discriminate against commercial organisations by making their articles unattractive or removing completely factual material which is appropriate.Rangoon11 (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue is not whether it makes the article "attractive" or "unattractive." The issue is whether the use of flags here improves or detracts from the article. I think this is an inappropriate use of the flag icons. —Tim Pierce (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I would like to remind everyone to please remember the WP:3RR rule on Wikipedia: please do not repeatedly revert another editor's changes to the article. We can discuss the issue here civilly until reaching some kind of consensus. In the meantime, there is no reason to engage in an edit war. —Tim Pierce (talk) 16:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Please also see the Manual of Style guidelines on the use of flag icons. In particular, "Do not emphasize nationality without good reason." The guidelines there suggest that the proper use of flag icons is to illustrate a person or organization that symbolizes or represents a country -- e.g. in military articles, Olympic sports articles, FIFA World Cup articles, and the like. —Tim Pierce (talk) 17:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that I had not seen WP:FLAGS before. Based upon this I am of course prepared to change my view on the specific flag question. However I stand by my other comments on the validity of the list of offices per se. I therefore propose that the list be amended so that the flags are replaced by the applicable country names.

I note that this would still leave the problem of the many other law firm articles which use flags, and it does seems unfair to single out DLA on this issue merely because they have a large number of offices.Rangoon11 (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, I agree that the other corporate articles should not use the flags either, and encourage any editor moved to fix the problem to be bold and fix it. :-) —Tim Pierce (talk) 17:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just put that on your to do list. :)--TalkToMe_c^intelati 17:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I must confess that that isn't a project which particularly inspires me ;-) On second thoughts I propose just deleting the flags, and not writing the country name beside each city (which I think was intelati's initial compromise suggestion).Rangoon11 (talk) 18:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Support And it was. :)--TalkToMe_c^intelati 18:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Break

I've deleted the flags from the list of offices. Please note that Cherry Hill points to a disambiguation page and needs to be corrected. (That is another reason that I think an exhaustive list of offices is best left off Wikipedia entirely, but if there are editors willing to keep the list up to date, that's their call.)

But still no valid reason for listing the cities they have offices, it will still read like an un-paid for advert for them. VHarris44 (talk) 18:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

By that logic there should be no details of any commercial organisations, products or services on Wikipedia at all.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

because there is 8 lines of text in the three other sections, the same as for the list of offices, out of all proportion, and really of no relevance. All that is needed is "DLA Piper has 69 offices in 30 countries" VHarris44 (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that the content of Wikipedia articles was supposed to be determined by the number of lines of text in each section. Please explain why the offices of a law firm are not relevant to that law firm, this is the point I am struggling with.Rangoon11 (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the principle of undue weight comes into play here. If the company had three offices altogether, then we could reasonably conclude that each one is very significant to the company, and it would make sense to name all three. When a company has 69 offices it makes less sense to list every single one. It ascribes more significance to each satellite office than may really be appropriate. And, yes, this really should be applied to all corporate articles which list dozens or hundreds of individual worldwide offices. —Tim Pierce (talk) 19:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

But in a list of 69 offices it is clear that any one office is merely one of 69 so each is not overly emphasised in my view. The issue is surely not how much weight is given to each office, but how much weight is given to the list of offices per se. I can fully accept that at a certain point a list of offices would become too large, and should then either be split out into a separate article (as with the list of IKEA stores) or dealt with in some other way (e.g. number of offices in each country).

PwC has over 700 offices and I accept that to list them all in the main article would be inappropriate. Equally it would be inappropriate for HSBC to list all of their 8,000 bank branches. However it is very important that Wikipedia is consistent and not discriminatory against any one organisation. If your argument is that, at a certain point, the number of a law firm's offices has become too large for all offices to be listed in the main article of that firm, the question is, at what number?

You accept that where a firm has just three offices it is appropriate to list all of them, but believe that where a firm has 69 offices they should not, so where do you draw the line? If a line is to be drawn it must then be a policy which is applied completely consistently across all law firm articles.Rangoon11 (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

In fact I think this is precisely wrong. For better or for worse, Wikipedia is far too large, ungainly and disorganized to have many rules that are etched in stone that way. Nearly everything requires some degree of editorial decision, including the famous "Ignore all rules" policy. So we will not find some bright-line restriction here to inform us that an article may include up to 25 law offices but the 26th must be edited out. The encyclopedia is large, it contains multitudes, and it contradicts itself -- often. Our job is to help make as much sense of the mess as we can. Sometimes a rule or guideline will be applied inconsistently and we should strive to minimize those situations. But we cannot afford to fall into a trap of thinking that nothing may be done without pure and absolute consistency. —Tim Pierce (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Firstly Wikipedia does have a lot of rules and policies, and you have been quick to quote some in this debate. Secondly, whilst I agree that there are many things that it is impractical or impossible to have a policy for, this really does not seem like one of those. This seems to be a very straightforward question of a number of offices, and a very suitable issue for some sort of policy. And even if there is a rule there will always be the possibility of ignoring the rule in exceptional cases.

In this situation there is the very real risk of discrimination against individual organisations. There seem to be few defenders of DLA on here today, but I can imagine interested parties connected with other law firms being far more active and organised on Wikipedia and therefore managing to preserve lists of offices of a similar number to that of DLA.Rangoon11 (talk) 20:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

If we are going to say 50 offices or more, fine, but that should be applied across the board.

For all the points you have tried to make about numbers, you have failed to address the point I made at the beginning, that is the list is nothing more than a yellow pages style and is of no value. Can you explain of what value it is and why it should not be left up to DLAP's own website (which is linked to) to have that list. Why not put a link in the External Links section to the page on the DLAP website ? VHarris44 (talk) 20:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Essentially all of the information in Wikipedia is available elsewhere, much of it on the internet for free. The fact that a list of DLA's offices is available on the DLA web site seems to me no stronger an argument for not including it here than is the case for so much else of Wikipedia's content which is available elsewhere, the point of Wikipedia is to bring information together in one encyclopedia.

The list is not 'yellow pages' style at all since it does not include any contact details for the offices, in fact it has no information about them apart from the city and continent. You seem to be against listing the offices of any law firm in their wikipedia article, is that your argument?Rangoon11 (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

But you have not addressed why it should be there. As for the 'yellow pages' style or to put it another way "like the side of Del boys three wheeler". VHarris44 (talk) 21:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that including a list of offices, but keeping it concise so as not to overwhelm the rest of the article, is a reasonable compromise. I think it would be best not to include it, but I also recognize that's a judgment call. —Tim Pierce (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

A list of 69 offices is not encyclopedic information to include. Only the sentence "DLA Piper has 69 offices in 30 countries ..." and the source is needed. Christopher Connor (talk) 18:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Because of the number of offices or just the principal? If a firm has one office should the location of that be withheld?

I accept that at a certain point there is a case for splitting the list into a separate 'Offices of DLA Piper' article (certainly if they had hundreds of offices) but I am seeing no good arguments for the deletion of the current list from this article.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Because it's simply unencyclopedia information to include. It looks like consensus is against including it. And an article on their list of offices will simply get deleted. Christopher Connor (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The information is already there, and is cited. Arguments need to be made for the deletion of the list and 'unencyclopedic' is not an argument. Virtually every law firm article on wikipedia lists EVERY office of the firm in question. In fact I have never seen one that does not. And that is for a very good reason - the offices of a law firm are absolutely essential to the activities of the firm and a proper understanding of a law firm is not possible without a list of offices. It would be like an article on Boeing which did not mention the planes that it makes, or an article on The Beatles that did not mention the members of the band. The offices ARE the firm. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I did browse Category:Law firms established in the 20th century and found quite a few articles that list only the countries that the firm has offices in, or that mention only a few of them explicitly. Examples: White & Case, Garrigues (law firm), LeClairRyan, Haynes and Boone, LLP. Moreover, I happen to know that while the Haynes and Boone PR office at one time edited their article heavily, their edits did not include an exhaustive list of the firm's offices. So while it does seem to be common for articles on law firms to include a complete list of offices, I respectfully disagree that it is anywhere close to universal. I am intrigued by your comment that the list of offices is essential to a proper understanding of the firm's work -- can you say more about that? What does it mean to know specifically that DLA Piper has offices in, say, Minneapolis, Raleigh and Tampa? What more does that tell me about the firm than if I knew simply that they had offices throughout the United States? —Tim Pierce (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes there may well be a small number of law firm articles which do not have a complete list of offices, but the overwhelming majority do, as you will have no doubt have discovered yourself in your search. I don't believe that we should base our editing decisions on the quality (or lack thereof) of the Haynes and Boone PR office, who arguably should not have been editing that article in the first place anyhow.

My firm belief is that details of the office locations of a law firm are essential to properly understanding that firm. If a firm has ten offices in the United States it could have ten offices in Kansas, ten offices in California, ten offices in New York or ten offices spread across Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Fransico, Dallas, Washington etc. In each case it would be a very different firm.

The same is true of the UK. Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester and London are all very different legal markets, and are all very different again from Croydon, Oxford, Norwich or Brighton. The location of the offices is very important in understanding the market that the firm is operating in - in my view it is as important as the number of lawyers, the turnover of the firm and the profits per partner.

Again, I completely accept that at a certain point it becomes impractical to list all of a firm's offices in their Wikipedia article. That is clearly the case for PwC, with over 750 offices. I personally do not feel that 69 offices is an excessively large number to detail however, and the revised format of the list now takes up only a few lines in the article.

Please consider that you are seeking to reduce the sum total of information available to Wikipedia readers. How do readers benefit from the deletion of this information? I can't see any way in which they do. And how do they gain? Again, I can't see any way in which they do. The information is correct, is cited and is factual. It helps readers' understanding of the firm. It is no more advertising than the article of a car manufacturer giving details of the cars that it makes.

I appreciate that I am outnumbered in this particular discussion but do feel strongly that as a point of principal law firm articles should be allowed to have details of office locations, and that to not allow this would be to single out law firms and treat them differently to many other commerical organisations on wikipedia where far more extensive details of their products and services are allowed. The number of articles, replete with attractive photos and impressive performance details of BMW cars is for example very large: List of BMW vehicles. I have no particular problem with this, but wonder why law firms in general, and this law firm in particular, are being singled out for so much harsher treatment here. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I discussed this issue offline with another editor I know with a law background. He agreed that having a list of office locations is important, in order to know which jurisdictions the firm operates in. I think that is basically what you are saying here. Would you agree?

I certainly do not have a problem with saying e.g. "the firm has 69 offices across the United States, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Thailand, China, ..." etc. If the goal is to list the firm's available jurisdictions, that should express the point more succinctly and clearly. It sounds from your earlier comments like you do not think this is sufficient, and I'm interested in hearing why. —Tim Pierce (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Tim, firstly I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this issue offline, and for your willingness to debate it at length here despite the majority view here being in your favour. Yes I certainly agree with your friend that it is very important to describe the jurisidictions that a firm is present in, there is clearly a massive diffence between, say having offices in the French or Japanese jurisdictions, or between the Chinese and U.S. jurisdictions, since the legal and regulatory systems are very different, as well as the commercial characteristics of the markets.

Beyond that however it remains my firm view that there is a big difference between a law firm having an office in, say, Paris or Toulouse, even though they are both in the same jurisdiction. I appreciate that the situation in the U.S. is slightly more complex since you have both federal and state jurisdictions. Even within each state there will be big differences between the legal markets in different cities though. To give an example, the San Jose market will be not just a lot smaller overall than the Los Angeles market, but it will also have a quite different profile - on the whole a lot more specialist, niche and focused on high tech.

To give another example, in the UK a law firm could never be regarded as being truly top tier if it didn't have an office in London, even if it had offices in every other big city. In fact all of the very top tier UK firms (DLA Piper is not yet regarded as one of them, despite its size) have just one UK office, in London, although they have other offices overseas.

Saying that DLA has " has 69 offices across the United States, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Thailand, China, ..." would in my view still mean a loss of valuable information to the reader. We could fall back on using descriptions like "in major financial centres" or "in major commercial centres" or "in a combination of major financial centres and major commercial centres" but then we are introducing what is in my view an unnecesssary element of vagueness, imprecision and even original research.

I do accept that DLA, with 69 offices, is right on the borderline of having too many offices to make it practical to list all of them in the article. However I do also feel that there is an important general point of principal that information about the office locations of a law firm is very valuable information to aid the reader of an article in understanding the subject of it, and should be included as much as possible.I am also quite concerned about setting what in my view would be an unfortunate precedent. Today VHarris44 felt sufficently emboldened just by this debate to go on a rampage through a number of law firm articles and deleted the list of offices without discussion. VHarris44 has now been blocked and there were almost certainly other factors at play in their behaviour, but I still fear setting a bad precedent here that others may try to follow elsewhere in a crude manner. Rangoon11 (talk) 22:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: Would all parties please refrain from either adding, moving or changing that section until we have a clear consensus here—even if, and indeed especially if, it is currently the "wrong version". This prevents edit-wars, and we really don't want to have to protect the article. Please let the discussion run a little before diving in and changing it. Bold edits are encouraged, but when there is disagreement it is vital that all parties discuss the change. See WP:BRD. For light relief, and perhaps to help understand why this is so important, please see m:The Wrong Version. Thanks for your understanding.  Chzz  ►  18:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)