Meet Damien Hazard:
As a partner in the corporate group of law firm Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney, Damien was outraged by the despicable arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue.
Well, more specifically comments on the arson attack – by Jeremy Leibler, lawyer at Arnold Bloch Leibler and the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, in which he linked it to the weekly anti-Israel protests we have been seeing. And while I am not entirely sure which specific comments they were (Hazard’s response has since gone down the memory hole, along with his X account), I suspect it was this tweet:
Damien thought it was a good idea in his infinite wisdom to tweet “Never too soon for @jeremyleibler to just invent a link with anti-genocide protests,” indicting Leibler with “cynically politicising this crime” and sowing a “life long disinformation campaign” that conflates the “genuine evil of anti-semitism with the basic humanism of condemning Israeli genocide”.
Spoiler alert: It really wasn’t. The firm has Jewish lawyers and Jewish clients, to whom this tweet is highly offensive, so they are now in damage control and Damien’s legal career at the firm might also end up down the memory hole.
“We were shocked to learn on Friday evening of a deeply offensive post, and very sorry it was written,” HSF’s chair and senior partner Rebecca Maslen-Stannage said in a statement.
“On learning of the post, we quickly contacted the partner and it was removed the same evening. We have apologised to the individual named in the post, and assured him that we are treating this matter with the seriousness it deserves.”
The statement went on to say HSF has “become aware” of previous tweets from Hazard. He has deleted his account. But Google cached results show he has posted several times about Israel and “Zionists”.
HSF said it’s started its own internal investigation.
“We have reached out to leaders of our firm’s Jewish network to ensure they feel support at this difficult time. Our firm’s leaders have also met with members of our Jewish network today.”
This is part of one of his previous tweets, visible in Google Search:
Yeah, insinuating there is a powerful lobby of Jews Zionists is not a good look either.
Damien clearly didn’t think this one through:
Presumably HSF’s clients and Jewish employees won’t be too pleased about this development, which explains why the firm’s moving so fast to roll out the support. Meetings have already been held with leaders of its Jewish network to make sure they feel “supported at this difficult time”.
Then again, the timing of Hazard’s tweet and the daubing of HSF in this awful colouring happens to coincide with a planned merger with New York litigation specialist Kramer Levin, whose two name partners, Ezra Levin and the late Arthur Kramer, are Jewish.
Levin, wouldn’t you know it, was inducted into the Bronx Jewish Hall of Fame in 2016. And Kramer – fun fact – started the business because white shoe law firms wouldn’t take Jews in the 1950s – even those from an Ivy League school.
So yeah, Damo, seems you are a hazard to your own career, and you might need to update your LinkedIn profile real soon.
And while you’re at it, update your photo, which is clearly an old one in which you had hair.
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