What is the problem with this picture? Law Society Bar Exam Kiwi Simpson Grierson

A New Zealand law firm was forced to explain why it shared a falsified image of its staff on social media.

Simpson Grierson uploaded Monday to Instagram a photo of several of his staff – who were having a feast after passing the tedious trial of the Bar Association – Monday.

However, if you take a closer look, you can see that the eight young lawyers represented in the message are suffocated.

This is because they had their hands digitally edited before the image was made public.

The young lawyers – all well above the legal drinking age – received a glass of champagne as part of the celebrations.

"Congratulations to our law graduates in 2018," reads the article. "This talented group has recently been admitted to the bar .. Keep up the good work of the team."

However, in order to avoid any negative perception of the event, the company's marketing team decided to photoshop the drinks out of the photo after a discussion with other people in the company reported news.com.au

Simpson Grierson has since confirmed that the image has been modified to ensure that the accomplishments of the staff members were at the center of attention.

The company has uploaded another image in its place. The original faked image no longer appears on Simpson Grierson's Instagram page.

Poncho Rivera-Pavon, human resources consultant for law graduates and summer clerks for Simpson Grierson, said the decision to remove the glasses was made to keep track of graduates' accomplishments.

"We are very aware that the media sometimes misinterprets things and suggest that young lawyers have a drink at work," he told Newsroom.

"We wanted to know everything about their admission to the bar and how important it was for them, so we decided to remove the glasses."

He added that "recent cases of alleged misconduct in other law firms in New Zealand" have been a factor in their decision to retouch the photo.

Russell McVeagh, another New Zealand law firm, was the subject of a damning investigation into sexual harassment that revealed that he had difficulty promoting and retaining the services of lawyers.

"We are proud of their accomplishments and have shared the photo on the outside.We have released the champagne flutes so that the focus is on the impressive milestone of the graduates and not on the fact that they are not. they take a drink at work, "said a spokesman for Simpson Grierson at Stuff.

"We seem to have created the opposite effect, which was certainly not our intention, and we apologize for any undesirable attention that our graduates have received as a result.

"We asked our graduates if they would prefer that the photo be taken and replaced with an alternative, and many of them said yes."