After a testing week dealing with its Adelaide Festival sponsorship, MinterEllison chief executive Virginia Briggs will have her dancing shoes on as she leads the firm’s float in the Mardi Gras parade on Saturday night.

For the past week, the 75 Minters staff – Briggs included – from around Australia who will take part have been practising choreographed moves for the centrepiece of Mardi Gras and Sydney World Pride 2023.

They will swap the t-shirts for capes with silver reflective material and a Lady Justice motif on the back they take up spot 147 out of 215 floats with theme of “Dream Survive Thrive”.

Steppin’ out: Minter Ellison staff rehearsing for the Mardi Gras parade. Edwina Pickles

The firm started doing pro bono legal work for Mardi Gras in 1994, and joined the parade in 2020 at the urging of a lawyer who wanted the firm to be “out and proud”.

Minters partner Gordon Williams this week recalled when Simon Cooper – one of the founders of the firm’s PRIME (Pride, Respect Inclusion at MinterEllison) network – bailed him up. (Cooper died in late 2019 of a heart attack)

“Simon said, ‘Why are we not in the parade. All of the other major partners are, so why are we not showing our support more visibly?’” he said.

“We were a bunch of lawyers really happy to support Mardi Gras and to do the work, but we were a little cautious about being out there.

“Mardi Gras were like, ‘of course you should participate’ – and management jumped at it.”

Mr Williams and Jennifer Veiga, who is also a partner and executive co-sponsor of PRIME, will lead the Minters float with Ms Briggs, who said it was “a privilege and a joy” to take part.

Earlier this week. Minters cut ties with the Adelaide Festival over the inclusion of two Palestinian writers with a record of hostility towards Jewish people and Ukraine.

Writers Week director Louise Adler said she regretted Minters’s absence after being a sponsor for five years.

“We can only hope that our sponsors ride the ups and downs with us, but sometimes they can and sometimes they can’t,” she told ABC Radio Adelaide.

“And I guess Minters feel they have a brand to protect, but we certainly have a brand to protect, too, which is around the principle of inviting writers because of what they write not because of their Twitter feeds.”

Ms Briggs declined to reply, leaving the focus on the parade.

Flag-bearer: MinterEllison CEO Virginian Briggs at the 2022 Mardi Gras parade at the Sydney Cricket Ground. 

“This is a night where everyone celebrates who you are, not what you are,” she said.

“I’m also very proud of our PRIME group as it’s the beating heart of our value of diversity at MinterEllison.”

PRIME includes more than 500 people and Ms Veiga said they had helped clients set up their own networks.

“Between the visibility and the training we provide – and all the ancillary services – it makes a huge difference.

“I came from the US, where you just weren’t being comfortable being out in a law firm.”

Mr Williams said up to 12 lawyers work on Mardi Gras issues, including helping establish the legal entity that is Sydney World Pride.

He said there had been a lot of contract work with the event’s major partners over the past two years, some of whom had committed millions of dollars before the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020.

“We negotiated hard. Mardi Gras didn’t have to give it back, but the partners needed to get something out of it as well.”

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