Law students are in a tizzy over a controversial advertisement from Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP that attempts to make light of the politically incorrect moniker law students and associates use informally for the firm: “Slavies.”

The firm has received a reputation for working its students and associates to the bone.

The ad — which crosses out the “D” of Davies and replaces it with a graffiti-like “SL,” so that “Davies” becomes “Slavies” — has been running since September 2011 in Osgoode Hall’s Obiter Dicta and U of T Faculty of Law’s Ultra Vires, both student-run newspapers.

A flurry of letters to the editor from offended students ran in the Jan. 12-16 issue of Obiter Dicta, as did a letter of apology from Frances Mahil, the director of student affairs at Davies.

“That Davies saw fit to run an ad invoking the shameful, genocidal, dehumanizing practice of forced, unpaid, lifelong labour and suffering that was essential to the power the Western world now enjoys is despicable,” Osgoode law student Kisha Munroe declared in her letter.

Davies’ letter of apology attempted to explain the firm’s thought process on running the ad: “The intent of the advertisement was instead to try to suggest that the nickname students have used for our firm for many, many years should not dissuade students from considering applying to us for summer or articling positions.”

It continued: “We were aiming for some self-deprecating humour. It did not occur to our team that we would be seen as making light of slavery, rather than simply poking fun at ourselves. Obviously it should have.”

Davies has decided to stop running the advertisement.

Canadian law school blog Law is Cool shares its view of the story here (accompanied by an onslaught of comments).