Redundancy Watch: Eversheds' 'Project August' comes home to roost and Halliwells sees a chunk of defections
The last week or two have been eerily quiet on the redundancy front but this latest hit will not be a huge surprise. Eversheds’ "Project August" has been on the cards since, well early August, although this probably doesn’t soften the blow for those under the hatchet. Thirty-three property lawyers along with a number of support staff across six offices are set to be made redundant and the Norwich office will be axed completely. Norwich senior office partner Owen Warnock …
The last week or two have been eerily quiet on the redundancy front but this latest hit will not be a huge surprise. Eversheds’ "Project August" has been on the cards since, well early August, although this probably doesn’t soften the blow for those under the hatchet.
Thirty-three property lawyers along with a number of support staff across six offices are set to be made redundant and the Norwich office will be axed completely. Norwich senior office partner Owen Warnock said staff in Norfolk understand the need for the two offices to merge. Bet they do…
In The Lawyer Lee Ranson, head of Eversheds’ real estate practice group said: “More than 12 months ago the credit crisis began to impact the property market and this has now translated into a sustained downturn in activity. We are not immune to this and so we initiated a strategic review of our real estate team. The purpose of this review was to ensure that we have the right resources in the right places to safeguard the long-term sustainable health of our real estate practice group.”
Eversheds chief executive David Gray said: “Our operations in Cambridge and Norwich have both performed strongly in terms of profit and growth, but we have concluded that by merging them we will secure our position as one of the corporate legal heavyweights in the East of England. We remain the only law firm in the region with the capacity to provide international expertise for those clients who are looking to build and develop in new markets.”
With a key regional firm trimming the edges to such an extent one has to wonder what is in store for other regional firms. It has not gone unnoticed that Halliwells have seen three real estate partners leave its London office for the legal arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
London real estate head Simon Hardwick has left, together with Adam Perry and Tim Hart.
The firm’s London office has been hit by a number of departures this year. Head of corporate Julian Lewis resigned amid news that the group was lagging behind budget and further eight people were made redundant across both support and fee-earning roles in the City. Rumours of other ‘less publicised’ departures have also abounded…
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September 5, 2008
oh dear