Redundancy Watch: Bircham Dyson Bell and Pannone. Freshfields' Trainee Tips and Shoosmiths' Senior Shuffle.
Welcome back to the cheerful reality of the legal job market. Bircham Dyson Bell has cut 15 jobs following a consultation launched in mid-March. Five fee-earners and 10 secretarial and support staff jobs have been slashed mainly in the corporate and real-estate departments. It has emerged that Pannone also started a redundancy consultation earlier this month which could see up to 35 positions cut. The firm has apparently managed to avoid more widespread redundancies by reducing pay and hours across …
Welcome back to the cheerful reality of the legal job market. Bircham Dyson Bell has cut 15 jobs following a consultation launched in mid-March. Five fee-earners and 10 secretarial and support staff jobs have been slashed mainly in the corporate and real-estate departments.
It has emerged that Pannone also started a redundancy consultation earlier this month which could see up to 35 positions cut. The firm has apparently managed to avoid more widespread redundancies by reducing pay and hours across its property and corporate teams. Most of the redundancies will affect administrative and support roles.
Freshfields has announced that it will only take on 71 per cent of its current September qualifiers – this equates to around 34 out of 50. The figure is significantly down compared to 91% last year but the firm has shown it has a warm and fuzzy side in the process – it has generously decided to make a goodwill cash payment to trainees who are not retained as a gesture of support. The figure is unknown but generosity in this environment is a rare commodity…
Hmm and on the subject of supporting trainees, Shoosmiths chief executive Paul Stothard has stepped down from the role after a seven-year reign and is set to leave the firm to be succeeded by Litigation partner Claire Rowe on 1 August. Rumour has it that this is related to the firm’s recent PR disaster with its refusal to offer future trainees any payment for pushing back their start dates.
At least its not Monday.
May 26, 2009
That pix kicks ass.
Shoosmiths suck!
May 26, 2009
That is pretty generous of Freshfields. Normally trainees not up to the mark just get told to sod off at the end of their training contracts.
May 26, 2009
quite
June 4, 2009
I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.