The Week: A&O Ranks With Rivals, Redundancies Return – CC, DLA and Even BPP, Addleshaws and Ashurst Release Retention

The last piece of the magic circle jigsaw has fallen into place with the announcement of Allen & Overy’s results. A&O has generated a seven per cent increase in global turnover to £1.091bn for the 2008-09 financial year compared to £1.016bn the previous year. However, profits per equity partner fell 9% to £1m from £1.122m the previous year. Over 50 per cent of A&O’s turnover comes from outside the UK meaning results have been boosted by the fall in the pound.

The UK’s biggest firms have all kept turnover above the £1bn mark and only Clifford Chance has seen a significant drop at around 5%. Partner profits have also fared pretty well, all sticking above the £1m mark apart from Clifford Chance on £733k. Given the severity of the downturn and the large-scale restructuring that has taken place (only Freshfields avoided formal redundancy consultations) it’s a pretty sturdy performance. So whilst everything looks dandy at the top of the legal tree, quite how clients will see all of this remains to be seen. Less of a mystery is how the hundreds of axed lawyers feel – unlike Guiness, we expect a little bitter.

Speaking of which, Legal Week reported that Clifford Chance has seen the departure of nearly 50 partners since the beginning of March. And in the US, DLA Piper has conducted its second US redundancy round so far this year, cutting 21 associates and 100 staff. The R word has not been so prominent recently but a couple of announcements this week got the nerves back on edge. Even law-course providers are not immune – the Lawyer reports that BPP has launched redundancy talks with 11 members of its LPC staff at its Manchester branch.

So whilst the current picture is still uncertain, decent NQ retention rates point to a brighter future – Addleshaw Goddard has reported a retention rate of 75 per cent after offering jobs to 33 out of 44 of its NQs; a slight drop from last September’s figure of 80 per cent. And Ashurst confirmed a 73 per cent retention rate this year, offering 22 out of 30 trainees jobs with the firm in September; a drop from 92 per cent last year. A slight squeeze is to be expected but with a glut of firms pitching in at around 70%, things don’t look too pessimistic.

If that doesn’t put you in the mood for a weekend tipple, check out the clip below. And though the actions of Murdoch’s minions are more likely to benefit lawyers than embarrass them, a mischievous message could end up anywhere …