When Linklaters and Allen & Overy unveiled their restructuring plans, spring-cleaning metaphors didn’t really do them justice. Their restructuring programmes were comprehensive and, erm, at the heavy end of the scale…

Linklaters global program, dubbed Linklaters New World (no longer, the moniker itself now redundant), saw the firm laying off around 400 employees including 200 lawyers and 200 business support staff. Allen & Overy cut approximately 450 jobs in a £44m restructuring programme. The cuts affected 200 junior fee-earners and 250 support staff; 47 partners also went.

At the time (January/February) you will recall that law firm redundancies were hitting the headlines every day, professional services were being hit hard and generally things looked pretty grim. So a good opportunity to get the whole unpleasant business out of the way (what was the expression Jo Moore used?). Both firms have since released surprisingly decent results and things appeard to be improving. However, it has now emerged that Linklaters is in discussions with a former employee relating to its redundancy programme and A&O is involved in at least one lawsuit in Germany relating to redundancies made in the firm’s Frankfurt office.

Whatever the merits of the individual cases, if you sack that many lawyers you’ve got to imagine that some will be prepared to test their legal rights of recourse to the limit. And as an unfortunate by-product, keep the unpleasantness in the headlines long after you’d hoped things would have moved on…