It has emerged that US firm Mayer Brown is axeing a number of lawyers in the City.
Less diamonds and caviar in Moscow these days.
CMS Moscow has laid off 30 employees with 10 lawyers amongst the leavers. The office was made up via a merger of the local offices of CMS Cameron McKenna French and German alliance firms earlier this year but has since seen a number of redundancies.
Russia, which is heavily reliant on oil exports, has been hit by the sharp fall in energy prices. President Dmitry Medvedev predicted a 7.5% decline in GDP for 2009. …
Our Redundancy Watch posts were a regular feature (almost daily at some stages) for a while as firms reacted to the financial crisis. Thankfully mass redundancies have fallen out of the headlines in recent months but there is still the odd bit of bad news – Clifford Chance let eight capital markets lawyers go earlier this month and Denton Wilde Sapte initiated a redundancy programme for secretaries and support staff in October – but hopefully the worst is past.
We …
Hedge funds: the thinking man’s rock and roll?
Sex in the City isn’t quite a glamorous as four female New Yorkers and their strings of handsome partners would have you think. Not viewed through the spectre of this case. A tribunal claim brought by 29-year-old Jordan Wimmer in London Central Employment Tribunal against 59-year-old Mark Lowe of Nomos Capital does not really remind one of Carrie and Mr Big et al. Well not exactly anyway.
Miss Wimmer is suing Mr Lowe, an …
More lawyers losing the magic touch. Clifford Chance is to make eight fee-earners redundant in its capital markets practice. Although the firm has confirmed that it does not intend to introduce further widespread redundancies, all of the proposed redundancies are compulsory.
The latest cuts in headcount come nearly a year after CC launched a large-scale redundancy programme. Back in January around 80 lawyers in the City were axed. This was followed up in March with news that the firm would …
More than a bit of banter.
Maureen Murphy, 30, and Anna Francis, 37, are each suing their former employer, investment bank Nomura, for £1.5million for loss of earnings and hurt feelings. The women claim they were dumped for being female and not Japanese.
Originally, both worked in Asian equities sales at Lehman Brothers, Canary Wharf but after Lehman collapsed in September 2008, Nomura took over. Miss Murphy, a senior analyst earning £55,000 a year, and Miss Francis, a director on £250,000 …
There are plenty of law graduates and qualified lawyers struggling to keep their legal career on track these days. We have heard some fairly desparate stories of application after application being knocked back. News that firms have instructed recruiters to search only from the ranks of the employed and not from the large pools of redundant solicitors is galling for those out of a job but not wholly surprising. With a surfeit of candidates to choose from it’s an …
Has it really come to this?
The much anticipated litigation boom may finally be upon us; Legal Week has published the results of a survey of in-house lawyers which reveals strong expectations of an upturn in litigation work – 40% of respondents expect an upturn in the next year. Hope or expectation we shall wait and see. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops though, a new round of redundancies burst through all the economic cheer flooding the business rags this week. Dentons broke the seal with …
With the surging stock market and continual recovery, green shoots, recession exit messages plastered across the morning papers you’d be forgiven for thinking that the R word had retired from this economic chapter. Unfortunately not however, as Dentons enters its second programme.
Dentons laid off 76 people earlier this year across London and Milton Keynes – a total of 37 fee-earners lost their jobs. The new redundancy programme will see twenty secretaries and nine support staff included in the …
Law students and lawyers involuntarily on the sidelines of their legal career can now look forward to some pay stability in other forms of employment. Part time efforts as a barrista or at the local bar will now be rewarded to the full tune of the minimum wage. No more using of tips to make up your wages to the threshold. The legal loophole that enabled hospitality industry employers to use tips to make up wages will now been …
As Wragges battled through its second redundancy consultation over the summer, it sensibly decided to shelter potential recruits from the bloodshed. Having enthusiastic students running around asking for work that is not there from people who might not be there for much longer doesn’t make a great deal of sense. Neither does it do to show those you are trying to attract to your firm what things look like when it gets messy. Unfortunately, by postponing the vacation schemes …
After it emerged that Clifford Chance spent almost £60m during the last financial year on its restructuring and redundancy programme, the firm’s remaining lawyers probably needed a renewed focus. In the immediate future, traditional lawyer aims such as nailing billing targets and chasing pay rises might not the most feasible ways to ensure the goal-oriented maintain their motivation or their morale. So how about diverting excess energies towards something that ticks the acheivable and beneficial boxes instead?
A new award …
Lots of excitement erupted when the Guardian revealed that Clifford Chance’s female employees had an £90 allowance for underwear. However, it quickly became apparent that they weren’t trying to sex up their lady lawyers (in the spirit of fairnerss the so called ‘lingerie allowance’ actually applies to both men and women) and a specific policy with a £90 allowance was denied.
A spokesperson told Above the Law If an attorney is working hard and working late — perhaps at a …
The axe has started swinging in earnest again as firms brace themselves for a lean patch.
Bevan Britan is set to cut up to 45 roles including 17 fee earners and 28 support staff positions across the firm’s three offices in Bristol, Birmingham and London. Corporate, real estate and parts of employment are likely to be the most impacted areas.
The firm reported a 35 per cent rise in average PEP at the 2008-09 year end although the increase was largely …
Another firm breaks the redundancy silence that fell over August.
Scots firm Shepherd and Wedderburn has launched a redundancy programme and implemented a number of cost-cutting measures as Scotland’s leading firms continue to suffer as a result of the tough economic climate reports Legal Week .
Lawyers in the firm’s construction and planning teams and up to 12 full-time equivalent support staff may face the axe. The firm has also decided to introduce a few cost cutting measures including a 10% …
Last week Cobbetts revealed that it was extending its part-time and flexible working arrangements in a bid to stave off further redundancies. The firm already had a number of fee earners in its corporate practice operating on a four-day week and now options such as job shares, sabbaticals and extended holidays at reduced pay are on the table.
This comes on the back of three redundancy rounds; the most recent, in October, affecting 61 fee earners and support staff. On …
Just as things seemed to be quietening down on the redundancy front, Burges Salmon has announced its second redundancy consultation. A further 27 business services staff and 4 property lawyers are to be made redundant as part of the second phase of the firm’s internal restructuring. The first round of redundancies saw 18 lawyers exit in March.
In addition, Burges Salmon has opted to freeze both support staff and fee earner salaries at 2008 levels, with the newly-qualified rate dropping …
First went the boardroom biscuits, then the associate layoffs started and finally, large scale restructuring saw partners getting canned in the maelstrom too. But for a couple of months now the chaotic flood of credit crunch news has been slowing to more of a trickle as the last redundancy programmes ended. Although nervousness remains; superficially at least, things look a bit brighter.
So most firms are hoping that the worst news is over but a couple of warning shots …
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 …
