Oh dear. Another consultation announcement; Birmingham based Wragge & Co is set to ‘discuss’ the future of up to 30 fee earners, the firm yesterday announced a 30-day redundancy consultation.

The 30 fee earners affected will likely come from the firm’s London and Birmingham offices, with support staff and secretaries set to escape the cull..

After the sky fell in and redistributed Wall Streets wealth. It’s that time of the week when the credit comes a crunching to the legal community…. Freshfields has announced it will be laying off lawyers in its real estate department,

A spokesman for the firm confirmed that up to five associates had been asked to leave, citing restructuring of the department and market conditions as the reason.

The Lawyer reports that at least 200 jobs in the legal department  are under threat at collapsed bank Lehman Brothers.

This includes 60 qualified lawyers, with the remainder being made up of compliance, auditing and support staff in the banks legal team.

None have left as they currently have their hands tied winding down Lehman Brothers operations with PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Call in the lawyers

The banks are calling in the lawyers to sweep up the mess after Lehman Brothers devastation on the 15th September, which will probably be marked in the banking history as a Black Monday.

Linklaters; to the envy of many firms have caught the bouquet on this one.

They will be advising four PricewaterhouseCoopers partners on the administration of Lehman Brothers International Europe. New York based Weil Gotshal & Manges …

The Lawyer reports that South East firm Thomas Eggar is in redundancy consultations with up to 20 staff, including around 10 lawyers, across its commercial real estate practice.

Fee earners, partners, it seems everybody is ‘under review’ with the ‘consultation’ period due to end Monday 15th September

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 …

Allen & Overy (A&O) has rescued the former managing partner of struggling Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft’s Beijing office.

As reported by The American Lawyer Mark Roppel will join A&O from the struggling New York firm as a partner in its corporate practice

Roppel along with 5 Associates had headed Cadwalader’s Beijing office since 2006, will be based in Shanghai but will spread his time between Beijing and Hong Kong.

Does redundancy strike fear into every working day? Are you prepared if it happens to you? Here’s some philosophical advice:

"There are those who don’t fall apart when there are layoff rumors. Take the ones about Simpson Thacher Bartlett , which have turned out to be inaccurate.

Some of the associates I know at that firm were pretty philosophical. They had used their big salaries to pay down old debt, hadn’t acquired any new debt, and aside for the …

Tales of redundancies feel somewhat relentless at the moment. Field Fisher Waterhouse has entered redundancy consultations with fee-earners and other staff in its London real estate department. The firm refused to comment on numbers involved.

The practice currently has 44 fee earners and it is understood that up to 15 lawyers could be going through the consultation process. Paul Houston head of real estate said: “We can confirm that in response to current market conditions the firm is beginning a …