News just to hand. Clifford Chance has become the first Magic Circle firm to announce a formal redundancy scheme for ‘a number of lawyers’. An initial round of ’70-80′ layoffs will be undertaken through a ‘collective consultation process’. According to the Spy’s sources, the following email was sent by the firm’s London managing partner on Thursday:
This note is to tell you that we are proposing to make a number of lawyers redundant in the London office. The downturn in economic activity over the past year is affecting many of our clients and, as a result, many areas of our business. We believe this is likely to remain the case for some time to come. Like any organisation, we have to ensure that our staffing levels are appropriate to our volume of business activity. As a consequence, we are proposing to make approximately 70-80 lawyers redundant and we will be entering into a collective consultation process. Note that trainees will not be affected by these proposals. All lawyers are invited today to a series of short presentations in the Auditorium. Trainees are invited to a separate session. Please see attached a schedule showing when all these will take place. A short explanatory note will also be circulated later today to ensure those involved are fully aware of what is happening. In addition, we will be carrying out a review of Business Services across the London office over the coming weeks; depending on the outcome of this review, there is a possibility of further redundancies in Business Services in due course. A separate communication will be sent out to Business Services shortly. The decision to make redundancies is not one that we have made lightly but, having seen the economy deteriorate for some months now, it is clear that these actions need to be taken in order to ensure that the London office is in a strong position as and when the economic environment improves. Jeremy
Interestingly, while ‘trainees will not be affected’ by the redundancies, they are still invited to a briefing session. This bodes ill for associates at all London firms, and one wonders if it will set a precedent elsewhere. Is your firm laying off? Put the heat on: tell the Spy.
Loading...
