Dentons makes second wave of redundancies
Denton Wilde Sapte has begun a second redundancy consultation with 29 members of staff likely to be affected.
Howard Morris
The process targets secretarial and support staff in the firm’s London and Milton Keynes offices and is expected to be completed by mid-November.
Chief executive Howard Morris said: “We’ve looked at activity across the year and it appears we have more people than we need in support functions. Even with us losing a number of jobs now we’d have the capacity to meet increased demand [further down the line].”
Morris confirmed that the firm was ahead of budget and said that no fee-earners would be affected by this review.
Dentons would not disclose details of the compensation packages involved, but it is understood that they are above the statutory minimum.
This comes after the firm laid off 76 people earlier this year across London and Milton Keynes, in which a total of 37 fee-earners lost their jobs with the remainder of the redundancies affecting the secretarial, IT, telecoms and library departments (17 March 2009).
Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | 13-Oct-2009 3:56 pm
Again?! So much for green shoots...
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David | 18-Oct-2009 7:43 am
It is called "Investment in People" Ha-ha.
The partners will be doing alright though!
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It started with the Tower of Babel.. | 21-Oct-2009 5:39 pm
DWS and others will need to continue on this path until they have a 21st century model.
Fully computer-based professional lawyers who can business develop/type and of course, advise clients. Redundancy of HR, BD and other support staff is inevitable. MPs could all resolve to instruct CoL/BPP to have more-detailed accounts knowledge on their tailored-LPCs, then firms may even do away with accountants and lawyers will need to be mathematicians too; or a simpler solution, and to this commentator's mind a far more preferential way forwards, would be to outsource this function to India/China where mathematics is encoded in the DNA.
A reception with seats, cameras and you call your lawyer from the telephone on arrival. Less fuss, more minimalism, greater profit.
Machinations dear friends, but with LPO becoming the fashion, how much will a lawyer need to do to justify their subsistence at the expense of their firm?
Time and money were always, are always, and will always be the bottom line.
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Anonymous | 24-Oct-2009 1:19 pm
The fees that clients have paid large law firms in recent years have not just been to cover the risks to them of giving high quality legal advice. Rather they are intended to cover the cost of magnificent offices, corporate entertainment, first class flights, parties, the champagne in the office fridge, the good looking secretaries and receptionists, expensive lunches, partners' expensive cars, homes and second wives etc. The sooner law firms cut out the fat, and the profession de-deregulated, the better.
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It started with the Tower of Babel.. | 26-Oct-2009 1:11 pm
Dear Anonymous | 24-Oct-2009 1:19 pm
Where's the fun in that? Equity might all go into apoplectic rage if they cut those wonderful things. Logan's Run was a film, but a worldwide shift in attitude will be the only way to reform our ultimate, timeless, sin of greed.
We can hope altruism is mankind's main ambition, but we humans are inherently fallable creatures. As a species, "emu-syndrome" and ignoring the obvious could be something we later regret. Better we reform now on every level, than let it become too late.
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