Dickie Dees launches redundancy consultation in banking team
Dickinson Dees managing partner Jonathan Blair has confirmed that the firm has entered into redundancy talks with its banking team.
Jonathan Blair
The banking practice, which is headed by partner Deborah Kirtley, escaped cuts during the firm’s three previous redundancy rounds (12 February 2009). In the 2009-10 financial year the firm made a total of 83 redundancies and saw lawyer numbers drop from 256 to 243, and the number of partners from 76 to 67.
Managing partner told Jonathan Blair told The Lawyer: “Dickinson Dees has entered into consultation with staff in its banking team, with a proposal to reduce headcount by two fee-earners in a team of seven.
“While the firm had not previously considered redundancies in this area, the impact of the recession has led to a need to review staffing in the team. While consultation is underway the firm is unable to comment further, other than to say that it hopes that it’ll be possible to achieve a reduction in staffing through voluntary redundancy.”
Blair added that the firm was not in redundancy talks with any other parts of its business. The banking team’s clients include Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank, RBS, Northern Rock, Nationwide, Lloyds TSB and HSBC.
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Readers' comments (50)
Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 5:07 pm
This kind of action is pretty much Dickinson Dees's M.O.
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 6:52 pm
The problem for Dixon Dees is that there is no real big ticket banking work in Middlesborough, York and Carlisle and they really should have gone into the big financial centres like Leeds, Edinburgh and London to keep that sort of practice busy.
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 7:02 pm
Their banking practice was really only Chris Harker and since he's gone it will have left a big hole. Never heard of Deborah Kirkley. A shame though for the associates who are affected by this.
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 9:28 pm
OMG!! Surely that team has put more hours in over the years than all the DD partners added together. Lovely christmas present for them all...
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Sammy Nicolson | 16-Dec-2010 9:30 pm
Many people get bullied at school, but it's unusual to see so many find management positions in one firm. I cannot fathom why my firm would wait until just before Christmas to anounce this.
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 9:31 pm
Love the smile - says it all about that place
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 9:33 pm
All you need to know about Chris Harker is (a) that he graduated from Oxford then spent his whole career building up Dickinson Dees to a major regional firm and (b) when he retired the firm didn't even give him a bottle of wine to say thank you.
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 9:36 pm
2 from 7? I think that'll be 2 from 6, unless the partner is at risk....oh of course not, that would be a first for dickenson dees
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2010 9:36 pm
All you need to know about Dixon Dees is that in the late 1990s they were on par with DLA, Addleshaws and Pinsents. Now they have the fourth highest PEP of the five Newcastle firms.
These guys tell people they are business lawyers but they have failed on a massive scale with their own business.
The people leaving should thank their lucky stars.
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Anonymous | 17-Dec-2010 7:44 am
In the Newcastle market most people expected Dickinson Dees to shed many more staff. Maybe that's what will happen in January.
It's partly a North East issue because of all the cuts. However most of the problems are with the firm which for five or six years has been bloated and underperforming. The firm has been making increasingly desperate attempts to catch up with other firms by taking a risk on ABS but no business will invest when they look at how badly the business has performed.
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