DLA offs

Thank God it’s Friday. The legal market has had a tough week.

Since the credit crunch hit, firms in regions from the northeast (Dickinson Dees, Muckle,) to the southwest (Bevan Brittan) have laid off lawyers.

City partners, by contrast, have been celebrating record profits and merely murmuring about the slowdown as if it was something that was happening to somebody else.

But this week the slowdown hit the City. DLA Piper today joined Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft in announcing lay-offs See Story.

The five lawyers getting the chop from the former firm’s technology group are unlikely to be the last, as DLA reviews staffing levels across all practice areas.

Prior to Cadwalader’s structured finance redundancies See Story, much of the pain had been felt in the real estate market.

But DLA, never one to shy away from big decisions, has been the first to acknowledge a more general slowdown.

And where DLA has lead, others will follow. After fearing redundancies, the City now expects them.

Keep logging on TheLawyer.com for how many, who and when.