Kit Chellel
The scale of unrest at DLA Piper has been revealed in the minutes of a meeting between senior staff and employee representatives regarding the firm’s redundancy programme.
The meeting was held shortly after the firm last month announced that it was to lose 30 lawyers and 110 support staff in the latest round of cuts.
A transcript seen by The Lawyer shows office managing partner Catherine Usher fielding angry questions about the size of the redundancy package being offered. Unlike firms including Linklaters and Clifford Chance, DLA Piper is offering the statutory minimum compensation to departing staff.
One employee at the meeting described the package as an insult, saying: “I’m not sure you appreciate the level of anger on the floors”. Others asked why partners had not been affected.
A staff member said: “If as a result of the packages on offer I see people potentially losing their homes … no amount of nice drinks with my boss will make up for it.”
Those who take voluntary redundancy receive their contractual notice period, statutory redundancy payment plus one month’s salary.
The minutes also reveal that the firm is hoping to save £12m in costs through the redundancies and that a recruitment freeze has been in place since June 2008. The hiring freeze is understood to exclude newly-qualified lawyers and ‘essential roles’.
Human resources staff told the meeting that since June last year 100 employees had left the firm with only 26 per cent of vacancies being filled in a bid to lower costs.
Some seven to eight per cent of partners have left the firm during the last year, according to the meeting notes, but it was not revealed how many had joined during this time.
One London-based DLA Piper associate told The Lawyer: “Morale is very low. There is a fear this is going to be repeated in three-month cycles.”
It has also emerged that the firm considered moving to a four-day week but decided this did not suit its business model.
The 30-day consultation ends on 20 March. A spokesman for DLA Piper declined to comment on the content of the meeting, but said: “We’ve engaged in a thorough process which in two of our offices has included a formal collective consultation process including the election of workplace representatives. The representatives have added to the debate and we would like to thank them for their contributions.
“We’ve responded to the questions put to us by elected representatives in an open and detailed manner because we felt this was the right thing to do.”
Readers' comments (33)
Anonymous | 17-Mar-2009 4:40 pm
General Counsel
The continued attacks on DLA are getting rather boring - get on with some work rather than waste time being negative about others otherwise you may find yourself subject to a redundancy process yourself. My team frequently use DLA for large volumes of work and find them to provide a great service with great quality work for a fair price particularly in comparison to some of the MC and silver circle firms - they have achieved a huge amount throught the hard work of very many very talented and committed people and it is entirely wrong for some on these boards to suggest they are rubbish - are you feeling insecure ? This is the real world where difficult decisions have to be made so show respect for what DLA are trying to do - preserve their longevity for the benefit of as many staff and partners as possible by limiting the number of redundancies as far as possible - what so many haven't commented on is the small percenage cuts in numbers DLA are making compared to many other firms.
The quantum of redundancy payments is of no bearing on how good a firm is and the amounts supposedly being paid by A&O and the like highlight how lucky some of you in private practice are and how ridiculous private practice salaries have become - a 3yr pqe getting close on 100K redundancy - unbelievable - just because some generation Y lawyers aren't getting as much as their mates at A&O doesn't give people the right to target one firm in such an unfair and abusive manner - do you know how little a factory worker in Doncaster being made redundant will get and don't you realise the national firms are paying no better than DLA ? Change the record and move on.
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BlatantAbuse(DemandsTheDisbandmentOfTheGDL) | 18-Mar-2009 5:29 pm
impartial comments only please?
There needs to be a tightening of admissions into the LPC, if it's almost impossible for a student with a 2:2 to get a training contract then why should they be allowed onto the LPC in the first place?
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 10:11 pm
As a former employee of DLA (I was there for nearly eight years) I can most certainly reiterate how badly the organisation treats its staff. I tried on numerous occasions to obtain a new role within the same department. Would they even give me a chance ? No they would not. They would rather recruit externally from agencies than show loyalty to long serving members of staff. The atmosphere within the place was horrid as a result of having to work with nasty bullying members of staff. I was basically left to rot in a dead end job and expected to work until seven or eight oclock at night.
Good riddance that's all I can say.
Thank god I'm out of there. That's one thing I never thought I would say.
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