DLA Piper puts 251 in consultation across UK as firm mulls Glasgow closure
DLA Piper has put 251 staff in consultation in one of the biggest rounds of redundancies yet in the UK legal market’s recent spate of layoffs.
Tony Angel
The firm has confirmed it is considering closing its Glasgow office, its defendant insurance practice and bringing into one place its document production unit following a review of its UK operations.
It follows the hire of Tony Angel as senior partner late last year (26 October 2011), with the former Linklaters managing partner carrying a review of the UK business aimed at cutting out wastage (1 June 2012).
A DLA Piper spokesperson said in a statement: “Following a comprehensive review of our UK business designed to ensure that we are operating in a manner, in the locations, and across the practice areas that support both our strategic objectives and the needs of our clients, we have begun a period of consultation in the UK that will consider the possible closure of our Glasgow office, the closure or divestment of our defendant insurance practice and the consolidation into one location of our current multi-site document production unit.”
The consultation process puts 116 jobs at risk in document production, plus 85 employees in Glasgow and a further 50 in defendant insurance, totalling 227.51 full-time equivalent jobs.
A detailed plan of the exercise released by the firm states that the consultation in the defendant insurance, document production and Glasgow units will begin on 28 November and completed “early in the new year”.
It also highlights an “enhanced scheme that will be discussed with employee representatives” as the redundancy package and says there could be staff transfers to Edinburgh.
The plan for the defendant insurance unit is a going concern transfer, while the process in the document production unit could see employees transferred to Leeds, where the firm says vacancies will be available.
The firm said: “We are establishing a consultation forum which enables the DPU [document production unit] teams in all offices to participate in the consultation process as we believe it is fairer for all DPU teams to be extended the same privileges, irrespective of numbers.”
The exercise does not include trainees, the firm also confirmed.
The news follows a string of redundancies among leading UK firms, with Lawrence Graham (9 November 2012), Pinsent Masons (8 November 2012) and Pannone (12 November 2012) all announcing consultation rounds in the past week.
For more on Tony Angel and DLA Piper, see feature
DLA Piper’s consultation exercise in full
| | | | Heads | FTE |
| Defendant Insurance | Partners | 4 | 3.6 | |
| | Fee Earners | 27 | 24.96 | |
| Business Support | 19 | 16.39 | ||
| | Total | 50 | 44.95 | |
| | | | | |
| Document Production - Birmingham | Business Support | 11 | 10.86 | |
| Document Production - Edinburgh | Business Support | 10 | 8.68 | |
| Document Production -Glasgow | Business Support | 11 | 8.62 | |
| Document Production -Leeds | Business Support | 23 | 20.98 | |
| Document Production - Liverpool | Business Support | 13 | 11.16 | |
| Document Production -London | Business Support | 20 | 18.26 | |
| Document Production - Manchester | Business Support | 14 | 13.21 | |
| Document Production -Sheffield | Business Support | 14 | 12.34 | |
| Total | 116 | 104.11 | ||
| | | | | |
| Glasgow | Partner | 10 | 10 | |
| | Fee earners | 25 | 23.3 | |
| Business Support | 50 | 45.15 | ||
| | Total | 85 | 78.45 | |
| | Overall Total | 251 | 227.51 |
View results 10 per page | 20 per page | 50 per page |
Readers' comments (62)
Anonymous | 13-Nov-2012 7:29 pm
DLA have some of the most loyal, talented and skilled DP Techs in whom they had invested so much training, I hope they realise what they are losing
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Anonymous | 13-Nov-2012 8:20 pm
Feel sorry for those affected. With Glasgow gone I don't think the Edinburgh office would be far behind. What would be left in Edinburgh would be too sub-scale in Scotland to win any big mandates ahead of the major Scottish players and retain the profitability DLA desires. A lot of the talented lawyers in the Glasgow office will move on to firms with ambition in Scotland.
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Exodus | 13-Nov-2012 8:47 pm
Smell the coffee.
If you work in a regional office and have clients then move to a firm where your talents will be appreciated.
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Anonymous | 13-Nov-2012 9:27 pm
Natural consequences of the strategic plan implementation and surely doesn't stop there. Shame management have not got the grace to share the whole picture which must have been planned for years. Shame also that the partners simply take everything thrown at them and do absolutely nothing about it. Cornered now. Grin and bear it or go. The firm certainly is not owned by the partners who built it anyway. Salutory lessons on big firm mentality.
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Anonymous | 14-Nov-2012 7:37 am
If the Glagsow lawyers are any good (and not just mooching off the rest of the firm), there are certainly large enough to start their own stand-alone firm.
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Anonymous | 14-Nov-2012 8:43 am
Re - 4:47pm
Probably, and that is of concern to the rest of the staff still here. Nobody is saying this is the end of the lay offs.
Re - 5:15pm
My guess would be Liverpool will be in "phase 2".
Great news for all at DLA, and just before Xmas as well !!
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Anonymous | 14-Nov-2012 10:02 am
From the hilarious Nigel Knowles/Obama thread:
"Ginandtonic | 9-Nov-2012 8:24 am
It makes one ask what the rest of you have achieved in your illustrious careers. I dont see many law firms that have grown 40x in 20 years and still know where they are going.. It is easy to carp!"
Yeah, well, there's going to be alot more carping at DLA in the foreseeable. A sign of the times. Loads of city and regionaly heavyweights are too loaded with debt, CFA's that won't pay off, and fees being trimmed. This won't be in any way the last "shrinkage" in these sorts firms.
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Angel of Death | 14-Nov-2012 10:21 am
Glasgow gone - Edinburgh will pick up slack but I think will remain safe. Liverpool is safe - one of Sheffield or Leeds will be next.
Edinburgh, (a reduced) Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester to support the London office's clients in the UK. But there will be more redundancies for sure.
In the meantime, there are already 'realignments' within departments with amalgamation of governance between different offices. Only a matter of time before that amalgamation becomes geographical as well.
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Anonymous | 14-Nov-2012 12:08 pm
Regrettable though it is, this kind of consolidation makes sense.
I just hope DLA does the right thing by those who are unfortunate collateral damage in all of this.
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Dave Mugabe | 14-Nov-2012 12:22 pm
Makes more sense to keep Leeds than Sheffield, similarly Manchester over Liverpool.
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