Gateley to cut 19 fee-earner positions from English offices
Gateley is embarking upon its first redundancy round since the economic slowdown began, with up to 19 fee-earners facing the axe.
Michael Ward, Gateley
The redundancies will affect up to 19 fee-earners – including partners but not trainees – in the construction, real estate, dispute resolution and employment practices across the firm’s English offices, apart from Leeds and Leicester. The firm’s Scotland offices, which go under the brand HBJ Gateley, will not be affected by the cuts, which were first reported on RollonFriday.
Gateley senior partner Michael Ward said: “We’ve never been through a redundancy process before, and we’re now nearly four years on [from the financial crash] and we believe here that it could last for another two years. So, we had another look at the business as the difficult trading period goes on. We’ve done everything we can to hold things off but things have gone on longer than we had first envisaged and we can’t ignore the signs.”
Turnover fell by 2.4 per cent at Gateley in 2011/12, from £63m o £61.5m. However, the firm decided not to include revenue from HBJ Claims Solutions, which had been included in previous years, in the 2011/12 figure. On a like-for-like basis, turnover increased by 7 per cent, up from £57.4m.
Gateley has six offices in England, as well as two in Scotland and one in Dubai.
