Halliwells launches fourth round of redundancy talks

Halliwells has entered into its fourth redundancy consultation with 30 jobs at stake in the latest round of cuts.

It is understood that up to 20 lawyers in practices related to real estate are affected alongside around 10 support staff.

A firm spokesman said: “Law firms throughout the UK are substantially reducing their staffing levels.

"While this consultation is necessary as a result of the downturn in transactional work, cutbacks at a number of other firms are significantly higher.

"We'll keep redundancies to a minimum and redeploy people wherever possible.”

The firm has also deferred its entire trainee intake for 2009, with half of trainees starting in six months and the remainder starting in a year.

Halliwells launched its last redundancy consultation in October last year, reviewing the positions of 10 corporate and banking fee earners (29 October 2008) .

In September the firm began a review of 40 positions in the real estate department, leading to the loss of 26 staff (24 September 2008).

The first round of cuts was last March, when eight corporate jobs in London were put on the line (10 March).

In total, 45 jobs have been lost since March last year, not including the latest round.