Manches lays off 10, corporate worst hit

Manches has laid off 10 people with the bulk of the redundancies affecting its corporate practice.

A mixture of fee-earners and support staff have been affected by the cuts.

Managing partner Louis Manches said that the firm had seen a boom in its contentious practices with family and litigation instructions increasing.

“These are strong resilient areas,” he said, adding that, by contrast, the firm has suffered from the downturn in M&A activity and other transactional work.

The news comes as Manches corporate finance partner Felicity Jones has left the firm to join Watson Farley Williams.

Jones, who previously headed Manches’ hotel and leisure group, said she had made the move because the breadth of Watson Farley’s office network would give her access to new clients.