The redundancies come from the firm's three offices with up to 25 staff likely to be cut from the Bristol headquarters, 10 in its London office and a further five in the Birmingham office. Six fee-earning roles are likely to be axed, along with 27 support services and seven secretarial roles.
In a statement the firm said: "A number of practice areas are underperforming, certain markets declined and investments in certain areas have not proved as profitable as hoped."
Two fee-earning positions could be cut from the property, planning, and construction practice with a further four positions dropped from the commercial practice.
Chief executive Stuart Whitfield said the firm would now focus on growing three key areas: public and private health; government and local government; and housing. In addition, said Whitfield, the firm would look to build its presence on panels.
The news comes as the firm pledged to increase net profit by 37 per cent for the year ending 2008-09, as first revealed by The Lawyer (May 6).
Bevan Brittan reported £17m profit for the 2006-2007 financial year. However, profits were upheld by a property deal completed by the firm last year, which boosted average profit per equity partner (PEP) from just £142,000 to £377,919. For the 2006-year end it recorded PEP figures of £166,000.
It has been a challenging year for the Bristol firm which has lost six partners to rival firms, including head of banking Philippa Chadwick who defected to Berwin Leighton Paisner and pensions head Gary Delderfield who joined Eversheds.
Whitfield said the redundancy programme would not affect future hires at the firm and pledged to "recruit people where we need to". The firm is yet to announce any partnership promotions, but Whitfield said there would be 30 promotions on an associate and senior associate level.
I had a feeling this would happen
From: Anonymous
I used to work at Bevan Brittan not so long ago and I saw more and more people leaving in the London office. When pay reviews came around BB came nowhere near meeting my salary requirements after the extremely good work that I put in. So they challenged me to finder a better salary. And I did. A lot better.
I always had a feeling that because they are largely a public sector firm they were always going to struggle. It's a real shame because i have many friends who work there and i don't want to see anyone out of a job. Lets hope this turns around soon, eh?
Predictable outcome
From: Anonymous
I think redundancies were always a fairly predicatble outcome for Bevan Brittan. Try as they might, the firm will never be able to shake its reputation for being a public sector-orientated firm and will always suffer when trying to make advances in the private sector, especially when up against its large commercial rivals.
Oh dear...
From: Anonymous
Who would have thought the apocalypse would begin in Bristol?