Mishcon de Reya lays off 12 support staff

In the wake of a flood of fee earner departures, Mishcon de Reya has laid off 12 support staff from its word processing department, print room, partnership dining room kitchen and its litigation department.

The firm's head of company commercial, Kevin Gold, said the "technical redundancies" were voluntary. The moves were announced internally, when chairman John Jackson sent an e-mail to all staff last month.

"Since 1996 the balance of our expanding practice has changed," said the note.

"We are now much more broadly based, with large and growing commercial and property sectors... as this change has manifested itself, the number of partners in the different areas of our business has changed, 12 have left and 11 have joined."

He said that the impact of the changes "does mean that we can reduce our total cost base to manage the same level of turnover across the different range of client services".

Last month, two litigation partners and three assistants resigned, bringing the total number of partners who have left in the past year to nine.