Shoosmiths establishes two new social housing teams
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Shoosmiths is hoping to capture an extra £1m in fees through the launch of two social housing teams in Milton Keynes and The Solent.
Andy Ballard
The firm is targeting an additional income of £1m in the first year of the launch, increasing by £1m per year thereafter. This comes after the hire of a 31-strong social housing team from Cobbetts boosted the coffers of Shoosmiths’ Birmingham office by 20 per cent within six months of the team joining last year (The Lawyer, 6 October 2008).
In both Milton Keynes and The Solent eight to 10 lawyers will be redeployed from property, litigation, employment and corporate and an additional two social housing experts will be hired.
Head of social housing Andy Ballard said: “Anyone who’s under 50 and reads The Guardian gets brought on.”
Ballard argued that the redeployments are not a way of dealing with latent capacity after the firm made 109 redundancies earlier this year and staff earning more than £25,000 agreed to take a 2.5 per cent pay cut.
“We’ve already tightened our ship, we’ve got rid of surplus capacity. We want people who are committed. You can’t shoehorn people because they’ll revert to type,” he emphasised.
Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | 20-Oct-2009 2:44 pm
Will Shoosmiths never learn to regain control of their PR. Following the disasterous trainee related PR earlier this year, they now make ageist statements. Maybe I am now just getting too old, but this seems a shocking statement to put into the press - under 50 eh? Well all you at Shoosmiths now know how seriously the firm takes HR law. Clients take note.
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Anonymous | 22-Oct-2009 12:08 pm
Is this a Gerald Ratner, I wish I hadn't said that moment for Mr Ballard?
Clearly it is unacceptable for a discriminatory comment to be made whether in jest or not about age, race or gender!!
Mr Ballard has compounded this by stereotyping those that work in the social housing sector.
Mr Ballard has caused no doubt caused offence to a number of colleagues and housing association clients.
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Anonymous | 22-Oct-2009 12:12 pm
Andy Ballard doesn't look a day under 50 years of age!
He therefore is disqualified from his social housing team!!
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Anonymous | 24-Oct-2009 9:15 pm
Andy Ballard should be ashamed of himself for making discriminatory comments.
I do hope the days of making discriminatory comments and jokes are over!
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Anonymous | 25-Oct-2009 12:01 pm
This is as close to a "Crapner" comment as you can get-and what exactly does he mean by "...brought on"?
Hopefully the clients will also spot that the new hires comprise only 2 "Social Housing Experts" out of the 8-10 Guardian reading teenagers being redeployed.
What a goof!
Thisdeserves much wider circulation but as its Shoosmiths again, frankly,who cares?
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