Simmons axes 27 staff in three-year wages review

Simmons & Simmons has made eight lawyers and 19 service staff redundant ­following ;a ;three-year review of its wage bill.

The drive led to cuts in the IT and secretarial teams over the three years.
A review of fee-earners saw eight associates leave, 35 lawyers sent on secondment and 15 lawyers, including two partners, ­relocated to the Middle East and Russia.

A ;Simmons ;source denied that either move was part of a redundancy ­consultation, but admitted: “Over the last 12 months we’ve been looking at ways to manage our fee-earners headcount and getting fee-earners where you have increased client needs.”

The lawyer redundancies are understood to have been in London and were spread across the practice groups.

The non-lawyer departures included up to 12 ­secretaries, the equivalent of around 10 per cent of the total, and nine IT employees from a total of around 40.

Also, some 25 staff in the post and print rooms were outsourced to an external services provider.

Managing partner Mark Dawkins ;said: ;“We’ve ­invested £25m in the firm’s systems and we’ve been looking for ways to get some payback from that.”