The Lawyer’s Web Week is a commentary on legal ­activity on the web. This includes an overview of the best of the week’s blogs.

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An ear for the outs

News of a heated ­meeting between senior staff at DLA Piper and redundancy consultation representatives sparked another heated debate last week between the readers of TheLawyer.com.

Many were indignant that the firm is offering statutory pay to those it is laying off, with poster 50 cents claiming that the packages represent “pure greed” on behalf of the firm.

Another reader called Proudly A&O wrote: “I cannot believe a firm of that size would let staff go with minimum statutory pay. Disgraceful.”

Not all readers felt DLA Piper was in the wrong, though, with Anonymous writing that people “need a reality check”. The poster added: “It seems to me that DLA Piper has a considerably smaller percentage of its lawyers at risk of ­redundancy in an effort to preserve more jobs.”

Another anonymous poster also leapt to DLA Piper’s defence, writing: “The notion that people won’t apply somewhere because they made people redundant on statutory terms seems a bit fanciful to me. Partnerships are there to make profits for the partners, no? Deal with it, and if you can’t, go work somewhere else!”

Elsewhere on TheLawyer.com news that Norton Rose is mooting a four-day week met with a mixed response from readers, with some feeling that, symbolically, the move will work in the firm’s favour, while others thought Norton Rose should take the opportunity to tighten its ranks.

Mercuryman posted: “I’ve never worked at ­Norton Rose but I’m ­willing to bet that there are some duds working there alongside the high-flyers, and what would the latter say if the duds get to
skive off?”