Lovells is the latest firm to freeze salaries at this year’s levels with all lawyers, support staff and legal PAs affected.
Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Slaughter and May have all made similar moves.
As with these firms, associates at Lovells will not receive a pay rise through gaining an extra year of post-qualification experience (PQE) with those progressing from two years’ to three remaining on a salary of £80,000 for the next 12 months. Associates with three years’ PQE currently earn £88,000.
Trainees who qualified in March will not see a reduction in their salaries, with the level remaining at £65,000. The firm has not yet decided whether to reduce that for September qualifiers.
Trainee salaries are also still under review.
The firm’s London managing partner Andrew Gamble said: “Given the current difficult conditions and uncertain outlook we’ve taken the position to freeze salaries this year in line with a number of our competitors.”
Lovells has also finalised its London redundancy programme, with a total of 79 people losing their jobs. The firm had been in consultation with 94.
Gamble said: “Of those leaving, around a quarter were voluntary redundancies. We were also able to redeploy some people into new or existing roles and there were also a number of cases where staff resigned from the firm to take on new jobs or pursue other directions.
The bulk of the job losses affected support staff and PAs.
