Mayer Brown has begun a second redundancy consultation which will lead to the loss of up to 55 jobs in London while associate pay will be frozen.
Mayer Brown has begun a second redundancy consultation which will lead to the loss of up to 55 jobs in London while associate pay will be frozen.
The cuts will be made across the City office, affecting 22 fee-earners, and 23 business support and secretarial staff.
The firm is also freezing salaries for staff and fee-earners and offering voluntary deferrals for trainees due to start in September 2009.
Trainees who defer for a year until September 2010 will receive a flat payment of £5,000.
The firm confirmed that it had also reduced the number of equity partners, but it would not say whether this was through departures or de-equitisations.
It said in a statement: “We have undertaken an ongoing review of our partnership which has seen numbers of equity partners in London go from 64 to 54 in the last year. We will continue to operate our partnership structure to meet the demands of our business.”
London senior partner Sean Connolly said: “We’ve undertaken a thorough review of our London operations and explored all options available to manage our costs through this climate.
“Regrettably we’ve concluded that we believe some job losses are inevitable.”
However, he added that the firm would continue to consider other alternatives to job losses, including part-time working, unpaid leave and sabbaticals.
This month Mayer Brown completed its first redundancy consultation, with nine London lawyers losing their jobs from a total of 11 under consultation.
The cuts were part of a global efficiency drive which saw 33 US lawyers made redundant (10 March).
