Exclusive: Gateley to make up to 20 fee-earners redundant

National firm Gateley is making up to 20 fee earners redundant across its English offices.

The firm confirmed the redundancies to RollOnFriday on Monday. Michael Ward, the firm's Senior Partner in England said that the decision had been made "with regret" and he was "aiming to keep the number of proposed redundancies to below 20 across all of our English offices". Scotland has been spared.

Ward said that the market had not recovered as quickly as he had hoped, and "there are still some difficult times ahead". And Gateley isn't alone in reaching for the P45s: in the last two weeks alone DLA Piper has announced up to 251 redundancies, Pannone 16, LG 18 and Howard Kennedy up to ten. Expect more firms to jump on the bandwagon and announce redundancies before the holidays.

Law firm associates next month

In other Gateley news, Emma Nutbeen, the lawyer that Gateley employed despite spending more than a year being sued by her, has apparently already jumped ship to BAE systems. At least according to her LinkedIn profile.

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Comments

Call me a cynic but it seems all too familiar for employers to dismiss as redundant just less than 20 employees which avoids having to copllectively consult with emploeee representatives for at least 30 days beforehand.

"Scotland has been spared" - or perhaps, rather than being spared, this reflect the fact that Scottish part of the business is actually performing extremely well and has been growing over the last 3 years!

"Scotland has been spared" - Scotland weren't spared in 2009/2010 when over 40 redundancies were made between lawyers and admin staff - the English offices weren't affected by redundancies at that time - Scotland took action when it was needed.