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Freshfields staff banished to the Arndale Centre
Freshfields is poised to move its back office staff to the Arndale Centre shopping mall in Manchester.

The firm is proposing to transfer up to 800 non-legal jobs from London to Manchester to create a new northern hub, but appears to be struggling to find a suitable location. As a temporary measure it is understood to be on the verge of signing a three year lease of Arndale House, which sits in the middle of the much-maligned and once-bombed Arndale Centre.

The estate agent's advert describes the 1970s mall as the source of "a huge array of on-site amenties to serve your staff". Others have been less kind on the Centre, with a Guardian review suggesting that the "vomit-coloured" tiling made it look like the "longest lavatory wall in Europe". When it was unveiled in 1978 the Mayor of Manchester said, "I didn't think it would look like that when I saw the balsa wood models".

    At least staff will finally be able to work out who actually shops at WHSmith

However the Centre has recently undergone a refurbishment and, since the entrance to the tower is reached through the mall, employees will be able to pick up consolation gifts from the Disney store on their way to work. And because the mall was built without windows against the advice of architects, they can also pop out for Ann Summers lingerie, choose between PoundWorld and PoundLand and enjoy BoBo Tea's authentic Taiwanese bubble tea without ever seeing daylight.

The Lawyer reports that Freshfields has agreed terms for the letting, although the firm declined to comment as it was picking up a bargain in Duffer Menswear.
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Comments

Anonymous 02 April 15 12:39

Oh my gawd. This is a far cry from 65 Fleet Street. Farewell to the in-house gym, doctor, dentist and subsidised restaurant eh folks? Freshfields knows where its bread is buttered.

Anonymous 02 April 15 13:06

But think of all the money they'll save! I bet clients can't wait to see their vastly reduced bills. Well done Freshfields.

Anonymous 02 April 15 13:41

Just get it over and done with and outsource to Asia. The British are doing a great job in putting their people out of work.

Anonymous 02 April 15 13:43

Yes its all about the bass of quality when you go cheap, lets move the bank of England up north!

Anonymous 02 April 15 17:20

I am guessing that the author has never visited the Arndale Centre in the past 10 years as it is now rather nice inside (or at least as nice as any other modern shopping centre). Quotes from the 1970s are hardly a good indicator of the current state of Manchester.

Still a sizeable step down from 65 Fleet Street though!

Anonymous 05 April 15 15:27

The in house gym at Freshfields is tiny and while health insurance is provided, my experience was that the gp was extremely sniffy and not helpful when non-lawyers attended appointments. The drop in salary or redundancy are the things I would be more upset about.

The unspoken in many cases of outsourcing is that many support staff, often after having been in post for years, have become complacent and even arrogant. Of course this is by no means universal but it is true for a lot of them and a lot of IT departments. If you are receiving excellent service you're far less likely to consider change but if your documnts come back ovrr deadline and full of mistakes, your IT systems are unreliable, support staff are condescending and rude to junior fee earners, etc etc. why not pay less for the service.

Of course it's about the money, but it's not just about the money. In many cases the best performing staff will not be outsourced but will be kept on yo liaise with outsourced workers and deal with urgent on-site issues.

Anonymous 05 April 15 15:29

And unless things have changed they don't have a dentist at Freshfields. You have to go over to the dental surgery in Linklaters.

Anonymous 06 April 15 15:59

Freshfields have been a top London law firm since the 1740's, much longer than any of their immediate competitors.
I can't see the Bank of England dispensing with Freshfields services because they're relocating some IT staff to Manchester.
FYI the rest of the MC do this. Clifford Chance & Slaughters both outsource legal/admin work to India - which is hardly a more salubrious location than Manchester. Linklaters have outsourced to Colchester since the 90s. A&O to Belfast since 2010.

Anonymous 07 April 15 10:38

God you can smell the jealousy all the way up the M6! Are you all sad that FF are leaving London? Is it worrying that London is not as prestigious as you like to think? Aww diddums!

Anonymous 07 April 15 15:14

As a client, I would rather my money go to spending on legal minds and not on keeping accounts payable and HR admin staff in London where everything is twice as expensive. The rest of UK plc is having to think about keeping costs down, and it's good to move money to regional centres - particularly one with good universities and a pool of young talent.

There will always be a need for magic circle lawyers in London, as that's where their clients are - with modern technology, however, even that need is diminishing and most savvy in house procurers would rather have most of the work done elsewhere and bring the partner down on the train once in a while. However, people who are not in client facing roles virtually never need to see anyone other than the partnership, so why house them in the most expensive bit of Britain?



Anonymous 08 April 15 10:54

Having seen these initiatives in A&O and FF first hand they make complete sense if you divorce yourself from the emotions of redundancies.
If you are setting up any professional services firm of medium or large size in London you would no longer have unnecessary support staff in the expensive offices commanding inflated salaries. Technology allows you to move some tasks to lower cost locations.

The previous comments refer to outsourcing - FF AO and links have not outsourced - they have moved to regional lower cost centres owned and managed by each firm. It should be noted however that as you have migrated work, skills & knowledge to another location and set of people, you can easily do it again to an offshore centre OR throw it to an Accenture or IBM or BPO outfit you choose.

Yes this is about money - clients aren't demanding it, the owners of these firms wish to maintain their income, it attracts talent and who wants second rate legal advice and saving marginal amounts of money.

I suspect that more roles will be moved out of london across many financial services & sectors supporting them over the next decade.

Anonymous 08 April 15 16:20

So as a client, when you send in your monies and expect them to be put onto a certain account and used wisely in accordance with SAR rules, and Solicitors and Partners and outsourcing companies have no idea what to do with it, you'll be happy?

KNOW YOUR CLIENT, we know clients better than perhaps the Solicitors working on the matters do.

Your money does go towards Legal Minds, we are the minions who do all the background work and work away to get everything perfect.

Id rather pay extra for quality, why go to Asda when you can go to M&S ......

Anonymous 08 April 15 21:51

Claiming that paying ridiculously high wages and fees to magic circle lawyers based in London is a guarantee of a top quality legal service is a breathtaking display of arrogance and naivety. The service received from that cluster is frequently no better than what you can expect from many other significantly cheaper commercial firms and often worse.