Linklaters sued by former associate
07 August 2009

The fallout from the recent axe-wielding across the City has started, with a bunch of former Linklaters' employees rumoured to be suing the firm.

An insider has told RollOnFriday that around nine former employees are about to take action against Linklaters. One has already commenced action against the firm. An unspecified number of partners who were shown the door are apparently also putting up a fight.

Linklaters got a lot of stick for the circumstances surrounding its redundancy programme - staff found out from the press rather than the partners, and they were less than delighted by the firm's head of banking ungraciously ordering them to pull their fingers out of their arses and carry on slogging regardless.
 

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Most insiders have said that the consultancy process itself was fair and the settlement generous, so the basis on which claimants may be suing is not yet clear. However, a clue comes from one former employee, who points out that the firm took on NQs in March, despite booting out six months qualified associates the month before. He argues that "there isn't suffcient difference between the work carried out by NQs and those with six months PQE, and I wouldn't be surprised if that decision did not amount to unfair dismissal".

A spokeslawyer for the firm said that "whilst our policy is not to comment on any litigation we can confirm that only one case is currently under discussion in respect of our redundancy programme".