BCLP sacks dozens of staff

_{Law right now. Up and down fun.}

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner has made around 50 roles redundant, across its UK and US offices.

The firm would not reveal the exact breakdown, but a BCLP spokeswoman said that the redundancies were mostly in the business services teams in the US, with a minority of US lawyers affected. While some UK business services teams will also have cuts, no UK lawyers were impacted. And no sole team bore the brunt: "Redundancies were spread across a number of different departments with only small numbers being impacted in each," said the spokeswoman.

“Like many firms in recent months, we are conducting a small and targeted restructuring in selected areas of the firm to manage costs and shape our size and capabilities to practice demand," said the spokeswoman.

She added: "The purpose of this is to maintain our strong footing and further focus on investing in priority growth opportunities, whether in terms of practice area or geography, where client demand is greatest.”

BCLP has not been shy at swinging the axe in the past. The St-Louis headquartered firm previously shed 20% of its UK-registered partners, and retained under 30% of its trainees in the last retention round.

Although, on the positive side, staff satisfaction at the firm is improving, as BCLP climbed to position 36 in the RollOnFriday Best Law Firms to Work At 2024 survey, having been landed with the Golden Turd in 2023.

BCLP is not alone in making redundancies, as other firms to have made cuts in recent months include Trowers & Hamlins, Mishcon, CMS and Taylor Rose.

Comments

Why don’t BCLP take the Clyde’s approach of just reducing everyone’s salary by telling them that their roles don’t exist whilst encouraging them to apply for exactly the same role with a new badge albeit for less money. Where is that return on investment BLM?

Nice internal email about this end of last Friday.

Just exactly what everyone needs or deserves (I question if my sarcasm is coming out clearly enough.).

It’s a tough world out there, but this sinks to the lowest of low.

The downsides of being run by the US post-takeover but with none of the upsides

Another firm makes business services cuts - shock horror. Most firms are cutting monthly and quietly. Sad but look across the pond at the big 5. The grass is not greener

Why don’t they employ the old BLM spin machine. Sacking people is a “big step towards the modern service delivery model that clients want to see.” I think Clyde’s retained that, describing the merger as “successful.” What a laugh.