Slater and Gordon is putting 12 fee earners in its Birmingham office at risk of redundancy.
In an internal memo seen by RollOnFriday the firm said it would "be entering a period of consultation" with the 12 staff in Birmingham who work in family, employment and crime. The memo said it was necessary to "simplify our operations and improve efficiency".
“The proposal is to relocate the work from the 12 impacted colleagues to our other locations across the UK" a Slater and Gordon spokeswoman told RollOnFriday, adding that the firm was hoping to find opportunities in other offices for the staff impacted. Although it remains to be seen how enticing it will be for staff settled in the city to uproot to another part of the country.
Brum looks likely to become solely a PI office for S&G, whose 11 PI fee earners in the office will not be affected. The firm said it would now be assessing whether to discontinue handling non-personal injury files in Birmingham.
The spokeswoman added that the firm was simplifying its operations since it had developed "new digital platforms" and "moved to a structure of having specialised centres of excellence for our consumer legal services" to "provide the very best possible service to our customers."
It continues the shrinking trend of Slater and Gordon. Since 2017, it has closed offices in Chester, Wrexham, Milton Keynes and Preston. Last year it shut down Leeds with the loss of 25 fee-earners, while 100 staff at its Watford base were placed at risk of redundancy.
Slater and Gordon was awarded the 2020 Golden Turd in the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2020 following a tricky 12 months for Slater and Gordon's staff, who were battered by redundancies and uncertainty around the firm's disastrous acquisition of Quindell's professional services decision. Slaters sued, then settled in October hours before trial.
Many of the staff raised concerns about their job security. "As I'm over 5PQE I expect I will be made redundant soon as the firm makes more cuts", said one lawyer.
"Is there a culture?" asked one lawyer. "In the same way that a North Korean gulag has a culture then, yes, we do have a culture. A culture born out of trauma bonding".
Others at the firm have taken that bonding experience too far.
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The only safe staff seem to be the overworked HR team!
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New digital platforms my arse!
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11 PI staff in Birmingham? Divide that by 2 and it will be nearer the actual figure.
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Well done Martyn Beauchamp we all appreciated you coming to Birmingham to share the S&G vision!
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Just to clarify as well as the 12 fee earners being made redundant, there are also admin staff making it nearer to 22 members of staff being made redundant. Good people that work hard and get brilliant results for clients despite working for this joke of a firm.....
Oh and there are only 2 personal injury lawyers there, 2 paralegals and 1 or 2 secretarial/legal assistants despite what it says on their website....
The rest of the office is made up of a small compliance and risk team....
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That's what happens when a firm morphs from an LLP to a PLC and becomes accountable to bottom feeders in the City.
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Certainly is the S&G way
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S&G have always played fast and loose with the actualite.
When they announced the closure of what had formerly been a Fentons branch office, they said that they were doing so because they wanted to reduce the rent bill. All well and good, but only if you overlook that they owned the freehold and were not in fact paying rent.
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Due to downsize to a smaller office too in November, which makes sense given the very small number of people who remain...but shows no sign of future ambition. Only one way those numbers are going to go.
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As predicted in October......
CrashNBurn 25 October 19 10:29
But we do have nice new laptops from Microsoft I can confirm....
Current betting in the office is the new opportunities are either Birmingham or Cardiff to go next or both.
#investinginpeople
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo8fYNt3txg
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Beauchamp seems to love himself!
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Slaters stay classy!
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All S n G staff at the Watford office were made redundant by the end december 2019. Now holds about 20 people who work for s n g motors only. Office holds 400 people and its almost empty but still paying city centre rent on it! Approx 100 people lost their jobs but no announcement made as no fee earners affected. Senior management didnt even acknowledge it to those affected and other branches werent aware. SHOCKING behaviour. There'll be more redundancies throughout 2020 as they'll burn through the 11 mill from watchstone within a couple months.