A&O has announced the terms it will be offering staff hit by its redundancy programme. And it looks like a senior associate should be getting some £50,000 - £60,000 in addition to three months notice.

Under the terms, revealed in full exclusively by RollOnFriday, staff should receive their notice, a discretionary lump sum, compensation for not receiving a bonus and 3.5 weeks of salary for every year of service. Staff who have been at the firm for less than a year still get 3.5 weeks salary. By RollOnFriday's notoriously hopeless maths, a five year qualified associate who trained at A&O and is on £100,000 a year should get up to £85,000 including notice.

One insider has complained that the terms are less favourable than those offered at other Magic Circle firms. But on the face of it they look broadly comparable with Linklaters (three months notice, plus three weeks for every full year worked, plus balance of salary to end of April). The terms seem worse for the most junior fee-earners than those offered by Clifford Chance (three months notice, plus an extra two months, plus one week's salary for every full year worked) - but better for those with more than about three years' experience. A five year qualified associate who trained at CC should get around £55,000 including notice, some £30,000 less than at A&O. But cynics have suggested that by announcing redundancies later than CC and Linklaters, A&O has made it almost impossible for its staff to find new jobs. So that extra thirty grand might have to last a long time...

A former A&O associate collecting the dole

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