"I bring not good news, but can offer careers advice as Freshfields ditched me too"
RollOnFriday has been told that Freshfields is making 20 staff in the finance team redundant.
A source said that apparently around half the affected staff are paralegals, "including some on maternity leave". And that even staff in HR are "getting the shove".
The insider noted the timing was pretty bad, as it coincided with an announcement that the firm would be holding a "10 year anniversary Christmas party" for the firm's Manchester office, "where most of them work."
RollOnFriday contacted Freshfields, but the firm declined to comment. So do get in touch if you're at the firm and can provide further details.
It follows news last month that the Magic Circle firm had begun a redundancy process inpacting paralegals in the Manchester office, who were called into a meeting and informed that the firm intended to make “approximately half” of the junior paralegals redundant, sources said.
A Freshfields spokesperson at that time referred to the firm keeping "pace with a fast-changing legal market" and "investing in technology", which some took as a tacit admission that AI is eating a growing share of the paralegal workload.
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Comments
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"that even staff in HR are "getting the shove"." This is very sad news.
So many hard working and empathetic people who have worked for the firm for decades being cut in this cohort.
The only silver lining, and it's hard to really find many, is that some of them [...] can probably cross-qualify over into marketing and BD pretty easily.
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You have to be a [...] (and also very brave) to make someone redundant who is on maternity leave.
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sounds like penny pinching to me, to get cheap labour in Bratislava
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Anonymous 07 November 25 09:15
Firms couldnt give two hoots about employment law.
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I will never feel sorry for HR. Good riddance.
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No doubt these redundancies are being made so the firm can keep paying their partners excessive salaries and expenses?
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Anonymous 07 November 25 08:55
You're so funny! Let me guess, only the ones with nice legs are allowed to "cross-qualify", right? Because, of course, they're all women who are after the partners' wallets?
Are you equally misogynistic, cynical, and a genuine and a complete, albeit rather unoriginal and painfully predictable, douche canoe with an over-inflated ego when you're not hiding behind an anon comment (a rhetorical question, by the way)?
I, for one, had no idea that there were a bunch of asshats in law firms who walk around saying that the majority of business services staff are a waste of space - though I doubt you've said it to anyone's face. It's a revelation, your comment. I don't know what we'll all do now and how we'll keep on doing our jobs, knowing there's so much derogation towards us. Oh, wait...we don't give a flying f***.
Making fun of someone who's about to lose their job at any time, but especially around the holidays, is vile behaviour on purely human level. When that comes from someone who's presumably well-educated and has worked hard to achieve success, it just shows how unappreciative you are of other people's hard work and contribution, and how disconnected you are from human emotion and experience.
But hey, you wrote a funny comment and you'll get some likes so what the heck...you've done well today. Pat yourself on the back.
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No idea why the gentleman who has shown both compassion and pragmatism by suggesting that a healthy minority of the babes in HR might be well suited to careers in Marketing / BD is getting negged like that. A sad era in which we rage against the very facts of our existence.
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Just wait for socialists LLP changes to come into effect and then see the redundancies in one of the few economic sectors in this bankrupt country
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A million+ in equity just isn't enough these days.
We need to upgrade the sound system in the party barn for Chloe's 16th and it makes my blood boil when I think of those women sat at home doing nothing because of babies.
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Freshfields have an office in Manchester?
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Anonymous 07 November 25 09:57
"sounds like penny pinching to me, to get cheap labour in Bratislava"
More like cheap labour in Belfast. (based on James' second article of today about Freshfields)
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Anonymous 07 November 25 10:18
"I will never feel sorry for HR. Good riddance"
Mmmmm. Sounds like someone who is 'known' to HR to me.....
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@10:42 - that's highly disingenuous of you, it's a distortion and misrepresentation of what was being said in the original comment.
Nobody there said anything about women who "who are after the partners' wallets". That sentiment was neither stated nor suggested. Nor did anyone say anything about anyone being a "waste of space". That is all your own creation. There's no trace of it in the comment you are replying to.
[paragraph of pure misogyny deleted by ROF]
And if you've read that helpful, empathetic, supportive advice and reacted to it with anger then I think that says more about you than about anything else.
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I'm worried that our 10.42 might be someone on the edge of a nervous breakdown on account of being asked to move to Belfast.
Dude/Ladydude - Is everything ok at home?
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Anyone who has ever acted against this firm knows they string things out as long as possible to bank fees
I always hope they are just following instructions but what lawyer isn't telling their client how to run things?
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Firm has gone from being a prestigious bird of prey to a tiger (aka aggressive US sweatshop).
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trust me, associates / lawyers are next (if not already).
FBD a strong M&A firm in the UK is not doing so well - dogshit trainee retention rates last round (unpublished). M&A in Europe has been pretty poor as we all know. I know they are doing well in the US, and hiring big dog partners - perhaps lots of money is going towards there to bring in the rainmakers at the cost of London. The vacation scheme success rate was also law. I suspect with the rise of AI they will use this as a convenient opportunity to "right size" too.