EXCLUSIVE Redundancies at Trowers & Hamlins and Mishcon de Reya

^{Real estate plans for Chipping Camden have been put on ice}

Trowers & Hamlins has commenced a redundancy consultation with around 25 lawyers in the UK, including six partners.

A source told RollOnFriday that the majority of redundancies will be in the Real Estate / Real Estate Finance teams, including five of the six partners (with the other affected partner in Corporate).

A Trowers spokesman told RollOnFriday: "In light of challenging market conditions, and a marked change in demand for some of the legal services we offer, earlier in 2023 we undertook a review of our service offering. It is always important that, as a firm, we remain highly competitive and able to give our clients the best service possible."

The cuts at Trowers seem to be connected with the dip in the Real Estate market. The firm's spokesman said: "Unfortunately, it was necessary to reduce our staff numbers to align with the slowdown in some markets." He added: "We continue to offer those affected full support as they transition out of the firm and we are helping them with preparations for finding a new role elsewhere. Trowers remains a firm committed to its people and its clients."

Meanwhile, Mishcon is cutting one of its Business Services teams, as the firm has made the entire Software Solutions team of 11 staff redundant.

A source at the firm told RollOnFriday that the software team, which sits within the Mishcon technology department, is being cut due to the firm's changing needs for law tech. In the future, the firm will resource its software projects using a mixture of external instructions alongside its internal tech team, said the source.

Mischon declined to comment.

If your firm is affected by job cuts, particularly in Real Estate, do get in touch.

Comments

Good job MDR didn’t float. This sort of news isn’t good for one’s share price.

Presumably the cuts across the profession will be harshest in London, where costs are bigger?

As a real estate lawyer... who do people think will be next with the real estate redundancies? Scary times!

Hope the REF partners at least enjoyed a jolly to EXPO last week on expenses before getting shitcanned.

Fladgate let a few real estate lawyers go this month but all being kept quiet.

Which practice area is always active? Would you say Private Equity, Project Finance and Leveraged Finance? Thanks

Withers also let a few of their corporate lawyers go (some others left on their own terms behind them)

Why is there a downturn and why is RE most affected?

Anon 10.34 :

Restructuring/insolvency

Anon 10:34 - funds, tax, regulatory, employment are all pretty cycle proof

employment is actually counter cyclical, which can be really useful.

Except in firms which only pay bonuses when both the team and the firm hit the year's financial targets.Counter cyclical teams lose out, because in their best financial years, the firm overall hasn't done well enough for a bonus bonanza.

Contentious employment took a big hit about 10 years ago when ET fees came in and the number of new claims plummeted. You can never rule out Black Swans.

Whichever way the wind blows.

Next year, the same firms (and other firms imminently due to make redundancies) will be hiring in to those same teams when the pipeline picks up.

Meanwhile, those left without jobs have their hard-earned careers left in tatters.

I despise how law firms are now starting to be run like Premier League football clubs, rather than professional service businesses.

I get you can't carry people forever but it's all a game of swings and roundabouts

Travers has been quietly laying off associates, and also not replacing transactional associates who have left voluntarily in a number of teams. There has been some rebalancing with a decent number of NQs being retained, but it’s still overall a net outflow of associates. Not surprising, given the outflow of partners over the last calendar year, about 15 departures and counting.

@Associate284 which depts at Travers? And in what numbers?

@Anonymous 13 October 23 10:34

>Which practice area is always active?

Intellectual property is always active though the nature of the work is cyclical. During happy times there is a lot of work in structuring, licensing and related work; while during harder times it tends to be a lot more infringement litigation. Even during the 1930s there was a lot of work in this field.

Anon 1500hrs is spot on. We made a load of RE people redundant during lockdown. Was done in such a cack handed way that once the slowdown had been spotted (a full quarter) and the ‘proper consultation’ process (i.e the ‘let’s pretend this isn’t a patently obvious pre determined decision) had been undertaken, notices given etc it took about 9 months for the last folk to go and then three months later we were wondering how to recruit to deal with the upturn. Look after your staff. Redeploy them in other areas (if they want to) and they might either prove to be great or may return to RE better equipped. Law firms used to be great places to work with job security for life if you were acceptable at your job and worked hard enough. Shame that’s all going just to boost over the top PEP.