Halliwells launches fresh staff review

HALLIWELLS is conducting another employee consultation but said it plans to redeploy rather than cut staff.

The law firm is in talks with 10 banking and corporate fee earners in the 100-strong department, citing falling deal flow as a result of market conditions.

The talks follow a review last month that led to the loss of 20 staff and the redeployment of six.

A redundancy round in February led to the closure of two teams in its City arm and affected around 12 staff.

A spokesman said: “We’re looking at redeploying people – looking at where people can move internally. We’re confident of keeping the majority.”

In a statement the firm said it advised on 67 deals with an aggregate value of £2.1bn but it has not sustained this income and does not expect such volume to return, “any time soon”.

It added: “At Halliwells, we have the largest corporate team in the North West. However with deal flow not at previous levels it makes sense where possible to re-deploy some of our lawyers to other busier departments within the firm.”

The firm has offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and London.