Addleshaws begins redundancy consultation
LAW firm Addleshaw Goddard is set to shed 24 staff across its three UK offices, including Manchester.
The firm made the announcement as it revealed that fee income had risen 5% to £170m while profits for the year to the end of April were up from £34.4m to £44.9m.
It has warned 24 roles are “at risk” amid concerns at the firm that the number of fee earners has become imbalanced towards the senior end of the scale.
Addleshaw Goddard has not previously had a redundancy programme for fee earners.
Managing partner Paul Devitt said: ” A year ago we set out a plan to improve business performance and returns. We have made good progress so far and it’s good to see our investment in client relationships continuing to pay off with growth being seen across many parts of the business.
“But there are continuing significant market pressures and whilst our business is in a strong position, we are determined not to be complacent. Particularly, our fee earner resources need to be a better fit for our business in order to support our long-term strength and competitiveness.
“In common with other businesses, natural attrition in our firm – especially amongst senior fee earners – has fallen in recent years. We have therefore taken the difficult decision, having so far avoided a fee earner redundancy programme, to rebalance the shape and size of our front-line fee earner resource by reducing the number of non-partner fee earners.”
The number of roles at risk represents 3.5% of the firm’s non-partner fee-earners.
