Addleshaw Goddard, Britain’s fifteenth largest firm, is poised to lose 19 partners because of falling demand for legal services.
More than a tenth of the firm’s 182 partners will be forced to leave in the next few months.
Ashurst, its City rival, one of the top private equity advisers, is also understood to be in the process of down-sizing its partnership, with as many as ten of its 223 partners at risk
UK law firms are targeting underperforming partners in an effort to cut costs, forcing them to accept a reduced equity share or simply asking them to leave. As many as 15% of the 12,000 partners at the top firms – about 2,000 senior lawyers – could lose their jobs this year.
The cuts will affect both equity and so-called fixed-share, or junior, partners across all main practice areas in the offices of Addleshaw Goddard at London, Leeds and Manchester.