Clifford Chance to Cut Partners, Lay Off 106 Lawyers

Clifford Chance's London HQ. Clifford Chance LLP, the world’s largest law firm by revenue, will cut its partnership ranks under a restructuring plan.

The firm has asked partners to contribute £60 million ($87 million), about £150,000 each, and will cut as many as 80 lawyers in London and 26 in the US.

London-based Clifford Chance has more than 600 partners.

Linklaters LLP, the second-largest London law firm by revenue, said last month it would cut as many as 120 salaried lawyers and up to 150 support staff.

Eversheds LLP, a London-based firm with about 2,000 lawyers, is withholding quarterly profit drawings to partners.

Clifford Chance advises some of the world’s largest banks, and clients have included Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Barclays, Banco Santander, and bankrupt Lehman Brothers.

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Posted by Erik Even on February 4, 2009. Filed under Home,Law Firm News,Layoffs,Legal News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

4 Responses to Clifford Chance to Cut Partners, Lay Off 106 Lawyers

Erik Even

February 5, 2009 at 4:49 pm

And yet, given the opportunity to correct any mistakes, you did not. I find that strange.

Some of our information comes from our tipsters. Other stories, such as this one, we pick up off the web from reliable sites.

A PR person’s job is to communicate with the press. I’d be happy to print any corrections — but you need to provide the correct information.

Perhaps this is why this “incorrect” information is all over the Web.
Mike Kachel

February 5, 2009 at 4:35 pm

This story is wrong. Did you bother to call Clifford Chance, or just run the errors of other reporters? If it’s important enough to print, isn’t it important enough to check the facts first? This mixes together old, very old and new information to create misinformation. Your readers deserve better — and so does Clifford Chance.

Sincerely,

Mike Kachel

Director, PR and Communications – Americas

Clifford Chance
Mike Kachel

February 9, 2009 at 4:02 am

My pleasure… The firm has not announced it will cut 26 lawyers in the US. That information presumably came from a Bloomberg report that refers to 20 positions eliminated in Litigation in October of last year…and six positions where attorneys assigned exclusively to rating agency work were laid off all the way back in November of 2007. That is the only reasonable explanation for where the “26″ number came from. This is separate from the partnership review announced by the firm last week — as is the capital call, a decision communicated in the fall of 2008. The firm’s London office called Bloomberg to discuss what is happening right now.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify this misinformation here. Please feel free to reach out to me directly at anytime.
Mike Kachel
Dave So

March 3, 2009 at 10:53 am

Fred Goodwin ex senior director of The Royal Bank of Scotland should lose his pension. He hasn’t done well for his company and should suffer the consequences. Should the senior director for any company not be held responsible? Letting him get away with such a big pension is ludicrous.