Pinsents Axes 24 Staff In Latest COVID-19 Cuts

Pinsent Masons has become the latest firm to complete its redundancy consultation, axing a total of 24 staff, a spokesperson confirmed. 

At the start of December, the firm said a consultation was underway impacting between 20 and 30 roles among its support staff. 

The consultation concluded later that month, the spokesperson said.

In a statement, Pinsents managing partner John Cleland, said: “Covid-19 has permanently changed the way we and our clients work. All of the internal and externally available data confirms that colleagues who’ve worked productively and effectively from home will wish to continue to do so, to a material extent, once the pandemic ends.

“Clearly, this has implications for the resourcing of offices on a day-to-day basis. Fewer colleagues (and clients) working in our offices on a daily basis require fewer colleagues to support them.

“The difficult reality is that the pandemic has served to accelerate very rapidly a trend towards agile working that we’d begun a number of years ago and in such a way that natural change over time has been replaced with dramatic and immediate change. Unfortunately, that means a number of roles in our facilities teams have simply ceased to exist.”

Earlier on Wednesday, listed U.K. law firm Gateley confirmed it had cut 15 support staff as part of a firmwide shift to agile working.

Presently, over 20 firms have made – or are in the process of making – cuts among both fee-earners and support staff.

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