Up to 100 top City lawyers could lose their jobs as a slowdown in corporate deal activity finally catches up with London's legal profession.
According to the Evening Standard, annual partnership reviews at the City's global quartet - Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – are expected to lead to job losses in a bid to drive up profits per partner.
The reviews are likely to follow a decision by Lovells to axe 25 partners in a bid to drive up its profitability which, according to The Lawyer magazine, is expected to crash 20 per cent this year to about £470,000 per partner. . . . Other big firms, Simmons & Simmons, Denton Wilde Sapte and Norton Rose, are under pressure from some of their younger partners, who are threatening to leave unless profitability is improved, legal sources said.
