The cuts, which are all in the firm’s consumer residential conveyancing group based in
A 30-day consultation on a further five compulsory redundancies is currently taking place and is set to close on 7 July. All five in question are fee earners.
The cuts will reduce the size of the group by a quarter, leaving the team with approximately 90 staff.
A spokesperson for the firm said: “Shoosmiths is in consultation with staff about a programme of restructuring to reduce the team size in its conveyancing practice in
Shoosmiths national conveyancing head David Parton said: “We held off for longer than some of our competitors and tried to redeploy as many staff as we could, but ultimately the trading conditions have got worse and this prompted us to take decisive action.”
The firm recently broke the £100m mark for turnover after increasing revenues by 8% to £103m for 2007-08. The corporate and commercial and employment teams saw the biggest revenue growth, with 32% and 30% increases in income respectively.
However, at the time of their financial announcements in May, Shoosmiths chief executive Paul Stothard spoke of “challenging market conditions which are impacting on our residential conveyancing and legal expense claims practice.”
Shoosmiths joins firms including Howard Kennedy, McGrigors, Bevan Brittan, Halliwells, Challinors and TLT in announcing redundancy consultations in recent weeks.