More than 100 staff have been placed at risk of redundancy with top-25 firm DWF. The potential cuts involve a mixture of fee-earning lawyers and support staff who were told this week that a consultation was to begin.
The DWF business was bought in 2023 by private equity outfit Inflexion after four turbulent years as a stock exchange-listed company.
A spokesperson for the firm said: ‘Our strategy is to achieve long-term, sustainable growth. This includes being responsive to the economic environment and ensuring our teams reflect the changing needs of our clients.
‘We are in the process of conducting a consultation with 108 colleagues (circa 2% of the total number of DWF employees) in limited areas of our commercial services and central services divisions, and we expect a proportion of those roles will be made redundant.
‘We understand that this is a very difficult situation for those colleagues involved and we are committed to a meaningful consultation and responding to questions or concerns raised.’
When the private equity deal was announced, Inflexion said that DWF would ‘continue its organic and acquisitive growth journey, including expanding its service capabilities, and a global M&A strategy with a focus on the US’.
The firm last year announced that net revenue had increased by 14% to £435m. Chief executive Sir Nigel Knowles said at the time: ‘We said that Inflexion’s investment would help us to go faster in the pursuit of our strategic goals and we are already seeing that come true.’
