Allen & Overy posts warning to secretaries

Legal secretaries are the next to face the chop in the City after Allen & Overy revealed plans to redefine their roles in a move that could see some lose their jobs, but survivors taking on wider-ranging functions.

It comes in the same week that a north London solicitor is targeting other law firms with a typing company in India that could make secretaries redundant by transcribing digitally dictated notes overnight.

A&O is making its move in response to a survey undertaken by PA Consulting, which highlighted concerns with the consistency and quality of administrative support within the firm.

The survey revealed that at times, lines of communication between secretaries and document production staff, and fee-earners were blurred, and secretaries sometimes felt under-utilised.

The secretarial role is to be redefined to include more client-related work, including marketing support, transaction administration and billing.

New grades will be given to secretaries who will be assessed on a more consistent basis.

Some 150 secretaries in the corporate, banking, and pensions, employment and incentives departments will be assessed in the next two months by PA Consulting.

It is expected that other departments will follow later.

The results of the assessment will be considered by the firm in deciding whether secretaries are suitable for the new role.

A spokesman said the firm was expecting redundancies, adding: 'This is not just a candyfloss exercise.

It will be a rigorous process.' Voluntary redundancies will also be considered, but he stressed that there is no preordained number of job losses.

He added: 'Secretaries are the one unreconstructed area in the firm, and most welcome the new role.'

Meanwhile, Sunil Radia, a partner in Harrow firm The Radia Partnership, is marketing his outsourcing service UK Typing to law firms that have embraced digital dictation.

His firm currently sends Word files containing dictation via e-mail to offices in Delhi, where they are typed up by qualified legal secretaries and returned to the UK by nine o'clock the next morning.

Mr Radia, who is of Indian extraction, began work on the project some years ago and said India was perfect because it was daytime there during the UK night and had an English-style legal system.

'We took on two staff in India and started to use ourselves as guinea pigs,' he said.

'When we started the venture, our firm had two full-time and two part-time secretaries, as well as an administrator.

Now, due to outsourcing, we just have one part-time secretary - the cost savings are massive.'

It also offered overnight delivery and more office space owing to the absence of superfluous staff and machinery, he said.

Jeremy Fleming and Andrew Towler