Solicitors faced with redun­dancy – together with the 700 already made jobless since the financial crisis began – are to receive urgent help from the Law Society.

The Society has prepared guidance to help practitioners with advice on negotiating redundancy packages, working notice periods, continuing professional development, finances, job applications and interview tips. The guidance will be available next month.

Law Society President Paul Marsh said: ‘We want to protect the personal and professional interests of solicitors and are monitoring developments within the sector to provide the most relevant and useful advice.’

Sam Mangwana (inset), an employment solicitor at national firm Russell Jones & Walker (RJW), welcomed the guidance, saying the Law Society was one of the first representative organisations to react in this way. Such support could be vital because, despite their professional skills, solicitors are not always their own best advocates, she added.

‘Their careers are threatened, their self-confidence dented and unemployment looms,’ she said. ‘And senior management is ranged against them, dispensing justice like a kangaroo court. It can be intimidating.’

Worried solicitors should explore all available options, she said. Her firm has helped ‘a number of solicitors, including a senior lawyer in a magic circle firm, by lending them the services of an executive representative’. Representatives are trade union negotiators ‘who know the procedures and can give dispassionate representation at redundancy hearings’.

Andrew Keogh, partner at north-west firm Keoghs, described guidance as a ‘step in the right direction’. He acknowledged that support is needed, but doubted whether an over-arching body could help in all redundancy matters. He said: ‘Are we, from sole practitioners to magic circle firms, ready to talk with one voice and show a common purpose and ethos?’