Top-heavy Addleshaws set to ditch 11 partners

INTERNAL SURVEY: right number of assistants and support staff

Eleven partners at national firm Addleshaw Booth & Co will fall on their swords over the next few months after an internal survey revealed that the firm was getting top heavy.

The partners will come from all three of the firm's offices in Manchester, Leeds and London.

Managing partner Mark Jones said the firm's management committee had investigated the 'shape and use' of support staff, legal staff, and the partnership.

He said: 'Both support staff and legal staff numbers are appropriate.

In fact we will be taking on more assistants in the year to April 2003.'

But he said that this year is the first of a new three-year strategic financial cycle for the firm, and the committee found that there were too many partners in the cycle.

Mr Jones said Addleshaws wished to deal with the redundancies 'in a way that preserves dignity'.

The partners will not be forced out, but instead are being given time to find new positions.

Partner losses did not arise from the firm's end-of-year results, he stressed; the firm saw an 18% increase in fee income from 75 million to 88.5 million last year.

No new partnership appointments will be made this year, but Mr Jones said that over the next two years of the cycle, the firm envisaged that the partnership would grow again.

Jeremy Fleming