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Law firm Clifford Chance is cutting about 10 per cent of its business services staff in London, pointing to increased use of artificial intelligence as one reason for the job losses.
Roughly 550 employees, in areas including finance, HR and IT, were told last month about plans to make some 50 jobs redundant and to bring in role changes for up to 35 others, according to people with knowledge of the details.
The elite firm, where partners earned an average of £2.1mn in the past financial year, told staff that greater use of AI and reduced demand for some business services meant that it needed to cut jobs, the people said.
It also cited more work being done at hubs in Poland and India as a reason for the cuts. Clifford Chance opened an operations hub in Warsaw last year. It also has a business support hub in Newcastle.
The job cuts come as law firms are under pressure from clients to demonstrate what efficiencies they are making through using AI. Most big law firms have either started using legal tech from companies such as Harvey or Legora, or created their own in-house tools, as they look for ways to automate more mundane tasks.
However, back-office staff at Clifford Chance are sceptical that its AI tools are good enough to replace human workers, one of the people said, stating that the redundancies had come as a surprise given the firm’s strong financial performance last year.
Staff are also unhappy that the job cuts have been announced in the run-up to Christmas, the person said. Employees have been told that the redundancies will not take effect before January.
Clifford Chance said: “In line with our strategy to strengthen our operations, we can confirm we are proposing changes to some of our London-based business professional functions. The proposed changes could see the creation of new roles, changes to the scope of roles, revised team structures and in some cases a reduction in roles.”
Law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner made similar job cuts earlier this year, reducing its global business services workforce by about 8 per cent.
BCLP also cited the increased use of technology as one of the reasons for reducing staff.