It's been a dreadful week for support staff: 60 jobs are at risk following the recently announced merger of Dundas & Wilson and CMS Cameron McKenna, 17 jobs are at risk at DAC Beachcroft and Trowers & Hamlins has asked its secretaries to apply for voluntary redundancy.

Some 40 support staff at D&W and 20 at Camerons (and its third party suppliers) were given the bad news earlier this week. The firms are due to merge on 1st May, and redundancies are invariably a part of these deals: the orange sage that is RollOnFriday predicted them three months' ago. But 60 jobs? That's an awful lot of roles. A spokeswoman said that "as with any combination it is regrettably to be expected that there are some duplication of roles resulting in redundancy. This is an unsettling time for those potentially impacted and we will be doing our best to support them over the coming weeks".

Meanwhile DAC Beachcroft is decimating restructuring its Business Development and Comms teams in London and Bristol. 17 jobs are at risk in what an insider called "a complete annihilation". A spokesman declined to comment.

We couldn't think of anything appropriate to illustrate this article, so here's a sad puppy.

And Trowers & Hamlins has asked its secretaries to apply for voluntary redundancy, following on from the firm's profits collapsing by more than a third. A spokeswoman said "we have been undertaking a review of our UK secretarial services over the last few months with a view to restructuring them. No final plans have yet been confirmed, however, we felt it was appropriate at this stage to ask if any secretaries would be interested in voluntary redundancy. The terms on offer are enhanced over the statutory minimum."