DAC Beachcroft is putting around 65 staff at risk of redundancy and closing an office.

All the jobs are being lost from the firm's "Claims Solutions Group", which acts for insurers investigating and litigating personal injury claims, as part of a restructuring of the practice. DAC is also shuttering one of its two Manchester offices which houses one of its PI fraud teams. In a statement the firm said the "Claims Validation Team is planning to vacate the current Fountain Street premises", though insiders told RollOnFriday the 35-odd lawyers and support staff are actually being made redundant.

 
 
DAC helps an employee with his planned vacation of the premises


DAC blamed "changing" conditions in the PI fraud market, much like DWF last week. It also blamed "demands for increased efficiencies and consistency of customer processes from fewer office locations". The firm didn't say who was behind the demands to cut rents and the wage bill, but partners endured a £10 million cash call in November, a drop in PEP last year (despite rising turnover), and increased the firm's credit facility to £40 million. So that might have something to do with it.

In a statement DAC said, "We appreciate this will be a difficult and uncertain period for affected staff and we intend to provide as much support and guidance as possible at this time". It declined to comment further, so it's not known whether its support and guidance will consist of a sobering slap and directions to the job centre or something more helpful.
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Comments

Anonymous 07 June 14 16:57

First Keoghs, then DACB and rumours of DWF?

Hill Dickinson LLP's Manchester Fraud team is directly across the street and has lost several people to DACB. It will be interesting to see how many fee-earners they would be willing to take back or hire as an indication of how much trouble the 'Fraud Market' is in?

Anonymous 10 June 14 17:14

"demands for increased efficiencies and consistency of customer processes from fewer office locations".

That would be "lost a client in the main Birmingham fraud team so decided to take the work from Manchester and shut them down. A more insane bunch of baboons you could not imagine working for (and there are quite a few babooneries out there to choose from).

Anonymous 12 June 14 14:17

@ anonymous 16.14. Against the backdrop of this very, very bad news, your comment gave me a laugh. There are more than a few mentals in that area of law.

Anonymous 13 June 14 16:25

I think they concentrated on growth and greed instead of solidfying what they have and unfortunately the loyal ones are in the fallout.