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Irwin Mitchell cuts deaf squad lawyers
Irwin Mitchell is making an entire department redundant, but denied that its personal injury business was struggling.

The firm is making everyone in its industrial deafness team in Southampton redundant, which includes eleven lawyers and three support staff. An inside source said they are all expected to leave with pay in lieu of notice and that the firm told them it was "struggling to secure new work" for the team. Which "seems a little concerning for a leading UK PI firm". Although perhaps factories are just getting better at handing out ear muffs.

  "I used to instruct Irwin Mitchell all the time. Not any more. Now I cannot even hear my wife and children screaming. Maybe they'll make a claim instead!" 

Despite the redundancies, a spokesman for IM insisted, "our wider and well-respected PI team continues to grow" and "remains a very important part of our business". He said Irwin Mitchell had simply decided to "focus our hearing loss work in our Sheffield office". But Southampton staff need not worry, because the firm is "supporting them through the consultation process", a bit like holding a man's hand as you chop it off, and "working hard to find redeployment opportunities". Maybe in IT.
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Comments

Anonymous 30 September 16 06:10

A firm in crisis. All attempts to morph into a commercial law firm have failed. The London office has collapsed with 7 partners leaving in a month and around 30 partners have left the firm this year alone. The merger with Thomas Eggar has been a disaster with profits tumbling and the PI market remains under attack from an insurer loving government determined to stamp out ambulance chasing lawyers who are taking money out of the NHS. The only good thing is that Brexit won't make much difference to pi businesses like IM whose dwindling revenue (which IM tries to hide through acquisitions) will continue to dwindle and profits will have to be maintained by taking a knife to the workforce.

Anonymous 30 September 16 08:03

Need to cut something to help them return that capital to the partners who are leaving. Is there anybody left in London?

Anonymous 30 September 16 09:33

What an absolute joke IM are, 'supporting them through the consultation process' and 'working hard to find redeployment opportunities'. In other words move to Sheffield or you are out. Hhhmmmm, where have we heard that before, first they cull the Accounts, Risk and IT departments, now they are onto the lawyers. The bigger question is where will the axe swing next for the poor Thomas Eggar legacy staff.

Anonymous 30 September 16 17:56

Personal injury is the least of their worries. When looking at who should be made redundant in connection with deafness they should start with the board and senior management. They are both deaf and blind if they cant see that they have no London business and are clearly deaf as they are not listening as usual to what everyone else is telling them

Anonymous 30 September 16 18:09

It's a house of cards. Problem is that when the going gets tough, the good start leaving.

Anonymous 30 September 16 19:41

it is a 200m turnover business, so what if a few London partners leave with a few clients? It's hardly terminal.

Anonymous 01 October 16 00:47

Anonymous at 18.41, it really is terminal when the PI market is shrinking into a sink hole the size of Sheffield and your attempts to grow a commercial practice in its place are an epic fail.

Anonymous 01 October 16 14:36

Anonymous at 23.47 you are deluded. The pi market is doing fine and BLS has not failed just because a few partners have left the London office. BLS is growing quickly and the lost revenue will be replaced through new partners coming in. There is a lot of jealousy out there and you might want to look at your own firm and where it stands in the rankings before criticising a very good and well managed business.

Anonymous 01 October 16 17:48

Well said. People need to sit up and recognise what a great firm Irwin Mitchell is and praise its management for the wonderful job they do. So what if a dozen or so partners have left in less than 6 months. So what if the IT systems don't work. So what if profits dropped by 25% last year. So what if feedback from staff meant IM came 5th from bottom in the ROF survey. All the comments on this site are clearly because people are just jealous. Oh yes, that definitely has to be it.

Anonymous 01 October 16 21:17

18.41 there's a difference between revenue and profit. And in any case both are changeable from year to year...

Anonymous 03 October 16 12:08

I know a lot of the Industrial Deafness team at Irwin Mitchell. It is a great shame as they are decent people and do not really deserve this treatment.

The Southampton Office of IM is going to be very empty now given that the third floor while kitted out back in 2008 has never been occupied and the 2nd floor which contained mostly PI bods is going to be emptied.

Anonymous 03 October 16 21:44

£200m turnover? Just reading back on the legal press from December last year when the merger with Thomas Eggar was announced. That created a £250m turnover firm? So have IM 'lost' £50m of revenue in 9 months?

Anonymous 05 October 16 15:41

£200m revenue - hah!

McDonald's 2015 revenue was USD25bn - rather be a burger flipper there than work at IM!

Also, a large part of ROF are from large city firms so your (meaningless) revenue figure looks rather small.

Anonymous 05 October 16 20:53

How is the loss making perennial basket case that is business legal services doing? No doubt still rewarding failure and being subsidised by the pi guys.

Anonymous 06 October 16 16:16

The jewel in the crown London property team has left so I can't imagine BLS is doing very well.