Ashurst has told its London and Middle East secretaries that up to 80% of them are at risk of redundancy. RollOnFriday broke the news on Monday and the consultation was launched on Tuesday.
Law firm secretarial positions have long been vulnerable to the relentless advance of AI, off shoring, near shoring, partners being forced to answer their own emails etc.. Pinsent Masons put all of its UK secretaries on notice of redundancy last autumn. BLM made 50 support staff redundant last summer. But 80%? There are around 100 secretaries in London and the Middle East, so that's an awful lot of redundancies. And this is just the beginning - Ashurst eventually intends to roll this programme out across the firm.
For now Ashurst is creating 35 new practice executive roles, and it hopes that it will fill a number of these jobs from the pool of secretaries who are at risk of redundancy are up for grabs.
A spokeswoman for the firm said "the way legal work is undertaken has changed considerably and we need an approach to service delivery that most effectively supports the practices and our business."
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Law firm secretarial positions have long been vulnerable to the relentless advance of AI, off shoring, near shoring, partners being forced to answer their own emails etc.. Pinsent Masons put all of its UK secretaries on notice of redundancy last autumn. BLM made 50 support staff redundant last summer. But 80%? There are around 100 secretaries in London and the Middle East, so that's an awful lot of redundancies. And this is just the beginning - Ashurst eventually intends to roll this programme out across the firm.
Ashurst in 2019. How it might look. |
For now Ashurst is creating 35 new practice executive roles, and it hopes that it will fill a number of these jobs from the pool of secretaries who are at risk of redundancy are up for grabs.
A spokeswoman for the firm said "the way legal work is undertaken has changed considerably and we need an approach to service delivery that most effectively supports the practices and our business."
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I wonder how many additional ivory back scratchers that will buy the partners?
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I have never met a secretary who was not worth her (mostly "her" for the pedants) weight in gold. Yes, we all do most of own typing and e filing these days but the role has changed. Just booking a room would take those 12 minutes, sorting a train more, doing a bit of copying or printing etc.
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But some fee-earners do need dedicated 'email filers' - I know some PAs who spend nearly all day sorting and filing emails, then searching for emails moved by said fee-earners into wrong folders, retrieving archived emails, removing duplicate emails (where emails are copied, rather than moved), ringing IT to get the mailbox size allowance increased, and so on. This alone is a full-time one-to-one job for some. Are these fee-earners going to have to take on this full-time task as well as keeping up with their billing hours?
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Regardless of whether it's a necessary business move or not, many of these secretaries are senior and have been loyal to Ashurst for many years, decades in some cases. It's not an easy time for them to retrain or look for a new role, so I hope the firm does well by those it will let go. I wish them all the best.
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Sad, but unfortunately this is the future.
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Ashurst aren't that generous!! And yes, at the same time as making redundancies, they are advertising externally for the new role. Nice!
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