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 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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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.
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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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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?
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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).
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