Following Freshfields' redundancy announcement last week, yet more firms have confirmed they are cutting back on staff.

Both Wragges and Halliwells have announced fee earner redundancies, with the majority in real estate. LG has also announced a redundancy programme amongst secretarial staff, again mainly in real estate.

Insiders say that Clifford Chance is the latest Magic Circle firm to try to jettison lawyers on the sly, with banking associates being asked to leave for "performance reasons". RollOnFriday statisticians and numberologists calculate that Slaughter and May is now the only Magic Circle firm to have played with a straight bat.

		Real estate departments everywhere, yesterday.

The consequences for the poor sods concerned depend on the firm in question. A spokesman for Wragges told RollOnFriday that although compensation payments hadn't been settled the firm had proposed three times the minimum statutory payment and this was now under consideration.

Which is an awful lot better than at Halliwells - the firm wouldn't comment*, but sources say that lawyers are apparently receiving only the minimum statutory payment. This at a firm where senior partners make £500,000 a year. Clearly law firms are only too happy to waive protocol when it comes to the working hours regulations, and yet cling to it when it comes to redundancy payouts.

At the other end of the scale, it's clear that some lawyers are pocketing a fat pay off for leaving quietly and sparing the firm redundancies. Any readers who know what their firms are offering should click here to tell RollOnFriday completely anonymously. Check back here for the results next week.                     

*although its PR agency, twentyfour7, sent an email that was "not an official response on behalf of Halliwells" and which suggested RollOnFriday should "do yourself a favour and grow up". Gosh.