Slater & Gordon to evaluate UK operations after insurer woes

Potential for dozens of jobs to be under threat, reports suggest

Slater & Gordon to evaluate UK operations after insurer woes

by Sol Dolor

Slater and Gordon has confirmed it is in the process of strategically reviewing its “business legal services” operations in the UK, a process which may lead to “dozens” of its lawyers being shown the door.

The revelation of a strategic review comes from Roll On Friday, which said that an unnamed source had divulged that a large group of Slater and Gordon’s lawyers in the UK may soon be made redundant.

The publication said that the hedge fund owners of Slater and Gordon, which bought the firm’s debts sold by banks earlier this year at a massive loss, will sell what’s left of the firm’s business legal services. The firm’s website lists 42 lawyers in the business legal services team.

A spokesperson said that the firm is “looking at the best way forward for our business legal services team.” The same spokesperson did not deny that one of the options was to make the team redundant.

Slater and Gordon is still reeling from the fallout of its disastrous AU $1.3 billion acquisition of UK insurance company Quindell’s professional services arm in early 2015. It later wrote off most of that business, posting the largest loss ever suffered by any law firm in the world during fiscal 2016. That fiscal year, the firm cut 640 jobs in the UK.

In June, Slater and Gordon served a billion-dollar claim against The Watchstone Group, the remnant of what was once Quindell.

 

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