UPDATE: Marks & Clerk Redundancy

Further to our post of last night, Marks & Clerk has confirmed the redundancy consultation (and provided us with better contact information, which we’ll make note of).

As we originally reported, the firm has reduced headcount by 60, of which we now know nine are fee earners and the balance (51) are staff.  We also correctly reported the closure of the Liverpool office, which has been merged into the Manchester office.  Leicester has been reduced in size.

We applaud their candor and responsiveness.

Text of the response from the firm’s managing partner is after the jump or in the comments to the original piece.

There is a well-noted global downturn in the volume of IP work. This has led us to conduct an in-depth review of our business and to make a small reduction in the number of fee earners and support staff within the UK business of Marks & Clerk patent and trade mark attorneys. Neither our overseas offices, nor Marks & Clerk Solicitors are affected.

In addition, we are nearing completion of a major internal initiative to integrate our various business processes across the UK. In undertaking this project, it has become clear that we can serve our clients better by consolidating some of our operations. We have therefore decided to merge our Liverpool office into our Manchester office and reduce the size of our Leicester office.

As cited in your article, we have just completed a consultation which has resulted in approximately 60 redundancies. The majority of job losses have been amongst support staff with only nine fee earning posts affected – a measured response to the downturn and the reduction in IP filings. Marks & Clerk is happy to answer any further queries your author may have in relation to this matter.

Dr. Bob Naismith
UK Managing Partner
Marks & Clerk

Related posts:

1. EXCLUSIVE: Layoffs at Marks & Clerk
2. The Month in Layoffs – January 10
3. Attorneys Volunteering for Redundancy at CC?
4. This Week in Layoffs – 9/18/09
5. Layoff Tracker Update – 2/16/09