One year on from its acquisition of the banking litigation team of Matthew Arnold & Baldwin in Watford, Dentons has launched a consultation over nine roles in the office.
The staff affected include two partners, three junior solicitors, one paralegal and three secretaries.
The firm has a team of around 75 lawyers and paralegals in Watford, including 10 partners.
The group formed the majority of Matthew Arnold & Baldwin’s banking and finance litigation team, which joined Dentons on 1 February last year, more than doubling the size of Dentons’ financial and commercial disputes group and winning the firm major litigation instructions for Barclays over Libor.
The merger with the Matthew Arnold team led to the closure of the firm after 30 further lawyers moved to national firm Veale Wasborough Visards.
A Dentons spokesperson said: ‘We constantly monitor all aspects of the business to ensure that we can continue to provide clients with the highest levels of service, while remaining competitive in challenging market conditions.
‘The flexible resourcing model that we offer from our Watford office is designed to be responsive to the financial litigation and regulatory requirements of our banking clients, and following the conclusion of some major pieces of litigation we can confirm that we are regrettably making a small reduction to the size of the team.’
In its US business, Dentons recently cut back on 60 support staff jobs across 22 US offices.
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
Read more in: ‘The Pitch – A new kind of global law firm emerges but can Dentons live up to the hype?’
