Law firm BCLP to lay off some US, UK staffers
May 2 (Reuters) - International law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner said Friday that it plans to cut about 8% of its professional staff.
The firm said the planned cuts are focused on its business services employees, a group that includes paralegals, administrative support staff and other primarily non-attorney roles. They mainly will affect staff in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a spokesperson.
BCLP in a statement said it is moving to streamline its business operations and "appropriately reshape teams as we continue to support BCLP's growth and client focus."
The firm has experienced declines in revenue since its creation by a 2018 transatlantic merger between St. Louis-based Bryan Cave and London's Berwin Leighton Paisner.
Its top line increased by 2.3% to about $859.6 million in 2024 from 2023, according to figures reported by the American Lawyer -- still below its revenue in the year following the merger. The firm's attorney head count has also decreased in those years, the data show.
Trevor Varnes, who was appointed global chief operating officer on April 1, in a statement said the firm is investing in technology in a push to modernize.
A spokesperson declined to say how many business staffers the firm employs or exactly how many individuals would be affected. BCLP has more than 1,200 lawyers in 31 offices globally, according to its website. Large law firms typically employ similar numbers of professional staff as attorneys.
BCLP also cut 47 professionals in May 2023 and about 50 employees in March 2024, when some other large law firms were also making cuts.
The U.S. legal sector has been steadily adding jobs since August 2024, despite a drop in February, according to U.S. Labor Department data released on Friday.
U.S. job growth in the overall labor market slowed marginally in April, but the outlook for the labor market is increasingly darkening as President Donald Trump's protectionist trade policy heightens economic uncertainty.
The Labor Department data released on Friday helped temper recession fears, although it is too early for the labor market to show the impact of Trump's on-and-off again tariff policy.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
29 minutes ago
- Sky News
Trump considers 'three or four' successors to 'stupid' Fed chair Powell
Donald Trump has revived his criticism of the head of the US central bank, describing Jay Powell as "terrible" and "stupid", adding that there were up to four candidates to succeed him. The president, who threatened to fire Mr Powell earlier this year before U-turning on that course this month, has consistently demanded the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to help bolster economic growth. But the central bank has held off since Mr Trump's second term in office began, citing threats to the pace of price growth from his on-off trade war. By raising tariffs on imports in a bid to boost American jobs and make US-produced goods more competitive, Mr Powell believes the spectre of inflation is looming over the world's largest economy. But the official inflation figures are yet to show any marked increase from rising import costs. "I know within three or four people who I'm going to pick," Mr Trump said in remarks to reporters while on his visit to Europe for the NATO summit at The Hague. He said Mr Powell, the Fed chair, was "an average-minded person" with a "low IQ for what he does". "I think he's a very stupid person, actually," he added. US media suggest the contenders to succeed Mr Powell include former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett, current Fed governor Christopher Waller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Fed chair is not due to leave his position until May next year. The Federal Reserve, like the Bank of England in the UK, is independent of government. Mr Trump is desperate to grow the US economy after a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of the year was blamed on the threat of his trade war and early salvoes. Analysts see Mr Trump's on-off criticism of Mr Powell as an attempt to influence monetary policy through the back door. The prospects of a battle to remove him has previously rattled financial markets. For his part, Mr Powell told a Congressional hearing on policy on Tuesday that higher tariffs from the trade war could push up inflation this summer - a time when the Fed has already indicated it could move to cut its target range for interest rates.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Starmer's pointless globetrotting proves how irrelevant he is
Sir Keir Starmer clearly finds burnishing his credentials as a statesman on the world stage far more to his liking than dealing with pesky domestic concerns, such as cutting disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance. British prime ministers usually seek solace in endless overseas jamborees once they have first served a lengthy apprenticeship in Downing Street. Tony Blair was well into his third term before taking refuge in foreign junkets as his domestic popularity waned. By contrast, Starmer, who now has the unenviable honour of the lowest net favourability rating on record, has developed the taste for travelling abroad remarkably early in his premiership. Rather than investing effort in rallying support for policies, 'Never-Here Keir' prefers to spend his time hobnobbing with other world leaders. Last week our Prime Minister was missing in action, attending the increasingly irrelevant meeting of G7 leaders in Canada. It was memorable solely for Donald Trump's sensible decision to head for the exit early to attend to the deepening Iran-Israel conflict. Starmer was in The Hague attending the annual get-together of Nato leaders, where he desperately sought to persuade an increasingly sceptical Trump administration that his Government really was committed to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035. By that date, Starmer's undistinguished term in office will be a distant memory. And the defence of the realm will not have been improved a jot by the investment in rural broadband and national roadworks that Starmer now claims is a vital part of his plan to increase overall defence spending. A more detailed examination of the Government's defence plans – one that our allies in the Pentagon will be studying closely – is that there will be no new money to increase the number of troops available to fight the wars of the future. Starmer's boast at the Nato summit that the UK would meet the alliance's new spending target of 5 per cent of GDP 'to deepen our commitment to Nato' is nothing more than an elaborate Treasury 'smoke and mirrors' exercise. Even the highly publicised decision to buy 12 F-35A stealth fighters, which can carry tactical nuclear weapons, has been taken at the expense of buying more of the F-35B variant used by the Royal Navy's two 65,000-ton aircraft carriers, thereby severely diminishing their war-fighting capabilities. Nor does Starmer's endless globetrotting appear to have had any noticeable bearing on his ability to influence key events, as was evident during the Trump administration's decision to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. While Starmer has an unerring habit of making sure he is photographed next to Trump whenever there is a summit photo op, his ability to bring any influence to bear on the Trump administration's decision-making process is negligible. The first Starmer knew that Trump had given the go-ahead for the bombing raid was when he received a telephone call from the US leader at Chequers, after the B-2 stealth bombers were already in the air. It was merely a courtesy call from Trump, not a consultation with a key ally. The fact that Starmer was completely blindsided by Trump's decision to attack Iran is hardly surprising given that David Lammy, his hapless Foreign Secretary, had returned from meeting Trump administration officials earlier that week insisting there was still a 'window of opportunity' to de-escalate the conflict. The bitter truth is that, for all Starmer attempts to ingratiate himself with world leaders, no one is taking him seriously as a statesman. And this is no wonder given his default response when faced with an international crisis is to indulge in legalistic sophistry and equivocation. Starmer's inability to formulate a clear and coherent response when faced with a global crisis was clearly evident from his handling of the Gaza conflict, when he supported Israel's right to defend itself while at the same time backing the imposition of punitive measures against key members of the Israeli government. The prime minister's leadership failings were again in evidence in the aftermath of the US raid on Iran's infrastructure. While insisting that the UK remained opposed to the ayatollahs acquiring nuclear weapons, Starmer could not bring himself to issue a public declaration of support for Trump's decisive action, which has destroyed any hope the Iranians may have entertained of developing nuclear warheads in the near future. The result is that, for all Starmer's grandstanding at global summits, no one is going to take a politician seriously who is quite content to deceive the outside world about the UK's defence commitments, while at the same time being temperamentally incapable of making his mind up on international issues. Starmer may like to project the image of a global statesman, but the brutal truth is that few world leaders, least of all in Washington, have much interest in hearing the views – or lack of them – of Starmer and his Government.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Trump considers 'three or four' successors to 'stupid' Powell
Donald Trump has revived his criticism of the head of the US central bank, describing Jay Powell as "terrible" and "stupid", adding there were up to four candidates to succeed him. The president, who threatened to fire Mr Powell earlier this year before U-turning on that course early this month, has consistently demanded the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to help bolster economic growth. But the central bank has held off since Trump 2.0 began, citing threats to the pace of price growth from his on-off trade war. By raising tariffs on imports in a bid to boost US jobs and make US-produced goods more competitive, Mr Powell believes the spectre of inflation is looming over the world's largest economy. But the official inflation figures are yet to show any marked increase from rising import costs. "I know within three or four people who I'm going to pick," Mr Trump said in remarks to reporters while on his visit to Europe for the NATO summit at The Hague. He said Mr Powell was "an average-minded person" with a "low IQ for what he does." "I think he's a very stupid person, actually," he added. US media suggest the contenders to succeed Mr Powell include former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett, current Fed governor Christopher Waller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Fed chair is not due to leave his position until May next year. The Federal Reserve, like the Bank of England in the UK, is independent of government. Mr Trump is desperate to grow the economy after a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of the year was blamed on the threat of his trade war and early salvoes. Analysts see Mr Trump's on-off criticism of Mr Powell as an attempt to influence monetary policy through the back door. The prospects of a battle to remove him has previously rattled financial markets. For his part Mr Powell told a Congressional hearing on policy on Tuesday that higher tariffs from the trade war could push up inflation this summer - a time when the Fed has already indicated it could move to cut its target range for interest rates.
