Accountancy firm, PKF, released their annual sector survey for Scotland's legal sector and found that among the country's top 30 firms, just around two-thirds of them had cut back on staff. Additionally, the survey showed that over ten percent of those firms were forced to cut back their staff by over five percent.
Professional services partner at PKF, Charles Bartnett, had this to say: ''Just as there is uncertainty about how to rebuild the wider economy, there is also considerable uncertainty within the
legal sector about how to develop and grow the legal sector to pre-recession profitability, but without that period's concentration on a property bubble.''
The cuts came across the board; associates and equity partners were given the axe just as often as support staff. According to Barnett, firms are facing downward pressure on fees, which has caused profitability to drop.
PricewaterhouseCoopers recently released figures regarding profit per equity partner among Scotland's larger firms which showed that they took a massive 18 percent dip, standing at £239,000.
The PKF annual survey also suggests that those firms who rely heavily on corporate and property-related practice were the hardest hit in 2010.
