Job losses, the KWM blame game and turning Ashurst around in London: the best of Legal Week over the last week

A week after King & Wood Mallesons' (KWM) European arm finally filed for administration last Tuesday (17 January), details of just what went wrong are continuing to emerge.

With virtually all partners finding new homes for themselves and their associates during the past few months, it was always going to be support staff who suffered, and this was confirmed last week with news of several hundred redundancies.

While the redundancies were inevitable, the timing was unfortunate – coinciding with news that CMS Cameron McKenna, Nabarro and Olswang have put all of their support staff on notice of redundancy this month ahead of their three-way merger in May.

Coming on top of news earlier this month that Freshfields has offered nearly 200 secretaries voluntary redundancy, it is a bad time to be looking for a back-office job at a law firm in London right now.

Here's the best of the rest of Legal Week in the past seven days:

• KWM Europe: what went wrong? Partners have their say on the demise of legacy SJ Berwin
• 'It won't be a diktat from China' – how KWM China is hoping to make a success of Europe
• KWM China blames European management and partners for firm's collapse
• 'I am very sorry that it has finally come to this' – KWM managing partner confirms administration to staff
• 'Administration was the only resort left' – Quantuma says partner exits accelerated legacy SJ Berwin's collapse

And the most read headlines that don't involve KWM:

• 'We're fixing it' – Ashurst's first London managing partner on improving the firm's fortunes
• Eversheds to introduce bonus to reward cross-selling with US merger partner
• Parliament to vote on Brexit after government loses Supreme Court appeal
• Weightmans in talks with Ward Hadaway to create top 40 UK firm
• 'People should have the confidence to try' – why are there still so few solicitor advocates taking silk?
• Morgan Lewis opens Hong Kong office with nine-partner Orrick team
• City partners sign up former attorney general as president of revamped anti-Brexit group