DLA Piper is advising Discovery Communications on two big deals in Europe as the world’s largest nonfiction media company moves to expand its reach on the continent.

While Discovery increases its international assets, DLA—one of the world’s largest law firms by attorney head count after combining with its former Australian alliance partner last year—is set close out what has been a busy year on the lateral hiring front while launching a strategic review of its operations in the United Kingdom and the Pacific Rim.
 
Reports surfaced this week in both the Aussie and British legal press that DLA plans to cut about a dozen attorney and staff jobs from its offices in the Asia Pacific amid an ongoing downturn in regional deal work. The news comes a month after  DLA put roughly 250 jobs in the U.K. under review.
 
About 100 of the jobs at risk as part of DLA’s U.K. restructuring are in Scotland,  according to the BBC. DLA has said publicly that this includes the potential closure of the firm’s office in Glasgow. DLA has not said what positions may be eliminated Down Under, where several rival firms are also making redundancies. Without commenting specifically on the recent press reports, DLA does not deny that layoffs are under consideration.

"Like all successful global businesses, DLA Piper continually assesses its size and structure against the backdrop of prevailing market conditions to ensure we are meeting our clients’ needs as efficiently as possible," the firm said in a statement provided to The Am Law Daily.

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