The newly merged Pinsent Masons is celebrating its formal tie-up this week but has admitted it will be making support staff redundancies in the near future.

The merger, which went live on Monday (6 December), sees the creation of a 243-partner firm, with 10 offices and annual revenues of about £150m, making it the UK's 15th largest law firm.

The firm announced the merger with an internal memo listing recent client wins for the merged firm, including construction giant Morrison, the Co-op and the Scottish Executive.

Senior partner Julian Tonks told Legal Week: "We are getting opportunities to pitch as a merged firm which would not have been open to us previously."

However, the firm has also admitted that there will be duplication of some support functions, and about 20-30 support staff are expected to be cut over the next few months.

The firm has launched a review under legacy Pinsents partner Nigel Kissack to address staff duplication. Kissack has been charged with pushing through integration of the merger alongside managing partner David Ryan.

Most of the cuts are likely to come in London, although some staff will be offered the chance to relocate.

One rival senior partner said: "There will be a lot of duplication in areas such as accounts, training and marketing, and it would make sense for the firm to centralise a lot of them in a regional centre like Birmingham."