Lawyers receive jobs pledge as banks remain defiant in face of credit crunch
Some of the City's top banks have pledged to avoid cutting legal staff in the wake of the current credit turmoil, despite mounting pressure on commercial jobs in the structured finance arena. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) deputy general counsel Chris Campbell said that the state of the market would have "categorically no effect" on RBS's legal team, despite the bank last week announcing that it is to scale back its collateralised debt obligations team.
September 05, 2007 at 10:33 PM
2 minute read
Royal Bank of Scotland among top City banks promising to retain full legal teams despite ongoing credit turmoil
Some of the City's top banks have pledged to avoid cutting legal staff in the wake of the current credit turmoil, despite mounting pressure on commercial jobs in the structured finance arena.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) deputy general counsel Chris Campbell said that the state of the market would have "categorically no effect" on RBS's legal team, despite the bank last week announcing that it is to scale back its collateralised debt obligations team.
The bullish response from senior in-house lawyers comes despite the lengthening queue of banks moving to scale back staff numbers, with Deutsche Bank also recently announcing the loss of seven jobs. The bank refused to comment on whether legal jobs would be affected.
However, recruiters and corporate counsel concede that current conditions look set to curtail the recent trend for banks to recruit associates to non-legal roles to staff their expanding structured finance teams.
Matthew Lawson, finance recruitment specialist at LPA Legal, said jobs in structured credit products would be the most affected in the short term.
"While there has been no back-office bloodletting as yet, any lawyers working on credit desks will be sitting around now twiddling their thumbs," he said. "Demand for lawyers to go into these roles may have diminished and I do think that the credit crunch is being used by banks as an excuse not to hire."
Ironically, this shift has been met with some relief from partners in structured finance and leveraged finance at major law firms whose teams have been prime hunting grounds for banking clients in recent years.
Ashurst head of international finance Nigel Ward told Legal Week: "The froth has come off the market and it is clear that deals have slowed down. This takes some of the pressure off private practice lawyers who might otherwise have gone in-house."
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