Simmons & Simmons has saved £30m over the last 15 months through extensive cost-saving measures as the law firm aims to reel in its expenses for leaner times.

The City firm's international executive committee rolled out a programme of spending cuts which led to the departure of a number of partners as well as the renegotiation of some of its building lease agreements.

The City firm's practice heads are understood to have asked around 10 partners to leave as part of the cost savings, targeting partners in transactional areas whose billings were not up to standard.

As part of the measures, Simmons has also renegotiated lease arrangements in several of its international offices.

Measures saw the firm close its Moscow office in November last year while significant savings were also made from splitting with its Portuguese operations.

In the UK, the package saw 91 staff members made redundant last year and additional savings were made when the firm outsourced its IT functions to Plan-Net.

Simmons managing partner Mark Dawkins (pictured) stressed that the firm has continued to invest in priority areas such as the China practice.

He said: "Overall, we have taken a balanced approach aimed at reducing our cost base but at the same time continuing to invest in high-priority areas for the long term."

He added: "Managing partner numbers is one of the tools that we use for addressing costs and profitability.

"As you would expect, we have managed partner numbers over the last 18 months but not as publicly or aggressively as some other firms appear to have done."

Recent Legal Week research showed that Simmons decreased its equity partnership from 151 to 141 between April 2007-2009 and increased its salary ranks from 76 to 97 in the same time period.

Simmons & Simmons on the Legal Week Wiki