Kennedys has launched a redundancy consultation involving up to 70 support staff in the firm's finance department.

The consultation has been launched in a bid to consolidate the non-legal department, which is spread across the firm's offices in London, Sheffield, Chelmsford and Maidstone. Some of the 70 staff affected by the consultation are expected to keep their positions. The news was first reported today (18 October) on RollOnFriday.

The announcement comes a week after Legal Week revealed that Kennedys is in early-stage merger talks with top-tier aviation outfit Gates and Partners.

According to figures recently filed with Companies House, Kennedys' total staff count grew from 611 to 709 during the 2011-12 financial year, with support staff numbers increasing by 56.

Kennedys has expanded significantly in recent years, merging with its Dublin associate office O'Hare O'Connor Walshe in June 2011, in the same month that it launched a presence in Brazil through an association with local firm Torres Marcellino & Associados.

The firm also broke through the £100m revenue mark for the first time this year, with financial results for 2011-12 showing a 12.7% turnover increase on last year to reach £109.1m.

The news comes after Mayer Brown in September announced it is shedding up to 20 support and legal staff in a second round of redundancies this year, while in August, Pinsent Masons confirmed it would be laying off 47 staff in its support team following its merger with Scottish firm McGrigors.

Elsewhere, Slaughter and May revealed earlier this month that it is planning to shed as many as 28 secretaries in a rare redundancy round for the magic circle firm.