Fourteen jobs transferred to Bristol as firm trims City back office

Simmons & Simmons has expanded its recently launched Bristol office to provide back office support to the wider business. 

The firm has transferred 14 support staff positions from London to Bristol, which opened last September to provide high-end legal advice to clients at a lower cost. 

The support positions moving over to Bristol comprise a mix of IT, finance, risk and document production roles, with the relocations resulting in an undisclosed number of redundancies in London. Fewer than 10 London staff are believed to have been affected. 

Simmons plans to focus on building up its fee earner base in Bristol, which now counts five partners and around 12 additional qualified lawyers. 

The office, which focuses on projects, real estate and disputes, was launched by projects partner Richard Armitage and real estate partner Iain Macfarlane, who relocated from London, with the firm subsequently hiring disputes partners Tim Boyce and Ed Crosse from Osborne Clarke, as well as banking partner Helen Hancock from Burges Salmon. 

Managing partner Jeremy Hoyland (pictured) said: "Fourteen business services people have joined the Bristol office over the past few months, and we have seen a small number of redundancies in London as a result. 

"We are mainly focusing on growing the fee-earning side of the Bristol office and increasing the number of matters undertaken there. The office is still relatively new, but it has been very well-received by our priority clients."

Hancock added: "The idea is that this isn't a 'near-shoring' initiative. It is a means of providing an innovative service that has a quality consistent with the London arm, but with more cost-effective results for clients."

Simmons is also set to install an enterprise resource planning system for its back-office operations across the firm, which will replace its existing finance and HR systems. 

Other firms to have launched in Bristol include RPC, which opened last year with the hire of a 28-strong team from CMS Cameron McKenna.