Ashurst has cut 15 roles from its London based overnight document production team, following a redundancy consultation which took place last month.

The consultation, which placed 17 roles out of a 34-strong team at risk, followed the firm's decision to outsource some of its document production facilities to an off-site provider.

The firm's choice of off-site provider and the location for the outsourced work is still 'under consideration', a spokesperson told Legal Week.

By the end of the year Ashurst's reduced overnight team will consist of 19 roles, as two individuals who were at risk of redundancy under the consultation have been redeployed elsewhere in the firm. 

The decision to outsource some roles has been introduced as an efficiency measure intended to provide more flexibility across the firm, as fluctuating workloads made it more difficult to maintain a larger in-house support team.

Last year Ashurst opened its low-cost legal services centre in Glasgow which now works to support the firm's network across the globe.

Ashurst is not alone in reviewing its London based support functions. Hogan Lovells is re-locating a number of IT support roles to its business service centre in Johannesburg which opened in February.