DLA Piper's Sheffield and Leeds offices are expected to bear the brunt of the firm's cuts to its UK support staff.

Earlier today, the firm announced it is set to cut up to 200 support jobs from its UK offices – the equivalent of 18% of its 1,100 UK support staff.

The firm's chief operations officer (COO), Andrew Darwin (pictured), said that while the review will affect each of the firm's seven UK offices, it will likely hit the firm's offices in its Yorkshire heartland particularly hard.

Speaking to Legal Week, he said: "It affects each of the seven UK offices. The larger cuts will be in Leeds and Sheffield as that's where our current shared services are largely based."

The firm said that 85 jobs are at risk in its Yorkshire offices, while 47 jobs are at risk in its London office.

DLA is automating some back-office processes and transferring others to its shared services centre in Warsaw. Its existing IT support centre in Leeds is expected to be particularly hard hit by the job cuts.

However, Darwin argued that: "Cost savings are not the core part of this." He said the "main principle" behind the review was "to make the support for the lawyers as effective as possible".

But he conceded that: "Without wanting to shy away from the issue, you are looking to be as cost-effective as you can be; there is an element of trying to get the right combination of capability and cost-effectiveness."

The consultation process with staff will kick off on 31 May and run until the end of July.

Darwin said the redundancy package staff are to be offered will be "well designed and generous" and that staff affected "will be supported as far as we can".

The review that resulted in the current consultation started two years ago and has been led in the international arm of DLA Piper by COO Darwin, and in the US partnership by his counterpart Bob Bratt.

Darwin said: "We had done all the sensible things that organisations like ours do and we wanted to make a stepchange in the way we provide services."

DLA was advised on the review process by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company as the firm "wanted to access best practice and not just from the legal sector", Darwin said.

DLA Piper launched a previous review in 2012, which affected up to 251 lawyers and backroom staff.

That long-running review resulted in the closure of the firm's Glasgow office, with the loss of 45 staff.

In 2014, the firm confirmed that 69 of the 116 support jobs that were put at risk of redundancy as part of the firm-wide review had been axed.