CMS UK, Nabarro and Olswang have confirmed that roughly one third of UK support staff and secretarial roles across the three firms will be axed ahead of the trio's merger, which is due to go live in May.

Of 950 business services staff included in the redundancy consultation, 650 have been offered roles in the combined firm, leaving 300 taking redundancy. It is expected that departing staff will leave the firms by the end of April.

Legal Week broke news of the consultation kicking off in January this year, with the process concluding on 3 March. All support staff at the three firms came under review, as well as those working for Integreon, which has provided UK support services for CMS since 2010.

In a statement, the firms said: "We can confirm that the consultation process for our business services and secretarial teams has now concluded…Of those leaving, the majority have chosen to take voluntary redundancy and we have honoured all requests regardless of whether there was a role or not."

All three firms informed staff in October that business services support functions would be reviewed ahead of the merger.

CMS's UK business signed a deal to outsource its entire UK support staff function to Integreon in 2010, although the scope of that deal was subsequently reduced in 2013.

Partners at CMS UK, Olswang and Nabarro voted in favour of the transformative merger in October last year. Nabarro and Olswang will join the CMS UK LLP, which will be named CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP.