DLA Piper is in consultation with four London lawyers in its planning team about relocating to Birmingham.

The lawyers – two senior associates and two legal directors – are currently discussing alternatives to relocation if they reject the offer, with redundancy one potential option.

The consultation period will run up to the end of April.

A DLA Piper spokesperson said: "We are in consultation with four members of our London planning team regarding relocation to our Birmingham office in line with the needs of our clients and our business. A team focusing on development planning will remain in London.

"No decision has yet been made – we are doing everything that we can to support the individuals impacted and sincerely hope they will stay with the firm."

DLA has five partners and 12 fee earners in its UK planning team, which falls under the firm's real estate group. The rest of the UK team are unaffected by the consultation.

Law firms have typically focused more on streamlining support roles during the past few years, rather than relocating lawyer roles out of London. In 2016, DLA cut 175 support roles across the UK, following a three-month redundancy consultation.

The cuts affected its IT, finance, HR, marketing, business development and secretarial teams in the UK, and came in the wake of the firm's launch of a business services centre in Warsaw in November 2015.

Other firms to have made cuts among their support ranks in recent months include Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, BLM and Pinsent Masons.