Matthew Harrington

The leases for the firm’s Glasgow and Belfast offices are currently being renewed and BLM said it has no plans to close any of its other 11 UK offices.

Staff from the Bristol and Leeds offices, where the leases will not be renewed, will now work from home on a permanent basis in a move towards a more flexible, online model of working.

A new redundancy consultation has also been announced, with cuts expected to be made to the legal support and corporate services teams across England and Wales and Scotland.

At the start of August, some furloughed staff returned to work on either a full time or on a more flexible basis. BLM’s head office in Manchester has reopened, although the majority of staff continue to work from home.

Senior partner Matthew Harrington told The Lawyer that the over recent months the firm has experienced “seismic changes” in the way it works, in terms of agile and flexible working and increased use of technology.

He said: “Everything we have done over last five months will be the template for how we work in the future.

“Usually, such transformational change would evolve over many months and even years and in turn we would manage and adapt our workforce over time. We are now faced with having to adapt our internal teams to reflect the way we have all been working throughout the last few months as well as the skills and resources we need, and the way in which we want to operate as a firm in the future.”

BLM plans to start reopening its offices, many of which are now paperless, in September on a phased basis and will be making adjustments to accommodate employees. The firm will be extending its working hours to give staff more flexibility.