Gadens Lawyers has denied recent reports suggesting that the firm's Sydney office had resorted to retrenching staff up to senior associate level due to the global financial crisis.

Chief operating officer Jon Denovan confirmed with ALB that two staff (one junior and one senior lawyer) had been "let go" from the recovery and banking practices. However, they were not retrenched due to the downturn. He backs his claim by pointing to ten staff the firm had hired since the beginning of the year. "Five of them were appointed in April and I'm now looking for a new banking partner, senior litigation partner and junior litigator," he said.

Denovan has also been searching for a replacement for himself and is close to finding one. "I have a candidate in mind and, if all goes well, I will be moving to an internal banking & corporate partner role soon. I am probably going to look into doing some additional work in radio announcing, since I used to work for the ABC," he said.

In response to claims that many staff have recently been consulted about working part-time, Denovan confirmed that he has spoken with the banking & corporate practice, and ten staff had volunteered to go part-time.

The firm has not yet made a decision about whether to implement a salary freeze, but it may be up for consideration at the firm's business review that is expected to end by 30 June. "No one knows what will happen for the business year ahead, but I'm optimistic because in April we had A$700,000 more revenue than forecasted," Denovan said.

Read more about measures that firms have taken in response to the global financial crisis in ALB's Redundancy Round-up.