The American law firm Baker McKenzie is considering cutting its workforce by up to 10% of its workforce. The news was reported a month ago by the British legal information portal RollOnFriday, and later picked up by the Bloomberg agency and media such as Law.com. But the candidates to receive the dreaded dismissal letter are not lawyers, but documentary and administrative support workers. According to this information, the adjustment could imply the departure of between 600 and 1,000 professionals, mainly located in the London and Belfast offices, but also with effects in foreign offices. The information confirms the analysts’ forecast. Inspired by the strategy of large technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, the legal sector flirts with the idea of cutting personnel that can be replaced by machines. And the context is ideal: if we take into account that artificial intelligence (AI) allows documents to be prepared in seconds (contracts, reports…) that previously required hours or days of work, considering these restructurings seems inevitable. Support staff are in the spotlight. Positions in areas such as marketing, knowledge management, paralegals or secretarial work are exposed. The trickle of news in this regard began last year. In September, the London newspaper CityAM reported that the firm Freshfields would undertake a cut of half of its junior paralegals in its Manchester office. In November, Clifford Chance cut 10% of its business services staff in the United Kingdom, according to the specialized foreign press. It is a change of era. Staff growth, traditionally considered a symptom of good business health, is no longer a strategic objective. A few months ago, PwC, one of the four large global auditors, quietly renounced its promise to incorporate 100,000 workers worldwide by mid-2026. The new market context required a redefinition of objectives, alleged one of its spokespersons. The big four actually laid off 5,600 people in that year, according to their own tax reports; and in the same period it increased its investment in artificial intelligence to 1.5 billion dollars. Automation dissipates the hiring frenzy at the same pace as machines assume traditional roles of juniors, documentarians, paralegals, text editors or translators. The question is whether this trend, which is evident in the United States and the United Kingdom, will reach Spain. Analysts rule out a sudden adjustment. On the one hand, for economic reasons: Spanish labor legislation makes mass dismissals expensive. Secondly, due to cultural factors, since the Spanish business fabric is more conservative in this sense. Experts consulted by this medium speak of a “silent erosion” effect. That is, there will be years of slowdowns in the hiring of administrative profiles, say the sources consulted. But it will be a discreet and progressive reconfiguration of roles, rather than a succession of mass layoffs. This is what José Luis Pérez Benítez, partner of the consulting firm Black Swan, anticipates. A cascade of layoffs would be scandalous and expensive, so firms will gradually tend not to fill vacancies, outsource functions or reduce teams through natural rotation. “The net result will be similar in five years to that of other countries, but without big headlines,” says the expert. The phenomenon of machines that swallow up administrative roles opens a fundamental debate. There is a danger, expert sources point out, that artificial intelligence will be used as an excuse to slim down workforces and increase profits, rather than as a response to a corporate need. «The large international firms mentioned respond to a convergence of three factors that should not be confused: AI as a substitute for support work; also as a convenient alibi for restructurings that could be necessary; and permanent pressure on margins to maximize profit per partner,» says the consultant.
Labor fit
But is it possible to fire support staff with the excuse of implementing artificial intelligence tools? The answer is far from simple. It is worth remembering that, in Spain, objective dismissal – based on business reasons, other than disciplinary reasons – is only appropriate if one of the causes provided for by law occurs. There are four types: economic, technical, organizational or production (in legal jargon they are known as ETOP causes). Well, in light of the latest jurisprudence, invoking economic reasons is not enough to justify these cuts. Judges, including the Supreme Court, have made it clear that a real business need must be proven, that is, excuses based purely on profitability are not valid. Otherwise, the decision may be declared inadmissible through judicial means. “It would not be legal to raise it with the idea of ’we have implemented AI and now we are more efficient, and therefore we amortize positions,’” says lawyer Omar Molina, partner at Augusta Abogados. The lawyer confirms that there are law firms that are already considering this type of cuts in Spain. But they will be, in any case, gradual adjustments. What is clear is that the courts will analyze case by case with a magnifying glass. “If the business story is to use AI to save costs, without a drop in demand, without losses, without accredited organizational need, without real amortization of the position in its entirety and without proportionality, the judge may see it as a commercial excuse and not as an ETOP cause,” warns Molina. The lawyer believes that this type of litigation will gain significant prominence in the coming months. The same thing happened with the layoffs linked to the pandemic, hundreds of whom were prosecuted.
Two cases of interest
In 2022, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid declared the dismissal of a worker from a litigation management company appropriate, replaced by an automated system capable of achieving tasks in 11 days that previously required 287 days. In this case, the court considered that there was a strong organizational cause. On the other hand, in 2019, a judge in Las Palmas declared the dismissal of an administrative employee inadmissible because the company only claimed “efficiency improvement” due to automation. The ruling stressed that companies must prove real needs, there are no vague excuses, to justify dismissal.
