Taylor Wessing has agreed to hand equity partner status to the five high profile Garretts lawyers it hired this year as consultants, in the same week that it announced 13 assistant lawyer redundancies, it has emerged.

The five – who all joined the firm from Garretts in May – are property partner Keith Barnett; corporate partners David Roberts and Andrew Smith; employment partner Sean Nesbitt; and projects partner Hamid Yunis.