DentonsDenton Wilde Sapte is to make up to 70 UK staff redundant – including an estimated 40 solicitors – and has slashed its intake of junior lawyers in the deepest staff cuts to hit the London legal market in recent memory.

Both decisions were formally agreed at a partners’ meeting on 1 May with the firm informing its current trainee solicitors the following day that 28 trainees will not be taken on when they qualify later this year.