Redundancies at DLA Piper have now reached its Middle East operations, with the firm announcing that eight associates have been cut from the Dubai office.

The redundancies will affect the office's corporate, finance and projects practices, amounting to an 8% cut from its fee earners. 

Middle East managing partner David Church told ALB that the firm had been working on methods to minimise the job losses but the cuts were inevitable.

"We discussed a range of alternative solutions with our people, many of which have been implemented, such as reducing the number of hours worked, transfers to other offices in the region [Abu Dhabi, Doha and Kuwait] where there is more demand, sabbaticals and secondments, and offering volunteer leave to enable people to assist on CSR projects around the world," said Church.

Church added that the redundancies were caused by waning client demand in the region. "There has been a reduction in the demand for legal services in Dubai. However, we have a robust full-service model and are very optimistic about the future," he said.

The news follows the firm's announcement in March of 54 lay offs affecting its Asia offices, and a number of other losses resulting from lawyers recently retreating to other firms.

Previously, Trowers & Hamlins had made headlines earlier this year after it announced that seven Middle East-based lawyers were being made redundant, the first official confirmation of redundancies by a law firm in the region.