Knights Bought Moore Barlow and Kept Its Lawyers. About 150 Support Staff Lost Their Jobs.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In short. Knights Group, a listed consolidator of regional law firms, completed its GBP27m acquisition of Moore Barlow's commercial and private client business on 2 November 2026, first announced in August [1]. Knights kept around 160 fee-earners. City AM, Legal IT Insider and the Law Gazette, citing sources close to the deal, all put the number of Moore Barlow business operations staff, paralegals and secretaries not retained at around 150 [1] [2] [3]. Knights Group declined to comment on numbers when approached by City AM [1]. The figure is graded ANNOUNCED, not REPORTED: it rests on convergent trade press reporting, not a company statement or a filing.
What happened
Knights Group, which has completed close to 30 acquisitions of regional and high street law firms since listing on the London Stock Exchange, told shareholders on Monday 2 November that it had completed its purchase of Moore Barlow's commercial and private client service lines, the second-largest deal in its history [1] [3]. Moore Barlow, a regional firm employing 447 people according to its most recent accounts, had already disposed of its personal injury, clinical negligence and court of protection practices immediately before completion, so the business Knights actually bought was a narrower slice of the firm [3].
City AM reports it understands around 150 business services roles were not retained: "hiring managers, compliance officers, and receptionists who had been with the business for nearly 20 years" [1]. Legal IT Insider, citing one insider, put a similar figure on the roles "put at risk of redundancy," though another source there hedged: "I'm not sure on final numbers but I don't think many were retained" [2]. The Law Gazette asked Knights directly how many people had lost their jobs; the firm declined to say [3]. No single source gives a company-confirmed final number, which is why this ledger logs the figure as at-risk rather than departed: three outlets converge on around 150, but nobody with the authority to confirm it has done so on the record.
Moore Barlow's Woking and Guildford offices have been merged into a single Guildford base; its City of London office has closed entirely [1].
The pattern behind the number
City AM's own framing is blunt about why: "the model of retaining fee-earners while putting business services roles under review is well trodden" at Knights [1]. Around 160 fee-earners, the lawyers who bill clients directly, were kept on. The roughly 150 who were not were the people who kept the lights on around them: compliance, reception, paralegal support, HR. It is a standard shape for a professional services roll-up, repeated now across close to 30 deals, and it is also the shape that keeps appearing in this ledger's own data: a company's headline revenue grows with every acquisition while the number of people doing one particular kind of work does not travel with the deal.
Knights reported underlying revenue of GBP207.7m for the year to 30 April 2026, up nearly 30% [1]. AI is not mentioned anywhere in any source checked for this piece as a reason for the redundancies; this is reported as ordinary post-acquisition consolidation, and it is logged that way.
How the ledger logs it
Graded ANNOUNCED: the figure comes from converging trade press, not a Knights statement, a filing, or a Gazette notice. Status: at-risk, not departed, because the one number Knights has actually confirmed is zero. The row is dated 2 November 2026, the day the acquisition completed and the day the redundancies are reported to have taken effect.
Sources
- City AM, "London-listed Knights' recent acquisition results in staff layoffs," 3 November 2026. https://www.cityam.com/london-listed-knights-recent-acquisition-results-in-staff-layoffs/
- Legal IT Insider, "Widespread redundancies follow Knights' acquisition of 70% of Moore Barlow's business," 4 November 2026. https://legaltechnology.com/widespread-redundancies-follow-knights-acquisition-of-70-of-moore-barlows-business/
- Law Gazette, "Support staff face redundancy as GBP27m merger deal between Knights and Moore Barlow completes," 3 November 2026. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/support-staff-face-axe-as-27m-merger-deal-completes/5128409.article