Assistant level commercial legal recruitment dropped by 95% in the first half of this year, compared with 2007, according to a report from legal recruitment firm Hughes-Castell.

The report shows that assistant level salaries fell between 1% and 10%, while private practice law firms introduced widespread redundancies – as much as 10% of fee-earners in some cases.

According to the findings legal firms have responded by not only cutting salaries but also introducing a number of alternative cost cutting measures such as: shorter working weeks (26% of respondents), sabbaticals (24% of respondents) and extended unpaid holidays (10% of respondents).