The 10 per cent salary reduction at Dundas and Wilson is to take effect for eight months, from September to next April, reports BBC.

The 530 employees in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London offices will also be able to take 18 days of extra leave.

Staff were told the alternative to the pay cut was to require redundancies, with 43 jobs already axed across the firm’s offices. Of the seven in 10 who voted, 98 per cent preferred the pay cut.

The 82 partners at Dundas and Wilson have already agreed to take a 10 percent cut in their salaries, while their share of profits from last financial year fell by a fifth, or nearly £80,000 (AUD$160,000).

According to Alan Campbell, the managing partner: "This action is necessary to protect jobs and the talent we have built up, while transactional activity remains depressed by the current economic situation.

The salary cuts are the result of reduced workloads as work, particularly in the corporate area continues to be scarce.

However, there are signs that some corporate legal work is coming back into the pipeline, giving hope that work will pick up next April, with the start of the firm's new financial year.

Insolvency work has remained strong at the firm and staff working in the department may not be affected by the reduced hours and pay.