Our Employment Law Department specialises in providing legal advice to local businesses. Our strong commercial focus and pragmatic advice will help you to minimise the risk of claims (and associated costs, disruption and adverse publicity) from your employees as well as providing drafting services for Contracts of Employment and Settlement Agreements. Our aim is to protect your commercial interests, by providing a broad range of services which save the time and expense of dealing with employment-related issues.

We work with a variety of industry sectors and many local businesses. We aim to provide each of our clients with a bespoke package of advice so as to be able to meet the needs of their individual business. We are also able to offer a package of return advice (which is used by many clients) to have an open file facility available so that they can contact us as and when required to provide advice on a variety of employment law issues.

We can guide you through major changes, such as restructures, variations to contracts and TUPE transfers. We can also provide advice in respect of disciplinary action (including dismissals, suspensions or performance monitoring), as well as, how best to handle employee grievances, breakdowns in employee relationships and any other day to day issues that can occur. We can also represent you or arrange representation in an Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeals Tribunal as well as any proceedings issued in the County Court and High Court (for breach of contract claims, restrictive covenant matters).

We can help with the following:

• Drafting statements of main terms and conditions
• Drafting Employment Contracts
• Advising in relation to appropriate restrictive covenants
• Drafting of Staff Handbooks
• Individual policies and procedures such as a grievance or disciplinary, maternity etc.
• Guidance in relation to the implementation of dismissals whether it is for redundancy; gross misconduct or some other reason
• Drafting of Settlement Agreements

We can offer you advice on how to avoid or manage claims from employees relating to:

• Unfair dismissal
• Wrongful dismissal
• Constructive dismissal
• Unlawful deductions from wages
• Discrimination
• Breach of Contract
• Redundancy selection
• Maternity and paternity rights

We offer completive rates for our legal services which include an initial fixed fee consultation.

Settlement Agreements

If negotiated properly, a Settlement Agreement can be a very effective way to ensure that the employee is adequately compensated for the termination of their employment whilst providing the employer with the reassurance that no formal claim can or will be brought against them.

Our Employment Law Department can provide expert legal advice on the terms of any Settlement Agreement. We can also agree on a fixed fee service for the drafting of a Settlement Agreement that can be used in a multitude of situations.