Who is Your HR Lawyer?

We’ve been helping employers sleep better at night since 2002. We’ve got a bit of a crusade going on for the employers of the UK!

There is a perception that employers are cold and heartless and are just out to screw over employees – that’s true of some but not the majority of employers. Most of them just want to run their businesses, not get embroiled in disputes with employees

We set up the firm in 2006. We wanted to break from the mould of the traditional law firms that we had worked in and provide employment law support our way – friendly, commercial and often hands on. Despite this, most clients only got in touch when things went wrong at work and they needed a lawyer to fight their corner.

We are good litigators but we saw that most disputes between employers and employees could have been avoided early on. Clients were wasting their time, energy and resources on litigation instead of running their businesses and we could see that in most cases, the fights could have been avoided if they said or done things differently.

Some clients tried to ignore HR matters in the hope that they would go away, others managed them badly. We noticed that clients sought advice from their accountant, a HR consultant or a friend but they didn’t involve us at the most opportune time and this really frustrated us!

The frustrations grew when a growing trend developed of employers signing up with cheap fixed fee call centre packages. They ran seminars that gave employers nightmares about the risks of litigation to their business and employers signed up in their droves to 3, 5 or 7 years contracts for unlimited HR and H&S advice with a million pounds worth of legal expenses insurance.

We heard the same stories over and over from clients that the advice was very cautious and if they didn’t follow it to the letter, they would not be covered in the event of a claim. There were lots of loopholes and matters that were not covered under the policy. Clients never saw their account manager and the template documents did not always fit their issues. Others reported that they spoke to somebody different every time they called and the advice was often contradictory. The processes that they had to follow were often painfully protracted.

The point was that clients were paying those service providers because they were tied in but were then paying me on top of those packages to sort out their issues for them because they had no faith that the other service would help them in a commercial way.

Employees know their rights and employers don’t have to time to keep up to date with HR best practice and employment laws. They need support but the right support.

There had to be a credible alternative to HR consultants who could provide advice until they got out of their depth, the faceless call centre model and the lawyers who focused on cure rather than prevention so we thought that we would create it – Your HR Lawyer.

We’ve taken the best bits from my competition fixed fees, unlimited support, specialist knowledge and experience creating peace of mind but added a personal element. We want to know who our clients are, how they operate and how people management fits within their operation.

We want clients to think of us as soon as an HR issue arises even if it’s just to double check that they are on the right track. We know that we can help them.

We very rarely quote law to clients. They don’t want or need me to. Our focus is on finding out what they want to achieve and working out a plan together to do it. Our advice is commercial, straight-forward and bespoke to each client’s situation and circumstances. One size advice does not fit all.

We can deal with all aspects of the employment relationship from recruitment to dismissal and beyond. There are no policy exclusions for complicated employment law issues and you are able to SKYPE or meet with me if you want to discuss something face to face.

Engage the right support early on and you can focus on running your businesses without HR unnecessarily getting in the way.