Our London-based Labour and Employment Practice provides clients with the high-level representation and advice that has led the practice to be consistently ranked in the first tier by legal directories in the United States.
Our UK team is respected for contentious and noncontentious employment law advice and data privacy compliance issues. We have been ranked among the top employment law firms worldwide by the Chambers and Partners Global 2010 edition. Chambers and Partners recently noted that, "[Clients] state that [Morgan Lewis has] many resources to throw at a matter, no matter how tight the time crunch may be. All of the lawyers are exceptionally bright and are very effective litigators. They always seek to craft practical solutions to issues so that our business can succeed."
Our work covers high-level, sophisticated employment litigation; advising on the complete range of often complex matters within the employment law subject area, including executive terminations; and advising on managing difficult HR issues in transactions and outsourcings.
Our global reach allows us to service an international client base on a range of domestic, pan-European, and multijurisdictional projects for a variety of clients from all business sectors, including retail, insurance, legal, media, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and technology.
As we work closely with our other European offices, our international network of foreign counsel, and our colleagues in the United States, our UK lawyers have developed an in-depth knowledge of industry sectors and international employment law issues. We coordinate and manage cross-border projects and provide practical, commercial, and cost-effective advice across all EU countries.
The following are some of the ways in which we can assist you:
Contentious Matters
- Conducting litigation in the Employment Tribunal and other courts.
- Handling, coordinating, and compiling investigation reports with respect to sensitive areas such as discrimination, harassment, whistleblowing, and data subject access requests.
- Acting to protect the trade secrets, confidential information, and other legitimate interests of businesses, including seeking injunctive relief in the High Court.
- Conciliation, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution.
- Pre-action disclosure, gathering evidence, and dealing with privacy and human rights issues.
- Advising on and negotiating exit strategies and termination packages relating to executives in order to protect a company's interests and maintain good business relationships.
Noncontentious Matters
- Advising on all aspects of restructuring and redundancy, both locally and internationally.
- Advising on changes to employment terms and conditions (for example, pay freezes/salary reductions) and workforce integration issues.
- General employment counselling to assist businesses in managing employees at all stages of the employment life cycle.
- Drafting, reviewing and updating employment documentation, including contracts, handbooks, and policies and procedures.
- Advising on European law measures affecting and likely to affect businesses in European countries, and managing interaction with overseas counsel where cross-border advice is required.
Transactions
- Dealing with all of the employment aspects of restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, buyouts, outsourcings, joint ventures, AIM and official listings, private equity investments, and company disposals, in particular advising on TUPE issues.
- Drafting and negotiating sale and purchase documentation, warranties and indemnities, executive service agreements, bonus/retention documentation, restrictive covenants, and other ancillary employment documentation.
- Dealing with workforce integration, including advising on the legal implications of assimilating employees into the workforce, consultation and communication issues, managing uncertainty, the harmonisation of terms and conditions and benefits, employee retention issues, and managing fallout.
- Legal analysis and advice in relation to structuring pensions issues in a transaction, including negotiating with the Pensions Regulator and trustees, and advising on liability management issues.
Data Protection
- Advising on data protection, particularly in the context of maintaining cross-border compliance and implementing an appropriate international transfer mechanism.
- Advising and assisting with compliance in workplace monitoring and investigations.
- Coordinating and compiling data protection due diligence and compliance projects with follow-up management training.
Collective Issues
- Managing employee and employee representative consultation, co-determination, and collective matters, including advising on trade union relations, collective consultation, European and domestic works councils (communications and negotiations), and employee and industrial representative bodies.
- Providing representation for employers in the Central Arbitration Committee.
Outsourcing
- The London team works with customers and service providers on a UK, European and global basis, and has experience in advising on all of the human resources issues which arise during the life cycle of an outsourcing relationship, including offshoring.
Immigration
- Our specialist UK immigration team works within our employment practice, advising business clients with regard to individuals seeking to enter the UK (short- and long-term immigration and/or secondment arrangements), including under the points-based system.
- Advising on outbound immigration matters from the UK as well as handling global visa applications, through our colleagues on both the East and West Coasts of the United States.
Bespoke Training
- Our London team offers clients a variety of bespoke and product-based interactive training programmes, for both management and staff, covering key aspects of general management and management risk issues including anti-harassment, diversity, and performance management. This service may be provided on a fixed-cost basis to ensure clear and easy budgeting or can be customised to fit client-specific requirements.
- To keep our clients current with any new developments in the law, we provide regular newsflashes, webcasts and legal updates throughout the year as issues arise.