Employment law

Employment law is relevant to all organisations, public and private sector alike. Employers are often at the vanguard of social change, having to adapt to frequent legislative and case law developments.

Graduate careers in employment law

Litigation/contentious – although most employment claims are brought in the employment tribunals, certain claims (eg breach of contract) can also be brought in the High Court and county court.

General advice – covering the whole employment relationship from recruitment to references for past employees and everything in between. It’s also about collective issues: workforce structural change; achieving cultural change; dealing with unions; and other employee representative forums.

Transaction support/noncontentious work – advising colleagues in other departments on employment issues, eg the employment law implications of a corporate M&A deal.

An employment lawyer can expect to be working actively on several matters at any one time. A straightforward unfair dismissal claim from start to finish will, typically, take between six and twelve months to resolve.

Negotiating a settlement agreement can take anything from a few days to a few months. For a tribunal case, you would expect a team to be no more than two or three lawyers: a partner for overall supervision; a solicitor to manage the matter day to day; and a trainee or paralegal to help with discrete tasks. A barrister will often be briefed to do the advocacy at the hearing.

Employment lawyers enjoy an unusually wide range of clients. Almost all organisations employ people, regardless of business sector, and the complexity of the issues is not necessarily related to the size of the employer. Most City and large regional firms will act almost exclusively for the employer side: acting only for individuals where there is a high-value claim at stake or it suits a wider business objective. There is a relatively small group of firms who will do the reverse: acting almost exclusively for claimants. The majority of high street firms will act for both.

This area of practice offers varied, intellectually challenging work, involvement in headline-making cases and a reasonable work/life balance. On the downside, there is a seemingly never-ending flow of case law, which can sometimes feel very difficult to keep on top of.

Is employment law recession-proof?

Employment law is a buoyant area of work as employers are generally either hiring or firing and, if you work for a claimant firm, there are always employees with problems at work who need advice. We saw an increase in redundancy/restructuring queries and claims in 2009 as a natural consequence of the recession. We are now seeing clients back in more positive recruitment/policy revision mode.

What's it like doing a trainee solicitor's job in employment law?

In most firms, trainees will be given some litigation cases to manage with appropriate supervision. There should also be a fair degree of negotiating relatively straightforward settlement or exit agreements, plus a good amount of research and writing of advice.

Types of law practised

• Tort.
• Commercial.
• Contract.
• Employment.
• European.
• Administrative/public.
• Regulatory.

What skills do employment lawyers need to do the job?

• Common sense.
• The ability to juggle several matters at any one time.
• Excellent drafting and research skills.
• Communication skills (including listening) and empathy.
• The ability to build trusted adviser relationships quickly with HR and business people facing difficult situations.

About the author

JANE FIELDING is a partner and head of the employment law team at WRAGGE & CO LLP. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in classics and modern languages.