Employment

Employment is a central focus of our business, with over 170 lawyers in our team supporting our clients in managing their people.

Consistently top-ranked amongst our peers for over two decades, we advise UK and multinational clients of all sizes, with most of our partners independently rated as leaders in the field. Not only do we have one of the UK’s largest employment law practices (covering both Great Britain and Northern Ireland), we have truly global reach as members of Ius Laboris, the world’s leading employment law alliance, and with our Asia Pacific base in Hong Kong and our Dublin offices.

Underpinning the success of any business are its people. Following events of the past few years, businesses are making strategic decisions such as how, when and where their workforce work, how to reward them and ways to provide a diverse and sustainable workplace culture. Whilst the evolution of the ‘employment deal’ brings opportunities, it also creates risk.

I don't know why a company would use another firm for employment advice: Lewis Silkin has fantastic lawyers who offer excellent, commercial advice and charge substantially less than bigger City firms. They have an unparalleled breadth of offerings (all of which we have used).
Legal 500 2022

Our award-winning specialist employment team supports clients on the full range of work – from day-to-day HR support through to advising on the most complex or contentious of disputes - with a track record of leading precedent setting cases on issues of the day. We have the agility to be fully flexible to what our clients need, providing the right team at the right price for all types of companies whatever their stage of development. Going far beyond just legal advice, we also support clients with a range of innovative, value-adding services including consultancy, training and flexible legal resourcing.

Meet our team

Accolades

Chambers and Legal 500 have rated us as a Tier 1 practice for over a decade and this year name 31 of our partners as “leaders in their field”.
Who’s Who Legal have twice named us “Global Law Firm of the Year for Labour, Employment & Pensions”. 19 of our lawyers are currently ranked in Who’s Who - substantially more than any other firm in the UK.
“Approachable, friendly, thorough and responsive. They not only provide excellent legal advice tailored to our organisation, but they also provide great thought leadership and industry insights.” (Chambers & Partners 2023)
“They have covered almost all aspects of employment law. They not only focus on the strategic issues for their clients, they have also derived innovative ways in which to structure their teams to accommodate their clients’ needs and provide a cost-effective solution. They also have a very strong bench and the associates are switched on and a pleasure to deal with.” (Legal 500 2023)
“Lewis Silkin have grown from strength to strength in recent years and there is not one area of employment law that they are unable to cover.” (Legal 500 2023)
“The size of the team means that there is extraordinary strength in depth and an unrivalled degree of expertise across all aspects of employment law. The Lawyers are also responsive, commercial and down to earth” (Chambers 2022)
“Lewis Silkin has provided my team with exceptional support and advice over the years. They are true partners in the way they work with not only our in-house lawyers but other key stakeholders in our business. We rely on them as trusted advisers for all of our key cases and decisions in the employment sphere.” (Legal 500 2022)
“Extraordinary strength in depth. Excellent training and empowering of associates means that everyone in the team can be relied upon to provide exceptional work.” (Legal 500 2022)

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Síobhra Rush of Lewis Silkin explores the issues surrounding the June deadline. Síobhra explains that small firms should consider reporting this year, and that clarity is also needed around pay calculations for part-time workers, contractors, statutory leave and employer pension contributions.

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New ICO guidance on SARs for employers – a useful reminder on how to comply

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From April 2022 to March 2023, 15,848 complaints related to the right of subject access were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Elanor McCombe, Policy Group Manager at the ICO, singles out employers as some of the main culprits – either misunderstanding the nature of subject access requests (SAR), or underestimating their importance.