Employment
A popular misconception is that this area of law is just about employment contracts. In fact, employment lawyers handle a variety of issues, including unfair dismissal, discrimination, redundancy, equal pay and whistleblowing claims, as well as High Court claims arising out of the employment relationship. There has been a big increase in employment law cases in recent years, due to a combination of new European legislation, government policies and employees’ increased awareness of their work-related rights. Old Square Chambers tenant Rachel Owusu-Agyei was pretty certain from early in her undergraduate degree that she wanted to pursue the Bar, but ever keen to challenge her own perceptions, took a less straightforward route: she tried her hand at the solicitor’s side first, doing a law firm vacation scheme and subsequently working for a year as a paralegal in the employment department of a large City firm. Both experiences proved eye-opening, but ultimately confirmed her original aspirations. “They were excellent opportunities to see the practice from the other side. I could see what needs to be done over the lifetime of a claim and everything that happens before the final stage when a barrister becomes involved. But as you progress as a solicitor, there is generally less law and more business, more dealing with clients; whereas when you develop as a barrister, you deal more with the law itself and do not have to spend as much time on client management; your work becomes more complex and, in my opinion, more interesting.” She enjoyed her pupillage at Old Square. “Pupillage anywhere is a little strange as a concept: you spend six months trying to learn by osmosis and six months learning by doing something you’ve never done before – you’re thrown into the deep end, basically. But I’ve been fortunate in that all
the practitioners with whom I worked were very good at giving feedback, incredibly friendly and always prepared to answer any questions. You work with lots of different people and ultimately pick up ways of working that are sustainable and successful by observing their own habits and practices.” A smorgasbord of a practice area If variety really is the spice of life, then consider employment practice at the Bar a feast of flavour. “I do the full gambit of employment work,” says Rachel, “from discrimination claims to claims concerning deduction from wages, from unfair dismissal claims to claims concerning trade unions. One of the things that attracted me to employment law is the wide range of cases you can bring to tribunal.” It is a highly technical and fast- moving practice area – Rachel points to the constant flow of important, precedent-setting employment decisions from the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court – which makes it crucial for successful and efficient employment counsel to keep abreast of the changes and ensure they’re always on top of the law as it stands on any given day. The future looks… busy As to the most prominent and pressing issues in the field, Rachel notes that “employment status is probably the biggest one on the horizon and has been for the past few years. Cases are consistently going to the Supreme Court for determinations on whether workers are employees, workers or some other status. I think that once we get out of the Brexit tornado, there will be more consideration of this on the political side, and how we might want to tie employment status to other things. A lot of the relevance of employment status relates to the tax consequences that flow from it. So there might be more consideration of whether employers could be incentivised through the tax system – or less penalised – to give people more rights. It’s an interesting issue to navigate, because claimants naturally
For more chambers that work in this practice area, please use the “Pupillage index” starting on p519.
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