Full Profile
Sophie is a Professional Support Lawyer in the Employment, Pensions and Immigration team where she is responsible for keeping the team’s knowledge and skills up to date. UK employment law is a rapidly changing and developing area, and Sophie works as part of a team of Professional Support Lawyers to keep the Employment team on top of the latest legal developments as they happen.
Sophie carries out research into tricky issues and developing areas of law and helps to organise and enhance the Employment team’s knowledge resources. She also writes articles for publication, designs client and internal training sessions and writes standard documents for the team to use in their work, such as employment contracts and policies.
Previously, Sophie was a Senior Associate in the Employment team, having qualified into the Employment team following her training contract with the firm.
Sophie has extensive experience of employment law and supporting employers with the full range of workplace issues they face, including grievances, disciplinaries, redundancies, contractual issues, restrictive covenants, TUPE, discrimination, whistleblowing and other employee relations issues.
Sophie also has considerable experience of handling Employment Tribunal claims, including complex, high value and sensitive discrimination and whistleblowing claims. Sophie has also advised on various High Court disputes including breach of contract claims and injunction applications.
Sophie is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association and a network of employment law Professional Support Lawyers.
Experience
- Drafting and updating template employment documentation, such as employment contracts, director service agreements, consultancy agreements, settlement agreements, staff handbooks, communications and policies and advising on related issues
- Advising on GDPR issues and compliance, including handling data subject access requests and drafting template GDPR compliance documentation
- Preparing internal and external training sessions on the full range of employment issues
- Advising on complex discrimination and equal pay issues
- Handling a substantial number of Employment Tribunal claims, including claims for unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing, equal pay, breach of contract and constructive dismissal, breach of collective consultation obligations and in relation to TUPE
- Successfully defending a high value and complex disability discrimination and unfair dismissal claim against an international bank at a 17-day Employment Tribunal hearing in the Employment Tribunal
- Defending a substantial claim for breach of collective consultation obligations and a number of related unfair dismissal claims
- Defending a high value sex discrimination claim against an international law firm
- Advising on the defence of several high value Employment Tribunal claims for employers in the insurance, professional services and financial services sectors, including large, complex and reputationally significant discrimination, whistleblowing and equal pay claims
- Handling High Court disputes concerning alleged breaches of contract, breaches of restrictive covenants and breaches of confidentiality, including obtaining, and defending against applications for, injunctive relief
- Assisting with complex disciplinary / grievance investigations and outcomes
- A secondment to an Employment Practices Liability (EPL) insurer in their EPL Claims department
