Employment & Pensions
Our clients tell us that they love our business-focused, solutions-based approach and our intimate understanding of their commercial concerns. We aim to deliver high quality but user friendly advice to all our clients: our style is very much "plain English, plainly spoken".
The department has two parts:
Employment
Our employment lawyers act in both contentious and non-contentious matters, with the split of work depending upon the individual, their location and the time of year.
Shoosmiths' solicitors will usually do their own advocacy in the employment tribunal, and we have a wealth of experienced litigators in the team. Our advisory work for employers takes in a wide spectrum of issues such as absence management, disciplinary, discrimination, restructuring, TUPE, employee representation and working time. We are involved with drafting and negotiating service contracts, compromise agreements and reviewing other documentation such as handbooks.
We also offer occasional corporate support, working with our commercial colleagues on transactional documentation.
Pensions
We advise more than 150 occupational pension schemes, mostly in the £20 million - £100 million asset value range.
We act for trustees and sponsoring employers, providing a full range of services from day-to day support such as attendance at trustee meetings through to major projects such as the restructuring, re-financing and closure of schemes. This experience on both sides of the table informs the advice we offer, enabling us to guide negotiations effectively.
We are also involved with trustee training, applications to the pensions regulator, drafting scheme documentation and specialist pensions litigation.