What can I do for you?
I specialise in employment law. Most of my work is for universities but I also provide some advice to commercial organisations, which gives a slightly different and complementary perspective on employment issues.
I advise on the full range of employment law, including disciplinary cases, performance management, equality and discrimination and TUPE. Employees are increasingly litigious so I spend a significant proportion of my time defending our clients in complex claims in employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Supporting my clients’ aims
I really enjoy the fact that, as an employment lawyer, I deal with litigation as well as general advisory work.
On the litigious side, I successfully defended a university in a complex unfair dismissal and disability discrimination claim by a senior lecturer. It reached the Employment Appeal Tribunal and it is one of the key cases on the extent to which UK discrimination legislation applies to employees working abroad.
In contrast, I also enjoy working with clients on policies and procedures and dealing with HR issues in a way that will minimise the risk of litigation.
What do others say?
It is really gratifying to get positive feedback from clients. Recent comments include the following:
“In my experience, Judy is very able to take on new information and to get to the heart of complex legal issues and translate them into a no-nonsense usable approach.”
"I think Judy has been splendid: good on the detail as one would expect, but also a shrewd sense of the personal and tactical issues."
What else should you know?
I am a regular speaker at seminars and workshops, at both national conferences (for instance, the Universities Human Resources conference) and at in-house training for clients. I enjoy these sessions as they are an excellent opportunity to meet clients and other HR professionals to talk through hot topics. It’s also a very effective way to keep myself up to date in the rapidly changing field of employment law.