The grant that pays a post-doctoral researcher's salary has three months left, and the department has just said it will not be renewed. Few conversations are more common in Cambridge employment law. The University of Cambridge, the research institutes at the Biomedical Campus, Babraham and Hinxton, and the companies that grow out of them all rely on fixed-term and grant-funded contracts, and when a fixed-term employee becomes permanent, what redundancy consultation is owed and whether a sponsored visa survives the change all need answering quickly.
The city's technology and life-science employers bring a second set of problems: restrictive covenants that try to stop an engineer joining a rival on the Science Park, invention and confidentiality clauses, share options that lapse on dismissal, and redundancies when a funding round falls through. Addenbrooke's, the Royal Papworth, Cambridge University Press & Assessment and the colleges add the whistleblowing, disability discrimination and long-term sickness cases that any large institution produces. Employers use the same firms for contracts, handbooks, disciplinary hearings and tribunal defence.
The clock runs from the day of dismissal, or of the treatment complained of: Acas early conciliation has to begin within three months less a day, and the claim that follows goes to the employment tribunal's East of England region, where Cambridge cases are usually heard by video or at Bury St Edmunds. Settlement agreements, which Cambridge employers offer freely, bind only an employee who has had independent advice, and the employer usually contributes a fixed sum to its cost.
Expect a free or low-cost first discussion, fixed fees for contract reviews and settlement agreements, and hourly or staged charges for a tribunal claim; check any legal expenses insurance first.
Below, employment firms in Cambridge appear with verified firms first, then by distance from the city centre. Read what employment law covers, what an employment contract costs and the general guide to employment law solicitors; employers may also want business law solicitors in Cambridge, and the Cambridgeshire search covers Ely and Huntingdon.
