A redundancy consultation in a twenty-person architecture practice is a different thing from one in a bank. There is no HR department, the partners know everyone's children's names, and the person being made redundant may have drawn half the firm's portfolio. Clerkenwell is full of practices like that, in architecture, design, branding and software, and employment solicitors in Islington spend much of their time on the small-firm version of every problem: dismissals without a procedure, interns who were really workers, unpaid overtime in a studio culture that expects it, and the departing designer who takes the client list.
The borough's bigger employers bring the other kind of case. The Whittington Hospital, Moorfields and the council produce whistleblowing, disability discrimination and long-term sickness disputes with formal procedures behind them, and the universities on Holloway Road and at Northampton Square run on fixed-term contracts that end with the funding. Arsenal and the bars of Upper Street rely on match-day and casual staff whose holiday pay and status are often wrong. The start-ups around Old Street add arguments over share options, notice periods and restrictive covenants when a founder or an early hire leaves.
Timing is unforgiving. Early conciliation through Acas must be started before three months less a day have run from the dismissal or the discriminatory act, and claims from Islington workplaces are then heard at the London Central employment tribunal in Holborn. Employers use the same firms for contracts, handbooks, TUPE and defending claims, and settlement agreements require the employee to take independent advice, which the employer usually funds.
Fees are typically fixed for settlement agreements and contract work, and hourly or staged for a contested claim; many firms offer a free first call.
Employment firms serving Islington are listed below, verified first. See the general guide to employment law solicitors, the explainer on what employment law covers, the wider employment law solicitors in London page and, for employers, business law solicitors in Islington.
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