Louise is an experienced employment lawyer with expertise in both contentious and non-contentious employment matters. She started her career as a litigation specialist and this experience has given her a wide understanding of handling client disputes.
As an employment lawyer, Louise’s work is often advisory in nature. She works alongside clients on an ongoing basis to help them manage their key resources in the best way. This work involves ensuring that clients’ employment and consultancy agreements are up to date and effective. She is experienced in drafting template contracts as well as negotiating individual senior contracts for directors and senior personnel.
Louise advises employers on issues that arise in the day-to-day running of a business, whether the handling of an internal dispute or disciplinary issue, negotiating the termination arrangements of a senior employee or advising on a redundancy process. She also advises on employment issues relating to or arising from corporate transactions and corporate contractual arrangements.
Expertise
- Employee contracts
- Directors’ service agreements
- Consultancy contracts
- Employment policies and staff handbooks
- Employment issues and legislation including employment status, Working Time Regulations, discrimination, TUPE, maternity and paternity provisions, parental leave, disciplinary issues, redundancy process, performance and disciplinary issues and termination of employment
- Settlement agreements for senior employees and directors
Experience
- Advised a civil engineering company on its employment arrangements, drafted employment contracts for on-site and office staff, updated its staff handbook, drafted policies and advised on the Working Time Directive, shared parental leave, flexible working, health and safety, and retirement provisions
- Advised an international consultancy alongside a Keystone project lawyer on its contracts for senior employees, including a senior employee working on a large power project in Nigeria
- Advised Teamorigin on its ultimately aborted bid to compete in the 33rd and 34th America’s Cups including drafting employment and consultancy contracts for all sailing and ancillary team members and liaising with Spanish and New Zealand employment lawyers in relation to subsidiary employing companies
- Advised an international biotechnology company on the severance arrangements for a director
- Advised various start-up businesses on employment matters
- Provided ongoing advice to SME clients (including architects and patent attorney practices, peer-to-peer lending companies, design and PR companies) on employment issues arising on a day-to-day basis including advice on terminations, flexible working, disciplinary and grievance processes, sickness absence management and contractual issues
Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.
Recognition
Recognised in Who’s Who Legal 2023 for Hospitality
Member of the Employment Lawyers Association
Career
Louise qualified as a solicitor in 1990. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2006, she worked at Herbert Smith.