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Legal advice on employment law issues

Employment Law Assessment 2024: Letter of Advice
You are a newly qualified solicitor at LawRocks LLP. Your name is Mo Ravat. Your firm has a
longstanding client, called ScienceTech Ltd. ScienceTech Ltd is a global company with several
branches across the UK. ScienceTech Ltd’s UK HR Director, Penny Walowitz, is seeking advice on
a number of Employment Law issues. Following a brief telephone discussion with you, Penny has
sent the email below, setting out her queries more fully. Penny’s experience mostly relates to HR
in the United States, where employees have far fewer employment rights, and she will need clear
explanations of how English Employment Law relates to the current situation.
The client’s address is ScienceTech Ltd, Innovation House, Enterprise Way, Birmingham, B99
5VS, and the matter reference is ST4321.4.
Penny’s email is as follows:
Email from client
To: Mo Ravat
From: Penny Walowitz
Date: This week
Subject: Legal Advice
Hi Mo

Thanks for your time earlier today. Apologies I had to rush off, but I was running late for a senior
management team meeting. As we discussed, I would be grateful for your advice on a few
matters.
STL has recently employed a new Finance Director, called Omar. We were left with a vacancy in
that role after Omar’s predecessor, Dave, was poached by one of our big competitors. Omar
started in the role in December of last year. At Dave’s farewell dinner, he apparently told our
current Sales Director, Priya, how much he had been paid by STL. Dave’s salary was around
£20,000 a year more than Priya’s.
Priya came to see me last week. She told me that she feels extremely upset that she is paid so
much less than Dave was. She said that both she and Dave are members of the senior
management team, and both are highly qualified and experienced in their respective areas. She
pointed out that both the Finance Director and the Sales Director have responsibility for similar
sized teams, work long hours and have high-pressurised roles with demanding performance
targets. Priya said she wanted to let me know that she was taking legal advice on her position
and that, if anything, she should be paid more than the Finance Director because of how much
income she generates for the business. Do I need to be worried about this? What Priya doesn’t
know is that Omar was appointed on a salary that is another £5,000 more than Dave’s was. He
drove a hard bargain in negotiations, so surely that’s fair enough?
Another thing that Dave’s departure has prompted me to think about is whether we ought to
have some sort of clause in our senior management team members’ employment contracts that
stops them from going to work for our competitors for at least a couple of years. Do you have
any thoughts on what we ought to include, and how we would go about getting those added into
their contracts?
Finally, my personal assistant, Frances, is due back from maternity leave next month. She will
have been off for five months. STL hired someone called Imogen as my assistant whilst Frances
has been off. Imogen was engaged on a fixed term contract which is due to expire when Frances
returns to work. You’ve had dealings with Frances before and, as you know, she is lovely and is
not bad at her job. However, Imogen is on another level. Her performance is terrific. My diary
has never been so well organised and she has streamlined so many processes and made us all
much more efficient. She even picks up extra bits of admin work from other members of the
team, which Frances never seemed to have capacity to do. As much as I like Frances, I would
much rather keep Imogen as my personal assistant. Can I do that?
Thanks, as always, for your help with these issues. Just when I feel I am starting to get to grips
with Employment Law in the UK, something else happens which makes me feel like I don’t really
know what I’m doing. I look forward to receiving your advice.
Kind regards
Penny Walowitz
HR Director – ScienceTech Ltd

How do I write this advice letter?

Reply 1

littlelegsldn

if its an assessment, surely you need to write it yourself no?

Reply 2

Smartbiz

Original post by littlelegsldn

if its an assessment, surely you need to write it yourself no?

Yeah! I just need guidance on how to go about it

Reply 3

AMac86

I think a good starting point is to work through the fact pattern and questions raised by the client to create a list of the legal issues.

Once you have a list of the legal issues you can work through each one in turn to explain what the issue is, why it arises, what it means and the options/advice you recommend to the client.

That should give you a decent starting structure.