If you are an employer needing advice and assistance with severance packages or settlement agreements (formerly known as compromise agreements), or require advice regarding disputes with employees over settlement agreements, the Employment Law team at Farleys can help you.
Why Contact a Settlement Agreement Solicitor?
Under the terms of employment law, drafting a legally binding settlement agreement is the only method an employer has of limiting employment liabilities and ensuring against any future claims by the employee, relating to matters arising from the employment contract between the parties and statutory employment law.
By employing a specialist settlement agreement solicitor, an employer can ensure the agreement they present to a departing employee is both legally drafted and binding and adheres to all necessary statutory requirements.
Once the employer, the employee and the employee’s solicitor has signed a settlement agreement, that agreement represents an end to any legal claim one has over the other. As a result, settlement agreements are becoming increasingly popular as a method of both parties agreeing on a severance package without the threat of future reprisals. A confidentiality clause can also be drafted into the agreement, either disallowing the employee from disclosing the details of the agreement, or preventing them from disclosing that a settlement agreement has been entered into.
Farleys’ specialist Employment Law & HR solicitors can also offer you guidance on all legal matters related to the following:
What will Farleys’ Settlement Agreement Solicitors do?
Farleys’ employment law team will provide legal advice and guidance to you, the employer, throughout the course of the settlement agreement drafting process, ensuring the final document is legally binding and adheres to all relevant aspects of employment law. In order to be legally binding, a settlement agreement must:
- Be in writing;
- Identify the employee’s legal advisor (who must have professional indemnity insurance);
- Relate to a specific complaint made by the employee.
It is also important to remember that the employee cannot waive their right to legal counsel. For a settlement agreement to be legally binding the employee must have received legal advice from a qualified employment law solicitor.
In addition to assisting with individual settlement agreements, our employment solicitors are also regularly instructed by employers to assist when wider scale changes to the workforce are required and there are multiple settlement agreements needed. Farleys’ employment solicitors can provide advisory clinics on site at an employer’s organisation for the purposes of providing independent Employment law/HR advice to employees for the purposes of completing settlement agreements.
Our on site advisory clinic services can be tailored to suit any business and can be provided with flexible costs within (and outside of) standard working hours and both on and off employer sites.