Employment, pensions & incentives

Employment lawyers work across all areas of employment law, including, for example, handling discrimination complaints, staff restructuring and whistleblowing issues. There has been increased focus on employment law in recent years, due to a combination of new legislation, government policies and employees’ increased awareness of their rights. Trainees assist with a wide variety of work, such as the employment aspects of corporate or commercial transactions, preparations for tribunal claims, attending hearings and meetings, and helping to draft documents such as employment contracts or policies.

The route into law is often painted as a linear narrative – that is, you study a law degree, complete the necessary postgraduate qualifications and qualify as a solicitor or barrister. However, Lewis Silkin employment partner Paul Gillen is proof that this is certainly not the only way in.

After studying psychology at Queen’s University Belfast, Paul spent 12 years building a career in human resources (HR) management before his interest in the law was piqued and he decided to requalify. Now, as a tri-qualified lawyer, his work spans the employment law space across the UK.

Where it all began: HR management to law firm partner

During his time in HR management, Paul “worked across a range of sectors, including manufacturing, construction and civil engineering”. He managed a global workforce, which involved “looking after around 5,000 employees” and working in Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, the Caribbean and across the UK and Ireland. “As I got more involved in the legal side of HR, that’s where my passion for retraining as a solicitor came into play,” Paul explains.

It was at this point that he took on the law conversion course and a master’s in employment law, while receiving sponsorship throughout his training. In 2009, his legal career began in Edinburgh but a merger between two firms saw Paul return home to work in Belfast.

Paul is quick to acknowledge the importance of the skills and experiences he’d picked up from his previous career, and the benefits they’ve had on his current job. “I went through quite a fast-track in terms of promotion”, he explains. Although partnership hadn’t been at the forefront of his initial ambitions, Paul adds: “It was through dealing with very complex issues in employment law and my HR experience that meant I was brought onto the very high-level projects from day one. This saw me progress from a newly qualified solicitor to a senior associate within three years, and within another four years, I was going through the partnership track.”

Full lifecycle of employment

So, from HR management to law firm partner, it’s safe to say that Paul has had a lot of experience in employment. As he reflects, he explains that “part of the excitement about becoming an employment lawyer is that there’s no typical day”.

It’s this variety that keeps Paul on his toes. “We cover the full lifecycle of employment”, he says. “This is everything from the development of posts within a client, including organisational development, through to the recruitment and selection process, so looking at the development of job descriptions and how clients want to assess those throughout the recruitment selection process.”

Adding to this variety, Paul and his team can also find themselves involved in “discipline and grievance” cases when “there are internal disputes”, supporting employers in managing performance and employee absence, as well as drafting and working on legal documents. As employment lawyers progress, the work may move towards more “strategic input areas”, which include “organisational development, variations, and restructuring and redundancies”.

Over the years, Paul has also found a passion for “working with clients to develop diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) strategies, looking at procedures to make sure they’re compliant and developing training for the clients”.

It’s with these various opportunities that employment law offers the “chance for you to not just be involved in the business-as-usual advice to the client, but also the strategic elements and litigation when things might go wrong”. It’s the people at the heart of the clients Paul works with that make his job so rewarding.

Drawing on this, Paul takes us back in time to the covid-19 lockdowns when the sectors that weren’t facing complete shutdown had to identify a way to deal with issues of continued employment. “It involved working through new and innovative ways of employing people through the likes of furlough, as well as new, home and hybrid working elements – a part of employment that’s continued beyond covid too.” Looking back on this period, Paul found the work that he was involved with very rewarding and cited it as a “highlight in the career of a lot of employment lawyers as we were able to steer clients through a very uncertain time”.

Equal marriage in Northern Ireland

More personally – and away from his employment practice – Paul picks out his work in the DE&I area – in particular the opportunity he had “to develop a business case for equal marriage in Northern Ireland as part of the #Business4LoveEquality campaign” as a career highlight. Explaining his role in this, he says: “It meant taking our business case and getting other businesses on board before presenting it to our politicians. We were successful after such a short period and it was fantastic to be able to say we’d played a part through #Business4LoveEquality in getting equal marriage for Northern Ireland.”

AI, employment rights landscape and building your skill set

Having a finger on the pulse is crucial for all employment lawyers – whether that was through covid-19 and the issues that have followed it or more recent developments in AI. “Employment law is one of those areas that develops constantly – we’re always horizon scanning to see what’s happening in the future so we can work with clients to ensure they’re not hit with anything unexpected coming down the line.”

Considering the issues at the heart of the practice at the moment, Paul cites “the economic stability globally and in the UK”, which sees Lewis Silkin’s employment lawyers “looking at workplace structures”, for example. “We’re also currently involved in a consultation in Northern Ireland, which will see the employment rights landscape change significantly.”

This horizon scanning also means thinking about the impact that AI will have on the work of employment lawyers. While Paul appreciates that some work has been made easier through AI, he’s quick to refute any claims that AI has the capacity to replace lawyers. “Does AI mean we’re redundant as lawyers?” he asks. “No, certainly not – especially in employment law where everything is quite nuanced.”

Looking to restructuring as an example, Paul explains that “it’ll take experience, as well as the practicality and commerciality outside of AI to come up with a solution for a client”. This is exactly why aspiring lawyers must spend time gaining a variety of experience – whether in a pub, local shop or law firm – to build their skill set, which includes understanding the commercial landscape. He adds: “The ability to deal with complex issues, take lots of detail and filter that into the necessary information to come to a solution for your client is important. You must understand the client and the way the sector works to be able to properly advise.”

As well as understanding the client, though, for a successful career in this area Paul urges aspiring lawyers to also understand themselves – “what is it that you can bring to the role?” he asks. Given the dynamic and people-focused nature of employment law, emotional intelligence is such a crucial facet to an employment lawyer’s skill set. Paul goes on to outline what ‘emotional intelligence’ really means in this context, explaining that those coming to this area of the law must “understand that the advice that you give to your client will also impact other people”.