The employment team at Stephenson Harwood is ‘strong and delivers a great combination of deep knowledge with a commercial flair’. Under the direction of Paul Reeves, the agile team covers the full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious transactional and advisory work. Areas of focus span advising on restrictive covenants, and TUPE issues. It also has considerable specialist expertise in sectors as diverse as financial services, rail and luxury goods. Recently, it has been advising on more cross-border employment matters. Anne Pritam and Natalie Edwards are well-regarded.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘The team are extremely efficient - in a profession where 'time is money', I have always received very astute (and prompt) guidance on a range of options in any given situation.’

  • ‘Without Paul Reeves, my business would not have been the success it is. Paul is pragmatic, very straight forward in his explanations of options, and very quick to grasp the 'intangibles' that very often are the main drivers in a situation.'

  • ‘The team dealt with a very sensitive internal investigation in exceptionally difficult circumstances and were brilliant. We felt fully supported 24/7 by the team. Nothing was too much trouble, and the advice was clear.’

  • ‘Paul Reeves is fantastic. He always made himself available and checked in to ensure everything was moving in the right direction. He is clearly very experienced and knows the law, but he is also very commercial and client friendly and runs a great team.'

  • 'Natalie Edwards was also excellent to work with. Very knowledgeable and calm and clear under pressure.’

  • ‘The strength of the SH team is that they are very willing to understand the context of the organisation in detail, and this enables them to provide support and advice which is clearly understandable and applicable to the full context.’

  • ‘Paul Reeves is always very responsive to our requests, takes the time to talk us through things, and seems to value the relationship above and beyond a transactional one. This is very appreciated by us.’

  • ‘Paul Reeves has real gravitas and is able to ensure that he understands our business issues. He breaks big issues down into bitesize chunks with a really strong combination of good sense, judgement and deep legal knowledge and advice.’

Key clients

  • Shift Group Ltd
  • eScribers Ltd
  • Galway Partners Holdings LLC
  • Elcom Systems Limited
  • BDA Partners
  • Diligence Vault
  • TS Imagine,
  • M7 Real Estate
  • Mirastar
  • Arab National Bank
  • Bibliotheca
  • Berkeley Homes
  • Ambac
  • Hipgnosis
  • Tricon Energy
  • Amazon
  • StubHub
  • LVMH
  • AxiomSL Ltd (now Adenza)
  • Fragomen LLP
  • Investcorp International
  • ThyssenKrupp Elevator AG
  • Therium Capital Management
  • Standard & Poor’s
  • Arriva plc
  • DNB Bank ASA
  • Bank of Montreal/BMO Financial Group
  • Mizuho Bank Ltd
  • Vueling
  • Mizuho International plc
  • United Trust Bank Limited
  • Philex Electronic Ltd
  • Maersk A/S
  • Circa Healthcare Ltd
  • Extreme-E Ltd
  • The Mines Advisory Group
  • LGPS Central Limited
  • The Council for Responsible Jewellery
  • Macdonald & Muir Limited t/a The Glenmorangie Company ("Glenmorangie")
  • Carpmaels & Ransford LLP ("Carpmaels")
  • Trenitalia C2C
  • Fleet Street Financial
  • Impax Asset Management Group PLC
  • Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
  • Harbour Litigation Funding Limited
  • International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF)
  • Rambert (formerly, Ballet Rambert)
  • DeepL
  • Cellebrite
  • Spitfire
  • Incyte Corporation

Work highlights

  • Advised Shift regarding an asset purchase and related redundancy, insolvency and TUPE matters.
  • Acted for Trenitalia c2c Ltd on all employment matters including implications of rail workers' industrial action, the impact of minimum service level legislation, and the impact of WTR 1998 to on-call train drivers. Also successfully defended a number of Employment Tribunal claims.
  • Advised Hunton Andrews Kirth LLP on the employment law implications of a number of issues including, lateral hires and integration, associate performance, flexible working arrangements and modern slavery policies.

Lawyers

Leading associates
Leading associates with regular involvement in their team's key work, and recognition from peers or clients as being ones to watch.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Paul Reeves

Other key lawyers

Natalie Edwards, Anne Pritam