Profile

Paula is a senior associate in the employment team, based in the Thames Valley. She has experience advising and acting for clients from a wide range of sectors including education and public sector, IT, publishing, and the media.

Her key areas of interest include TUPE, corporate support and collective consultation issues, including trade union, works council and European Works Council advice. Paula has a number of years advocacy experience in tribunal handling unfair dismissal and discrimination issues including disability, equal pay and other discrimination issues. Paula also has experience of CAC advocacy in relation to trade union recognition and provision of information under collective agreements. Paula has considerable experience in developing and delivering training on employment law and human resource issues. Paula has designed and delivered training to all levels of management and HR teams. Paula also regularly advises on issues such as staff transfers and large scale redundancy situations. Paula is a frequent article writer and speaker at employment law conferences. She was a contributing author of Croner’s “Managing Equality and Diversity” and “Managing the Internationally Mobile Employee”. 

Paula qualified in 1993 and specialised as an employment solicitor. Paula moved to Eversheds, Cardiff to develop the employment law client training team and 5 years later joined Lewis Silkin to develop a similar training function for their employment team. Paula joined Shoosmiths in 2006.

Paula’s recent experience includes handling cases examining issues such as:

• Tribunal advocacy on the employment status of ‘casual’ workers and agency workers;
• The implications of a large TUPE service provision change exercise and the associated collective consultation and redundancy process;
• Handling large scale restructures and redundancies;
• Handing race, sex and maternity related discrimination claims;
• Assisting three international clients in setting up and amending existing European Works Council Constitutions;
• Dealing with equal pay claims following TUPE outsourcing of employees whose salaries are subject to a collective pay deal;
• Trade Union recognition applications and CAC determination;
• Advising on the legitimacy of Trade Union action for an IT Client.

Areas of Practice

• Employment
• Employment and Labor