Employment & Safety

We empower HR Managers, in-house lawyers and employers to achieve their best outcomes. Our firm provides a tailored service that aligns with the key objectives of your business. Contact us for expert legal assistance with:

Employment

Our experienced employment team can assist with:

preparing employment contracts and independent contractor agreements, consistent with your business objectives;
developing and reviewing legally enforceable policies, as well as providing training on policies and procedures;
managing employee performance;
complaints and workplace conflicts and disciplinary procedures;
assessing fitness for work and incapacity, including workplace investigations;
ensuring compliance with workplace instruments such as enterprise agreements and modern awards;
employee entitlements and applicable employment and/or safety frameworks;
appropriately managing employment consequences when restructuring or transferring a business;
providing advice and representation on termination of employment claims including unfair dismissal, adverse action and redundancy;
redundancy procedures and entitlements and restraints of trade;
training to minimise claims, as well as representation to resolve disputes that involve discrimination, bullying and harassment and privacy issues;
workplace investigations and providing reports into allegations of workplace misconduct, discrimination and prohibited behaviour;
unfair dismissal and adverse action claims including providing advice and developing response strategies aligned to key objectives, preparing formal responses within statutory time limits, engaging third-party factual investigators and experts and appearing in courts and commissions;
enterprise bargaining including advising on choosing to bargain or handling majority support determinations and drafting enterprise agreements, providing representation in bargaining meetings, negotiating with unions and employee representatives and appearing at the Fair Work Commission; and
industrial disputes relating to the existing terms of enterprise agreements, awards and contracts, and those arising from bargaining, including applications to vary or terminate enterprise agreements, underpayment and contravention, right of entry, and protected industrial action disputes.

Health & Safety

Our specialist health and safety team regularly assist employers by:

providing training and documentation for directors and senior managers to ensure compliance with the Work Health and Safety Act, and ‘on the ground’ assistance for serious injuries or incidents;
undertaking incident investigations with third party providers, while also advising on procedure and liability; and
defending prosecutions and acting in coronial inquests.

HR Legal Advice Help Desk

We also provide a legal advice hotline to assist commercial clients with general legal matters ‘in house’ without the need for a separate engagement with lawyers. It will typically relate to assisting with routine matters by:

having short phone / video calls to give strategic, effective and practical actions to move a matter forward;
providing short, follow up emails including confirming advice and suggested processes or actions; and
finalising correspondence or reviewing and commenting on documents (such as Fair Work Commission employer responses) prepared by you.

Our HR Legal Advice Hotline service provides support for your ‘business as usual’ HR legal queries such as:

consults for a ‘second opinion’ on HR legal queries such as workplace behaviour matters (conduct and performance management queries), compliance queries regarding employment contracts, independent contractors, and compliance with policies, and to discuss strategies to resolve disputes; and
training and coaching on employment and HR issues that might arise on a day to day basis.

Think of it like a ‘Help Desk’; a central point of contact available for support when it is convenient to you.