LIZ PEARSON

Senior Executive:

• Advising a senior law firm partner in a dispute involving complex discrimination claims. A sensitive partner dispute with parties concerned not to burn bridges despite entrenched positions. Both sides had advice from senior counsel and engaged in a contentious mediation involving complex claims of direct and indirect sex discrimination, indirect disability discrimination and associative disability discrimination.
• Advising the Founder and CEO of a risk advisory company on a negotiated exit. Complex issues included a potential minority shareholder application, novel governance rights and obligations due to Founder status, and the regulatory reference regime.
• Advising the CFO of a unicorn company on a hard-fought negotiated exit. This included advice on Good/Bad Leaver status regarding shares worth ~ £10m.
• Advising a senior technical employee at a multinational IT company on post-employment restrictions, including the risks of establishing a competitive new entity and hiring staff from the original company.
• Advising a senior theatre employee on their defence of a disciplinary investigation, appeal against the resulting dismissal, then bringing a subsequent ET claim. Complicated by a unique working environment and claims of racial and age discrimination.

Partnership:

• Advising an Intellectual Property and Patent Attorney LLP in its merger with a smaller such firm, with anticipated post-merger turnover exceeding £50m in the first year. CM Murray led the transaction and drafted all transaction documents, with Liz the sole Associate on the matter.
• Advising on a critical aspect of a team move from a global professional services firm to our client, whereby a lead Partner’s exit required the assignment of an overseas government contract worth a minimum of €4million. Protracted negotiations involved the overseas government, local consortium members and the global professional services firm. We eventually secured the assignment and the Partner’s release from his post-termination restrictions.
• Advising a solicitor and partner in a General Partnership on their retirement from the firm to join a competitor. We advised on duties and obligations as a partner and the ability to challenge the validity of the restrictive covenants. Negotiations were complicated by, inter alia, the Partnership threatening the partner’s expulsion and subsequent Bad Leaver status.
• Advising an international firm on its response to a potential team move, including potential breaches of fiduciary and contractual duties; investigation and disciplinary processes; validity of restrictive covenants; commercial strategy and Interpartes correspondence.
• Taking evidence and drafting witness statements in a long-running dispute regarding the dissolution of a general partnership, including acting as SME on Practice Direction 57AC Trial Witness Statements in the Business and Property Courts.
• Advising on a wholesale review of a financial service LLP’s Articles and governance documents. Trickier topics included the use of a mandatory retirement age and updating valuation provisions and goodwill calculation.
• Advising on a wholesale review of a legal LLP’s Articles and governance documents. Key topics included succession planning, including the use of a mandatory retirement age, glide path and consultancies; grievance and disciplinary matters; and exit provisions including restrictive covenants.

Employer:

• Advising a charity on the negotiated exit of their Managing Director.
• Advising a legal LLP on the grievance and disciplinary procedure as applied to their CFO, arising from a long history of complaints from another senior employee.
• Advising a US company on the performance-based termination of a UK employee. The US company had not previously terminated a UK employee, so required a thorough grounding in the UK system, scripts for key meetings, and a bespoke settlement agreement.
• Advising a US parent company on the UK-subsidiary’s hire of two employees with existing restrictive covenants. The client did not have experience with UK law, so required a legal and commercial grounding before determining the likely enforceability of the restraints and the client’s preferred strategy.
• Providing ad-hoc advice to a private client company, including flexible work requests, resignations, contractual variations and policies.

Professional Discipline:

• Advising a solicitor on their regulatory obligations in the face of a potential firm closure or SRA intervention, after the two managing partners disputed their responsibility for the firm. SRA intervention did occur, with the regulator praising our client’s handling of the situation.
• Advising a professional on their response to a regulatory investigation, sparked by their role as an expert witness.
• Advising a law firm on their response to allegations of sexual misconduct, including the appropriateness of engaging an external investigator, the role of the COLP, appropriate record keeping, and the timing and content of the firm’s regulatory reports.