Paul Gillen
About
Paul is a Partner in the Lewis Silkin LLP Employment, Immigration and Reward team, based with the rest of the fantastic team in Belfast. Being qualified in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Paul provides cross jurisdiction and comparative law advice to clients throughout the UK and Ireland, bringing a solutions focused and commercial approach to his practice.
Paul advises clients on contentious and non-contentious matters, including HR support, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, executive management, performance management, TUPE, outsourcing, discrimination law, and a full range of employment litigation. He advises across a range of sectors including hospitality, retail, manufacturing, pharma, technology, financial services, education and public bodies.
Before qualifying as a lawyer, Paul gained a B.Sc (Hons) in Psychology and a MA in HR Management and worked for over 10 years in people management roles in a range of sectors, including retail, construction and manufacturing. Paul is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development as well as Visiting Professor to the School of Law at Ulster University and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. This gives both professional specialist employment law skills along with the strength of "seeing it from the client's perspective" in advising on practical solutions. Paul is a regular employment law speaker for at events for a number of organisations.
Experience
Strategic HR support
- Helping businesses navigate through all aspects of HR and employment law - from recruitment, organisational development, performance management, succession planning, grievances & disciplines, through to reorganisations and dismissals - to meet their business objectives
- Steering clients through complex internal disputes, including dealing with persistent and long-term absences, capability issues, misconduct, breaches of contract and whistleblowing
- Advising on senior executive employment matters, including negotiating service agreements & contracts, incentive schemes, performance & conduct and senior exits
- Advising on collective labour law, including requests for Trade Union recognition, collective bargaining, balloting and strikes
Employment litigation
- Managing a full range of employment litigation, from first stage Tribunal or WRC through to the higher appeal courts, including straight-forward statutory claims (unfair dismissal, unlawful deductions etc) through to complex discrimination and whistleblowing cases
- Advising on Civil Court cases for breach of contract, injunctions and enforcement of post-termination restrictions
- Negotiating settlements and managing Alternative Dispute Resolution procedures, including conciliation, mediation and arbitration, to avoid litigation
Employment
- Ensuring that clients have relevant and robust contracts of employment, worker contracts, agency worker agreements and contractor agreements in place, as well as advising on employment status rights and obligations
- Drafting relevant handbooks and policies & procedures for clients, ensuring legal compliance as well as business flexibility
- Partnering with clients in providing 'business as usual' and day-to-day HR and employment law support, ensuring that matters are dealt with practically, swiftly and with a solutions focused approach
- Working with clients on diversity, equity & inclusion issues to ensure that policies and practices are non-discriminatory and inclusive, dealing with complaints of bullying, harassment & discrimination to assist in resolving matters before they turn litigious, but also delivering DE&I training for staff and managers setting out not only legal requirements but tying this into business culture
Employment M&A, outsourcing and TUPE
- Advising companies on the employment aspects of IP rights, confidentiality and post termination covenants
- Advising on employment aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including due diligence, reporting on structure, advising on any non-compliance etc in order to remove or minimise client risk whilst working towards a smooth transaction
- As a "TUPE nerd", I enjoy reviewing staffing structures in business & asset transactions and in service provision changes, providing guidance on all aspects from information & consultation, due diligence & employment risks, through to drafting practical and solutions focused TUPE drafting to provide protection and minimised risks to reflect the commercial agreement between the parties