SA Law is a commercial law firm with offices in both London and St Albans. We have significant experience in the charities sector.
Before setting out my quotes, it is perhaps worth mentioning some of the advantages of using SA Law for your HR and employment advice:
- Any advice that you request or receive is subject to legal professional privilege, so is not disclosable to third parties in the event of you receiving a data subject access request;
- Our services are staffed by qualified employment solicitors who specialise in the charities sector, and are therefore familiar with the types of issues that you are likely to require advice in relation to on an ongoing basis;
- If you have to litigate a matter through to an employment tribunal, we would be with you throughout this process, effectively providing you with a one-stop shop from the first telephone call on an issue right the way through to a final tribunal hearing (should it proceed that far).
Proposed Scheme Coverage
We are able to offer three different SA Law options for you to consider:
(a) Pay as you go
This option enables you to use our services on an ‘as needed’ basis. Our hourly rates within the department vary from £220 to £325 plus VAT, but we will discount these to £180 plus VAT per hour for the purposes of the helpline. We have agreed this as a concessionary arrangement as a goodwill gesture owing to our mutual relationship with Real People.
(b) Retainer option
Under this option you can purchase an agreed number of hours that would be made available to you over the course of the year, at a set rate of £150 plus VAT based on 20 hours in the retainer “bank”. Any hours in excess of the agreed number of retainer hours would be charged at the rates above.
There is no restriction on how you choose to use the hours. In the event that your hours are exhausted in any particular year of cover, you will have the option of topping them up.
The fee for this option is £3,000 plus VAT (i.e. 20 x £150 per hour).
(c) Employer Protection Scheme Helpline
The helpline would be a fixed fee for unlimited advice, to include:
- A legal helpline directly with SA Law for you to use on employee relations matters;
- Discounted rates for work completed outside of the scheme; and
- Priority booking for our HR Forums.
Due to the fact that the helpline is primarily focussed on protecting your organisation to avoid and resolve disputes, there are some exclusions from it, as detailed in the enclosed appendix.
Employment-related work that is completed outside of the Employer Protection Scheme Helpline is done so on reduced rates as outlined at Option (a) above.
Essentially the scheme is for general telephone and email advice. It is not designed to cover non-contentious strategic employment work. Although the helpline service is for unlimited advice we do have a fair usage policy as set out in the attached appendix.
Optional parts of the package
(a) Audit
We can audit your contracts and policies to check for legal compliance for a fixed fee of £500 plus VAT. We can provide a more in depth service where we would consult with you to draft specific bespoke policies. By way of example, a more in depth consultation is recommended for senior staff contracts where we can review notice, post-termination restrictions and bonus schemes more fully.
(b) Insurance
If you wish to obtain a quote to protect you against the possibility of employment tribunal and county court claims from your employees, please let me know and I will liaise with you separately.
I look forward to hearing from you once you have had the chance to consider the options set out above. In the meantime I would of course be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
