Catherine Richmond

overview

Catherine Richmond is now a tenant at Cloisters. She has recently decided to transfer to the Bar after nearly 10 years practising as a solicitor, latterly as a partner in Nabarro LLP’s employment team.

Catherine has specialised in employment law since she qualified as a solicitor with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in 2001. She moved from Freshfields to Nabarro in 2003 and was made up to partner in 2008. As a solicitor she had a broad practice encompassing litigation, advice work, and corporate transactions and projects. Her client base was equally broad, ranging from multinational banks such as HSBC to educational institutions such as Oxford University.

Her litigation practice included representing clients in the Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal, County Court, High Court and Court of Appeal. She is a qualified Solicitor-Advocate (Higher Courts Civil Proceedings) and frequently acted as advocate for clients in the Employment Tribunal. Before qualifying as a solicitor she also worked as a stagiaire (intern) at the European Court of Justice.

areas of practice

• Employment
• Discrimination and equality
• Human rights
• Commercial law
• Personal injury

appointments and memberships

Employment Lawyers Association (member of the Management Committee 2009-10)

Industrial Law Society

publications and training

Recent publications and training include:

Paternity and Parental Leave, programme for Legal Network Television, June 2011

Abolition of the Default Retirement Age, XpertHR retirement conference, February 2011

Update on Employment Tribunal practice and procedure, Law Society conference on Employment Litigation, February 2011

Employment: The New Retirement Regime, programme for Legal Network Television, October 2010

Default retirement age reaches end of its working life, Employment Law Journal, October 2010

Remedies and compromise: recent developments and tricky issues, Industrial Law Society annual conference, September 2010

The gender pay gap and gender equality, XpertHR Equality Act conference, September 2010

qualifications

BA in Jurisprudence (University of Oxford)

PhD (European University Institute, Florence)

Solicitor

Solicitor-Advocate (Higher Courts Civil Proceedings)

highlight experience (as solicitor)

Litigation

• Acting for the investment arm of an international bank in a dispute with a senior employee about bonus and stock awards, encompassing High Court and Employment Tribunal claims
• Acting for an international retailer in various Employment Tribunal claims, including whistleblowing, sexual orientation discrimination, sex discrimination and race discrimination claims
• Acting for a university in unfair dismissal, harassment and discrimination claims against it in the County Court and Employment Tribunal, including appeals to the EAT and Court of Appeal  

Projects and transactions

• Acting for the administrators in the sale of the European, Middle Eastern and US businesses of a UK equities and fixed income agency broker, involving difficult TUPE and Acquired Rights Directive issues 
• Acting for a central government department on the ‘people’ aspects of a large PFI project
• Acting for a police authority in the retender of its £100m p.a. outsourced services, including advice on TUPE and the Workforce Code of Practice and contract negotiations with multiple bidders

Advice

• Advising a large service company on a major restructuring and redundancy programme, involving collective consultation with staff
• Advising on disciplinary and grievance issues, including in relation to employees regulated by the FSA
• Advising corporates on sensitive board level appointments and exits