Jordans Employment Law Precedents

Citation

Guth, J. (2010), "Jordans Employment Law Precedents", International Journal of Law and Management, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 245-246. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542431011044689

Employment Law is a hugely complex area of practice using a plethora of forms, policies, contracts and other documents, all of which have to be drafted in particular ways, using precise language and conforming to certain conventions. As the preface notes, “a clear set of procedures, policies, contracts and standard letters should simplify the job”. This book contains those precedents most likely to be of use to human resources practitioners and/or their legal advisers in managing both non‐contentious and contentious legal practice.

Precedents relating to non‐contentious practice include an application form, offer letter and a set of different type of employment or consultancy agreements including helpful sections on key clauses. The book also provides a good number of standard letters relating to issues ranging from flexible working to more contentious questions of grievance, warnings, dismissal and redundancy. The majority of topics and issues that might arise in day‐to‐day practice are therefore covered.

The book is well set out with a short introduction to each precedent presented explaining the use of the document in clear terms highlighting, for example, where the use of such a document is required by law (such as a statement of the main terms and conditions of employment under section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996) or where it may be a “nice to have” (such as, for example, a working time policy discussed at p. 135 of the book).

The precedents themselves are presented clearly and are of good quality and easy to follow and easy to use. They should be accessible to lawyers and non‐lawyers alike although non‐specialists in employment law may want to seek additional advice on some of the more technical documents in particular where they need to be tailored to very specific needs of the employer/employee in question. This might be particularly important in relation to Compromise agreements discussed at pages 192‐215 of the book. Using the precedents provided here may however allow more focused and this effective use of a legal advisors expertise.

The final section relation to each precedent is called “drafting points”. In actual fact this could have been titled “any other information” as it rarely relates directly to the drafting of the document in question but rather provides additional useful information as to how the document can be used or fits into employment practice more generally. So, for example, the precedent letter inviting a complainant of harassment to a hearing includes in its drafting points information about interviewing witnesses, preparing witness statements and securing signatures on those statements or summaries. It also reminds employers to consult their own policies and make sure that the letter they write based on the precedent complies with their own policies and procedures. Something which is always worth bearing in mind!

The book is a useful one for employment practitioners, whether non‐lawyers or lawyers starting out in the field. It gives them a starting point from which they can build their own precedent bank which is more specific to their practice and it gives them something to refer to should a situation arise which they have not had to deal with previously. The book does what a precedent book is supposed to do: it sets out clearly examples of how certain documents should be drafted and explains their use and any other important points to bear in mind.

Priced at £135 I think the book is expensive, but perhaps not as expensive as asking a lawyer to draft all your standard documents for you.