The Legal 500

79 MARLOWES, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, HP1 1LF
Tel:
Work 01442 430900
Fax:
Fax 01442 239861
Web:
www.underwoods-solicitors.co.uk
Email:

Kerry Underwood

Tel:
Work +44 1442 430 900
Email:
Underwoods Solicitors

Position

Senior partner of Underwoods Solicitors and Underwoods South Africa. Underwoods has appeared as advocates in a number of leading reported employment cases. Expert on Legal Services Act and its consequences. Described in ‘Chambers’ as ‘the world’s leading authority on conditional fees’. Consultant to law firms big and small, local authorities, government departments and Commonwealth governments. Has pioneered conditional fees, contingency fees, television advertising and, as chief executive of Law Abroad Limited, the offshoring of legal work to South Africa. Expert in Commonwealth law. Widely recognised as one of the country’s leading employment lawyers.

Career

Listed in De Brett’s ‘People of Today 2009’ and the ‘Dictionary of International Biography’, and the American Biographical Institute’s ‘Great Minds of the 21st Century’. Former London Borough councillor and school governor and stood for Parliament in the 1979 general election; part-time Employment Tribunal judge from 1993-2000; senior partner of Underwoods and Underwoods South Africa. Editor and author of costs products section of Butterworths’ ‘Personal Injury Litigation Service’, and the author of hundreds of articles published in legal journals; author of the classic work ‘No Win, No Fee, No Worries’; ‘Fixed Costs 2’ second edition published in June 2006; appears regularly on radio and television and in the national press in relation to legal topics; lectures extensively. Contributing author to ‘Workplace Law Handbook 2009’.

Member

Fellow Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; Employment Appeal Tribunal advice scheme; Toynbee Hall volunteer. Knight Commander of the Order of St John; Headway, the Brain Injury Association; the Lord Taverner’s charity.

Leisure

Cricket, football, gardening, art, photography, Elvis Presley, literature, especially poems of TS Eliot. Has travelled extensively around the world.

Practice Areas

Administrative and public law; Employment; Professional disciplinary and regulatory law (including police law)

Back to index

Legal Developments worldwide

Legal Developments and updates from the leading lawyers in each jurisdiction. To contribute, send an email request to
  • Boult Wade Tennant partner to speak at Management Forum’s Trademark Administrator conference

    Felicity Hide, a partner in Boult Wade Tennant’s Trade Mark and Domain Name Group, will be speaking at the Management Forum’s Trademark Administrator conference on 28 October 2010 at the Rembrandt Hotel in London.
    - Boult Wade Tennant
  • THE NEW PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP LEGISLATION IS ADOPTED IN UKRAINE

    On 26 July the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych signed the Law “On the Foundations of Cooperation of the State with Private Partners” (the “Law”) which was adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament on 1 July to establish a framework for public-private partnership (“PPP”) in Ukraine. In May 2009 the Parliament already adopted the framework law on PPP, which, however, was later set aside.
    - Avellum Partners
  • Employers’ age discrimination of under-18s legal

    On 30 June 2010, the Danish Eastern High Court established that the provisions and the practice on a number of areas covered by collective agreements, supporting a lower pay for employees under 18 years and termination of the employees when they turn 18, cannot be deemed to constitute a violation of the Employment Equality Directive (Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000).
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • Danish Holiday Act amended

    The Danish Ministry of Employment wants to stop employees speculating in having their holiday pay paid out. This has resulted in an amendment of the Danish Holiday Act.
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • ”Honey” was not sexual harassment

    Close physical contact and calling an employee “honey" was not enough to prove that a manager had sexually harassed an employee.
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • Doubt about how to interpret part-time leave agreement

    The Danish Board of Equal Treatment was not satisfied that an employer’s interpretation of an agreement about part-time leave was in breach of the Danish Act on Equal Treatment of Men and Women.
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • Part-time and fixed-term employment in the EU

    Three provisions of Austrian law about part-time and fixed-term employment met with opposition at the European Court of Justice – they were held to be at odds with EU law.
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • Public-sector managers, too, are entitled to freedom of speech

    The Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman has established once again that public-sector employees enjoy a high degree of freedom of speech.
    - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris
  • Wikborg Rein newsletter: Paying for pirates

    Background: Attacks by Somali pirates are still commonplace and the fall-out from kidnappings of individuals and seizures of ships by pirates are still being dealt with by insurance companies, P&I clubs, arbitration tribunals, courts of law and national governments.
    - Wikborg Rein
  • Friendlier Norwegian hedge funds regulations in force

    FRIENDLIER NORWEGIAN HEGDE FUNDS REGULATIONS IN FORCE July 2010 sees friendlier Norwegian hedge funds regulations entering into force – at last. New regulations lift the previous general marketing ban, implying that marketing licences shall now be obtainable.
    - Wikborg Rein