Kirsty Ayre > Irwin Mitchell > Sheffield, England > Lawyer Profile

Kirsty Ayre

0114 274 4911 kirsty.ayre@irwinmitchell.com

Work Department

Employment Law

Position

Partner and head of the Sheffield employment team.

Kirsty advises on all areas of employment law, with particular expertise in employment tribunal litigation, senior exits and strategic change programmes in the financial services, construction and university sectors. She provides pragmatic and solutions-driven advice to clients, and has spent time on secondment to the HR function of a major bank. Recent work includes: representing some of the UK’s largest banks and insurance companies in employment tribunal litigation; advising a global organisaiton on the sensitive exist of its financial director; managing large-scale redundancy programmes involving hundreds of exits; advising one of the world’s largest banks on a high-profile change to its pension and redundancy schemes; providing employment law support on strategic and sensitive outsourcing projects; and adising on collective and union issues. She sits as a fee-paid employment judge in the London Central employment tribunal, and is also a Scottish qualified solicitor, having spent ten years living and working in Edinburgh.

Career

Trained Pinsent Circus; qualified 1996; trainee solicitor 1994-1996, Simpson Curtis/Pinsent Curtis (Leeds); assistant solicitor 1996-1997, Irwin mitchell (Sheffield); assistant solicitor and associate 1997-2002, Pinsent Curtis biddle (Leeds); associate 2002-2003 and partner 2003-2006, Brodies LLP (Edinburgh); partner 2006-2015, Pinsent Masons LLP (Edinburgh 2006-2012, Leeds 2012-2015); partner 2015-present, irwin Mitchell LLP. Publications of note: contributing author to Working Time: The Law and Practice.

Memberships

Council of Employment Judges; Employment Lawyers’ Association.

Education

Studied at: London School of Economics and Political Science; University Robert Schumann, Strasbourg; College of Law, York. Qualifications: Diplome d’Etudes Juridiques Francaises (1990); LLB (Law and French Law 1991); Law Society Finals (1992).

Leisure

Spending time with family, travelling, foreign languages.