New government analysis suggests that planned employment law reforms could significantly increase the number of workplace disputes progressing through Acas early conciliation and into the employment tribunal system, adding further pressure to a structure already facing capacity pressures.

A job offer marked “subject to” satisfactory references, right to work checks and a probationary period might feel like a holding position, something that binds no one until every box has been ticked. It is a reasonable assumption, and one that employers have often relied upon. But as a recent Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling has made clear, that assumption can also be a costly one.

A recent Employment Tribunal decision has cast new light on employers' responsibilities when staff feel harassed by external speakers at workplace events.

Digital communication now plays a central role in how couples manage their relationships, both in good times and bad.

In a world where mortgage applications and medical appointments can be completed online, the appeal of drafting your own Will is understandable.

For a long time, divorce tended to follow a fairly predictable pattern, and not always a comfortable one. Even where a couple wanted to keep things amicable, the legal process could pull them in a more adversarial direction. Each person would instruct their own solicitor, communication would pass back and forth, and positions could harden without anyone setting out for that to happen.

For many employers, particularly SMEs, the pressure to retain good people is running ahead of what the payroll can support. Salary increases commit a business to ongoing cost, and in a period of squeezed margins and economic uncertainty, that is a commitment many cannot responsibly make. The question, then, is how to keep valued employees engaged and motivated when a pay rise is not the answer.

Employers today hold more information about their staff than ever before. Every stage of the working relationship generates data, from job applications and personnel files, to health records, scheduling systems, and even software that tracks productivity.

Every financial remedy case in the family Courts starts with the same foundation – full and frank disclosure. This is the duty of each party to provide a complete, truthful and continuing account of their financial position. It is not a technicality. It is the very mechanism by which the Court, or the parties through negotiation, can determine what a fair settlement looks like.

A recent Upper Tribunal decision has clarified something important for anyone involved in owning, managing or living in residential buildings caught by the Building Safety Act 2022. While the First-tier Tribunal has wide powers to order fire safety remediation, those powers are not unlimited.

For families with significant wealth, relationship planning is increasingly approached as part of a wider conversation about financial resilience and long-term stewardship. That shift has not occurred because attitudes towards marriage or partnership have hardened, but because the legal framework governing financial outcomes on separation has remained stubbornly unresolved.

A clearly worded Will is not, on its own, sufficient to prevent an adult child from making a claim against your estate. It is an understandable assumption that it would be. If you have set out your wishes in a properly executed legal document, it seems reasonable to expect those wishes to be respected. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 complicates that picture significantly, and a High Court decision handed down last year illustrates just how exposed an estate can be when planning has not kept pace with life.

When someone dies the task of administering the estate usually falls to their grieving friends and relatives. Often the people who knew the deceased are the people best placed to act as their executors. But sometimes things go wrong, money disappears, decisions are made that should never have been made, and by the time beneficiaries realise the full picture, the estate has suffered losses that may be significant.

In many family businesses, there is a clear line of sight over the company’s finances. Performance is tracked closely, decisions are tested against strategy, and risk is actively managed. What sits outside the business is often far less defined.

Across the UK, families are preparing for the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in living memory. In the next three decades alone, an estimated £5.5 trillion to £7 trillion...

Separation often brings unavoidable change, but few challenges feel as complex as parenting across distance. Long-distance parenting usually develops out of practical necessity rather than deliberate choice. A new job, the need for family support, housing pressures or changes in personal circumstances can all result in parents living far apart.

Owning property in Spain introduces a layer of succession law complexity that an English Will alone may not address. The difficulty is not that the Will is deficient. It is that a Will which works perfectly well under English law can produce outcomes in Spain that bear no relation to what the testator intended, because the two legal systems approach the fundamental question of who inherits very differently.

The recent High Court decision in Raine v J D Wetherspoon underlines how fragile privacy can be when organisations fail to protect personal information in practice, even when they appear to do everything right on paper.

Employers have long been expected to address harassment when it occurs in the workplace. Increasingly, however, the legal focus has begun to move beyond how organisations respond after an incident and towards the steps they take to prevent it happening in the first place. This reflects a growing expectation that employers should actively create working environments in which dignity and respect are protected.

By the time a relationship reaches the point of financial proceedings, something fundamental has usually shifted. Conversations that once felt manageable become strained. Communication narrows or stops altogether.