Honesty Is The Best Policy

If any term of an employment contract will involve breaking the law (or is "tainted with illegality" in the restrained language of the law) then public policy dictates that the parties should not have access to the courts to resolve disputes and that can sometimes bar otherwise good unfair dismissal claims.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently considered such a situation. The fact that the case arose in the legal profession has raised some eyebrows.

Mr Connolly was offered employment as an assistant solicitor with Whitestone. He requested, however, that he be classified as self-employed for tax purposes and Whitestone agreed to this. Mr Connolly invoiced Whitestone every quarter for his services and as far as HMRC was concerned he was self-employed. Despite this, Mr Connolly worked full-time and was under an obligation personally to perform his work. Whitestone controlled his work to the same extent as they did for their other professional employees at the