Director
Rachel joined Hopson Solicitors as a Partner in February 2015. She previously worked at Gabb and Co, national firm Geldards LLP, Cardiff and BPE, Cheltenham. She has a wealth of experience providing pragmatic and commercial advice to help businesses and individuals navigate through any employment law or HR issue as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Rachel regularly advises on managing long term sickness and ill health absences, performance management, disciplinary proceedings, updating/drafting bespoke contracts and handbooks, drafting and negotiating settlement agreements, handling grievances, dealing with whistleblowers, equal pay, trade union disputes, equality and diversity, Employment Tribunal claims, consultancy agreements, contract and severance negotiations, bonus schemes and other incentives, secondment agreements, redundancy exercises, variation of terms and conditions, data protection, recruitment and retention, due diligence exercises, harmonisation of terms and conditions, TUPE and other employment issues arising from mergers and acquisitions.
Rachel also provides training to managers to enable them to handle day to day employment law and HR issues themselves.
Her recent work highlights include:
- advising a number of local authorities in defending mass equal pay litigation;
- advising a care agency business in relation to their obligations under the Agency Workers Regulations and Care Quality Commission Regulations;
- advising a business through a senior management restructure;
- successfully defending a high value unfair dismissal claim at Employment Tribunal for a software company; and
- negotiating a substantial exit settlement for a board director.
In her spare time Rachel is an enthusiastic follower of Gloucester Rugby and the Welsh rugby team. Through living in Cheltenham for a number of years she has also developed a keen interest in horse racing.
