Industrial and Employment Law

Any breaches of industrial and employment legislation can often be remedied by the involvement of the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman without commencing any legal proceedings. However, that office and the WorkCover Authority also commence proceedings against many offenders on behalf of the adversely affected party and the public. Due to limited resources and the volume of work with which it deals, the Fair Work Ombudsman may not deal with your matter, or, if it does, it may take a long time to deal with your matter. In these circumstances, you may want to engage the services of a private barrister like me.

In many industries (particularly white collar professions), the rights and obligations under common law employment contracts are in dispute. This is particularly so concerning termination of employment and/or redundancy situations. Disputes can also arise over whether the real nature of the employment relationship at issue is one of employer and employee, or an independent contractor relationship. Often, high amounts of remuneration are at issue in these disputes.

Another area concerning common law employment contracts attracting significant legal work is the drafting and enforcement of restraint of trade clauses by employers and principal contractors to deal with the poaching of clients, customers, and employees by former employees or contractors, breaches of the law of confidentiality, and actions for restraining injunctions and claims for damages arising from any breach. Action must be taken quickly in such proceedings. In my opinion, in this day and age, employers are running a significant risk to their business by not including such restraint of trade clauses in their employment contracts.