- Date
- 27 May 2024
Full Disclosure:
General Election 2024 - What does it mean for law firms?
By Jaysen Sutton |
Hi Reader 👋🏽,
The Story
Last week, Rishi Sunak announced the next general election for 4 July 2024.
Elections are messy and confusing. Politicians say lots of stuff, and it’s hard to work out what actually matters. But it is something you should know because elections impact companies and they impact law firms.
If I run a company, the general election matters because the policies a party introduces will impact the way I do business. It’s a time of uncertainty: it’s hard to make big business decisions or price the cost of those decisions when they depend on who is in power.
What does this mean for law firms?
Lawyers help during election season by telling companies which policies they should care about, how it may impact their decisions, and helping them to prepare for any changes.
It's helpful to think about the impact on law firms in terms of a firm's practice areas. Let me take employment, for example.
Labour’s plans are pretty wild. They want to introduce employment laws within 100 days.
This includes banning zero hour contracts (where employees don’t have a set minimum working hours in their contracts) and the practice of fire and rehire (where employers dismiss employees and rehire them on different terms).
They also want to introduce the right to switch off to stop employers bothering employees outside of working hours. As Linklaters writes, employees in France and Portugal can already sue for a breach of this right. (Sadly, I don't think the UK legal profession will embrace this practice, where lawyers are in-part paid for their responsiveness.)
More transformative is the shift in protections for employees. Currently, in the UK, we have a system that gives employees a bunch of rights after two years of employment. Labour wants to scrap the two year waiting period and implement these rights from day one.
This is a really big deal for an employer, and it will mean a big change to the way employment law works.
If companies are worried about a greater legal risk of hiring someone, like the risk of an employee suing for unfair dismissal, they will be less likely to hire.
As Bird & Bird writes, expect to see stricter hiring procedures, longer assessments and tight internal performance measures as employers try to offset this risk. We can also expect more claims in the employment tribunal.
Have any thoughts? I'd love to hear your perspective below!
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