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Will Clayton
Partner

Office: 0844 8000 263
Mobile: 07809 441169
Fax: 0844 8000 264
will.clayton@taylors.co.uk

Service Areas:
Employment
Employer Protection

Role
Will leads Taylors’ employment team across our Manchester and Blackburn offices. After qualifying first at the Bar and then as a solicitor, Will has over 15 years experience in employment practice advising regional, national and international private and listed businesses, third sector employers and senior executives.

Will is a highly driven and accomplished business adviser and problem solver with significant experience advising clients in the follow sectors: manufacturing, supply chain, professional services, financial services, retail, charitable, hotel and leisure, energy, software development, marketing and advertising, recycling and on and off-street parking. His focus is always on making sure that clients achieve their commercial objectives whilst effectively managing their employment risks.

Experience
Will’s more recent experience includes:

• A national client had discovered that data which was worth over £10m to the business had been removed by departing employee, responding to very urgent instructions Will was able to secure the safe return of the material in less than a week;
• Successfully defending a national client from multiple claims of race and religious discrimination. Will and his team advised the client from the early stages and throughout the Employment Tribunal process, including acting as advocate during the 12 day hearing. Will not only helped his employer client secure a dismissal of all claims, he also obtained a “whole costs” award against the unsuccessful claimant;
• Advising on and successfully defending a claim of unfair dismissal from a former employee of a national client who was dismissed after sending an inappropriate email from his private home computer email account, on his own time, to a friend’s home computer before it unfortunately landed within the email servers of Will’s client’s customer, risking significant damage to the client’s reputation with the customer and ongoing contracts. The Tribunal were persuaded that the former employee’s right to privacy did not override the employer’s rights or legitimate business interests in that case;
• Working alongside in-house counsel and HR teams to guide various clients through significant internal workforce reorganisations – without any adverse Employment Tribunal claims

Areas of particular interest and expertise:

• Employment aspects of business transfers, restructures and insolvency
• Executive departures, termination negotiations and compensation packages
• restrictive covenants
• Unfair dismissal, discrimination and whistle-blowing claims
• Employment contracts, policies and procedures
• Daily HR issues including, disciplinaries, grievances and redundancies
• Redundancy programmes

Expertise

• Protection against misuse of confidential information and employee restrictive covenants;
• Discrimination;
• Whistleblowing;
• Redundancy and reorganisations;
• TUPE;
• Service Agreements;
• Unfair and Wrongful dismissal;
• Internal investigations; and
• Contractors and atypical workers.

Ten Things About... Will

• What is your favourite film?
  Sixth Sense - it’s the only thriller I can remember watching when I didn’t work out the twist before the end
   
• What was the last CD you bought?
  Lady GaGa - Born This Way
   
• Where is your dream holiday destination?
  The Augusta National, Georgia for four humid days in April. It would be awesome
   
• If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
  A European Tour golf caddie. Sadly, with a swing like mine it is about as close as I could ever get to being a tour professional
   
• Who was your childhood hero?
  Clint Eastwood
   
• What book are you reading now?
  The Dog Star Rages by LL LOBO
   
• What was your first car?
  A Fiat Panda, 750 cc. The best and most powerful lawnmower
  I have ever owned!
   
• What is your guilty pleasure?
  The X Factor
   
• What was your first job?
  Shelf Stacker at Kwik Save in Bamber Bridge
   
• At school, I always wanted to be a…
  A professional snooker player