Question for Lawyers/Solicitors

[Bellie]

I will try and keep this as short as possible but apologies in advance for the length of this one.

I am currently on mat leave, and during my mat leave I raised a grievance against my manager. The process which is supposed to have taken 10 days has lasted 2 months and I got the 'verdict' yesterday - that my greivance has not been upheld.

However my main concern has been the involvement of an external employment lawyer.
The employment lawyer was advising me in my capacity of HR Manager during a disciplinary.
This disciplinary then became one focus of the grievance and the employment lawyer gave evidence against me as part of the grievance process.
It then turns out (from seeing emails to me and copied to the employment lawyer) that he has then been advising the company on how to handle my grievance.
Surely this is a conflict of interest??
How do I move this forward as I feel that the employment lawyer has obviously met their own agenda through this (i.e ensuring that they still get work from the company) and basically not been truthful in their 'evidence' against me!

Any words of wisdom oh wise mnetters?

TIA and thanks for reading this far.

Can anyone help??

hi bellie, i cant be of any help, but best to keep bumping this up until someone that can help you sees it.

I think he was acting for you in your capacity as HR manager during the disciplinary, but not when it turned into a grievance. So it might be that he has always been working for the company. Has he ever acted for you in a personal capacity or always in your role working for the company. If he has always worked for the company and never explicitly for you, then I don't think there is a conflict. However, whether he should have told you and not spoken to you during this process is debateable. I am not a lawyer but use law quite a lot in my role - could any proper lawyers/HR people out there help?

Thanks beachyhead - I am not sure where the boundaries for all of this lie - hence my question.
I guess it could be argued that he was acting on behalf of the company at all times, although I still find it strange that he can be a witness in the grievance and then still be seen to be giving 'impartial'advice to the company in how to proceed.

I'm sorry, but if he was advising you during disciplinary procedures, then he certainly should not have been giving evidence against you as part of a related grievance process! Clear conflict. Only way it wouldn't be is if he wasn't actually acting for you originally - Did he at any point tell you that you needed independent advice?

Have you got a completely independant lawyer now for the rest of these grievance proceedings? Sounds to me very much like you need one. Tell them all of this, it needs to be known so that his evidence can be disallowed in relation to the grievance. Sounds also like you should report him to the law society - phone consumer complaints service on 0845 608 6565 and talk it through with them.

I'm a lawyer btw, but not an expert in professional conduct/ethics

I'm not sure that the lawyer could be said to have acted where there was a conflict of interests in this case (by the way, the Law Society's conduct rules are on their website - there is a section devoted to conflict of interests). If I understand it correctly, the lawyer was advising your company (talking to you, as the HR Manager) on an employment dispute with an employee. The company was his client, not you personally. Now, the company is still his client, and he is advising them on another dispute with an employee - but this time the employee is you. Lawyers are under a professional obligation to reveal all relevant information to their client - so if the lawyer has any infromation which is relevant to the company's case against you, he must tell them.
In fact, it would be misconduct if he failed to do so.

I have tried to think of what, if any, conduct rules he may have breached, but haven't been able to find any (if my understanding is correct and he was advising the company rather than you personally). There is a conduct rule which states that solicitors must make sure, when they are dealing with 'unrepresented third parties' that a retainer does not develop betwen them and the third party 'by implication' - in other words, that someone who is not really the client does not come to beleive that they are a client of the solicitor, and that the solicitor has duties toward them. The difficulty with trying to pursue this argment is that you were not really a 'third party' in the original disciplinary - you were repreenting your company, and it might have been expectd that anything you said to, or did with the knowledge of, the solicitor would not have been a secret from your company either.

I think you may need to focus on the reasons why your grievance failed, and on trying to overturn that decision. If the solicitor told the truth to the company, but you're simply angry that he was involved, I wouldn't think there was much mileage in pursuing a complaint against him. If on the other hand you think the solicitor lied, that must surely be relevant to your case (as well as being an example of serious professional misconduct). Can you get any help from a trade union - a rep or their legal advisors?

Thanks princesspeahead and Ange - having calmed down slightly on the subject I think you are right Ange in that I am angry with him. However I do think that he was 'economical' with the truth in his witness statement (rather than lying). However in order to move this forward I do need to focus on the reasons for the greivance failing. I will be taking it to appeal. However as I am about to give birth soon (due 24 Oct) am I within my rights to appeal but ask for any meetings etc to take place once I have recovered from the birth (e.g Jan?) - sorry I know that this is another question but just thought of it.
TIA again

I'm not an expert on HR matters (complaints about lawyers is 'my thing'!) but ACAS have some information on statutory grievance procedures. Their guide says that, once you have appealed, the employer must arrange a meeting and you must 'take all reasonable steps' to attend the meeting. But there are exceptions, in special circumstances, when the normal rules don't apply. Your circumstances sound special to me! ACAS give advice on the telephone and they are very nice and helpful! You might want to consider what would happen if you decide you want to take this eventually to an employment tribunal - they have tight timescales within which you must make your claim, but I don't know how the timescales are calculated. They certainly expect you to go through your own employer's grievance procedure first, so their time limit might run from the end of the appeal process. You might want to check, in case you need to make a claim early to protect your position.

Any employment lawyers out there?!

Best wishes for the next few weeks.

Be careful about any rules regarding grievance procedures. New rules came into force on 1st October 2004, but, if your case started before that date, the old rules will apply. Check carefully which rules you are looking at before taking any further action.

Thanks - will speak to Acas this afternoon and let you know what happens