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08 January 2020 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7869 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Employment law brief: 9 January 2020

13677
Ian Smith gets on his bike post-Christmas to deliver a welcome refresher course for employment geeks & those with a general interest
  • Is a courier a ‘worker’ and where are the limits of whistleblowing protection?
  • The legal status of a tribunal and how the non-technical approach to early conciliation can disadvantage the claimant, not just the respondent.

Given the result of the general election, it is now not urgent for employment lawyers to re-read the classic texts and dig out old law school notes to remind themselves what a trade union is and just what can be lawfully done in the course of industrial action. Instead, this first column of 2020 concentrates on two substantive issues of individual employment law (is a courier a ‘worker’ and where are the limits of whistleblowing protection?) and two procedural issues (the legal status of a tribunal and how the non-technical approach to early conciliation can disadvantage the claimant, not just the respondent).

Legal status of motorbike couriers

With the appeal

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Leasehold enfranchisement specialist joins residential property team

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NEWS
The High Court’s refusal to recognise a prolific sperm donor as a child’s legal parent has highlighted the risks of informal conception arrangements, according to Liam Hurren, associate at Kingsley Napley, in NLJ this week
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Mazur may have settled questions around litigation supervision, but the profession should not simply ‘move on’, argues Jennifer Coupland, CEO of CILEX, in this week's NLJ
A simple phrase like ‘subject to references’ may not protect employers as much as they think. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, analyses recent employment cases showing how conditional job offers can still create binding contracts

An engagement ring may symbolise romance, but the courts remain decidedly practical about who keeps it after a split, writes Mark Pawlowski, barrister and professor emeritus of property law at the University of Greenwich, in this week's NLJ

Medical reporting organisation fees have become ‘the final battleground’ in modern costs litigation, says Kris Kilsby, costs lawyer at Peak Costs and council member of the Association of Costs Lawyers, in this week's NLJ
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