This area covers how employers organise and offer regular, predictable working hours and patterns within employment contracts, including fixed shifts, rosters, and the rights and limits around changes to hours. A solicitor practising in this area drafts, reviews and negotiates contracts and policies that set or adjust working patterns, advises on statutory entitlements, and helps resolve disputes when expectations about hours, overtime or rest breaks are at issue. The work is shaped by statutes such as the Employment Rights Act, the Working Time Regulations and the flexible-working framework, and by guidance from bodies like ACAS.
Where a solicitor protects your position
A solicitor helps protect a client’s position when employers change hours, refuse flexible patterns, or impose shifts that impact health, carers’ responsibilities or income. They advise on the timelines for notices, potential unlawful changes, and remedies including grievances, options to request flexible working, or disciplinary and tribunal processes. The solicitor’s role is to interpret the contract and statutory entitlements, ensure procedural fairness, and prepare or respond to communications with the employer with reference to rights, remedies and evidence requirements.
