The firm
Labour law and nothing else. We do not do commercial work, we do not do family law, and we do not draft the employment clause in somebody's sale agreement. Everybody here spends all day on the Labour Relations Act.
Who you will deal with
Director · Employer side and chair
Admitted 2010. Disciplinary codes, retrenchment processes, and chairing hearings for employers who want a process that survives scrutiny rather than one that reaches a particular outcome.
LLB (UWC) · Admitted attorney of the High Court
Director · Employee side
Admitted 2013. Unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal and unfair labour practice referrals, and preparing employees to run their own arbitrations where representation is refused.
BA LLB (Stellenbosch) · Admitted attorney
Associate · Litigation
Admitted 2019. Labour Court reviews and urgent applications, for whichever side is instructing on the matter.
LLB (UCT) · Admitted attorney
The conflict rule
This is the question every client asks, so it is answered in full rather than in a sentence.
We act for one side in any given dispute. There is no arrangement, no information barrier and no "different director" version of this. One matter, one client.
It is why the first question is the other party’s name rather than what happened. Two minutes, before anything privileged has been said, and if there is a conflict you are told immediately and referred on.
If we act for an employer on retainer and one of its employees telephones us, the employee is told at once. They are not taken on and then quietly under-served, which is the version of this that does real harm.
What an employer tells us about its disciplinary practice does not reach an employee we act for at another company. A firm that would move your opponent’s information would move yours, and would not be worth instructing from either direction.
Why it is a strength
Sitting as an independent chairperson in other people’s hearings is the fastest way to learn which procedural shortcuts are obvious from the front of the room. It makes us better on both sides of the table afterwards.
An employer who has read what we tell employees about consistency and about contemporaneous notes usually changes how it runs the next hearing. That is the service rather than a leak.
Conflicts, hopeless cases, and matters where the honest answer is to settle. A labour firm that took every call would be earning from process rather than from outcomes.
It is a fair question, and the answer is a conflict check that we will run before you tell us anything.