We are delighted to offer our academy clients a cost-effective, competitive and sector-focused retainer package for your day-to-day employment/HR legal advice needs
We understand that you will be keen to keep costs to a minimum whilst receiving expert, timely and appropriate legal advice to reduce the risk of financial loss and reputational risk to your Trust. When legal issues escalate and become protracted, this impacts on staff time and internal resource, putting additional strain on the Trust at an already difficult time.
Our aim is to become a key part of your in-house team. We are keen to work alongside your senior leadership/management team, supporting them as required with key decisions to help avoid legal issues from escalating and effectively manage issues at an early stage. We also work with you to assist the Board to ensure that the Trust remains compliant with all relevant law and regulation.
How it works
You will pay a fixed monthly fee for up to three hours of advice by phone or email per issue (and there is no limit to the number of issues on which advice may be sought each month) in any areas of legal need.
If a particular issue is complex and will require more advice than is covered by the retainer, or if any face-to-face meetings are required, this will fall outside the scope of the retainer package, and will instead be carried out for you at our discounted academy rates.
The benefit of this arrangement is that it provides you with certainty of legal costs and the comfort that support and guidance is available at the end of the phone. In our experience, this arrangement encourages essential regular and early contact with us free from anxiety about costs. This assists us to help you avoid issues escalating and to ‘nip issues in the bud’ wherever possible.
Added value
In addition to the great value legal advice you will receive, as an academies employment retainer package client you will also have the benefit of the following added value services from us:
- A dedicated Client Relationship Manager, who will arrange a review call or meeting with you every year to discuss your satisfaction with our services.
- Regular newsletter updates – we produce a range of regular newsletters and e-bulletin updates including our ‘Education Matters’ and ‘HR Matters’ publications, which are specifically relevant for our education and employment clients.
- Access to BOSS online employment portal, which will enable you to access and download employment guidance notes, template documents and legal updates.
- Invitations to events and seminars – in particular, you might be interested in sending your Head of HR to attend our regular employment law ‘Early Bird’ seminars.
What does it cost?
We will agree with you an initial fixed monthly fee for your retainer arrangement. The exact cost will be determined based on the size of the academy trust (by reference to number of schools, pupil numbers and staff numbers).
It is important to us that our retainer arrangement works well for our clients and provides you with good value whilst also working for us. Your fixed monthly fee will therefore be reviewed every six months*.
* Please note that following the review we reserve the right to terminate the retainer, increase the monthly fee or decrease the monthly fee.
Non-retainer options
If you need employment/HR support for your Trust but would prefer to no to commit to retainer package, we are pleased to offer a range of fixed fee and pay-as-you-go options to suit your needs. Please do get in touch with us to explore these options further.
About Birketts’ Education Team
Our Education Team comprises lawyers with a particular commitment to this sector. The team is multi-disciplinary, bringing together senior lawyers with significant experience in advising a wide range of education institutions.
In addition to being a full-service law firm, our Education Team has extensive experience advising academy trusts on a day-to-day basis. We have detailed technical knowledge of the relevant constraints imposed by both education and charity law, and the experience and expertise to advise quickly and comprehensively on all of your activities.
We are committed to the sector and many of our lawyers hold roles as governors of school and board members of academies.
Our approach is both commercial and practical. We appreciate our clients’ need to focus on outcomes and solutions while taking into account budgets, regulations and reputation. We deliver a personal service and spend time getting to know our clients and how we can best support their objectives.
If you would like to chat to someone about using our services, please contact our Academies Lead, Jennifer Marley [insert contact details]. Alternatively, please email us at [email protected] requesting a call back.
We offer a free initial consultation to any academy trusts interested in purchasing our academies retainer package. If you are interested in discussing this with us, please contact Liz Brownsell by email at [email protected] or +44 1473 406383. Alternatively, please email us at [email protected] requesting a call back.
Key Contacts
