James Froud
Head of Employment
Experienced employment lawyer and trusted adviser, committed to delivering pragmatic, timely, strategic and cost effective counsel to clients.
What we say about James
James’ practice is diverse. He acts for businesses and individuals across a range of sectors advising on all aspects of the employment relationship, from recruitment to termination. James is particularly interested in and recognised for work involving:
– Employee competition and confidentiality issues, advising on restrictive covenant enforcement, team moves, misuse of confidential information and conduct of High Court legal proceedings;
– Handling employment tribunal claims, involving anything from straightforward unfair dismissal and breach of contract claims to complex discrimination and whistleblowing allegations;
– Managing and co-ordinating local and multi-country restructuring projects, involving the application of TUPE and redundancy dismissals;
– Workplace investigations;
– Advising on employment status issues;
– Partnership and LLP disputes.
James trained at Eversheds, qualifying as a solicitor in 2002, before moving to and becoming a Partner at Bird & Bird where he spent 13 years contributing to the development and growth of its international employment practice. During his career James has been instructed by many well-known brands and leading individuals. His corporate clients include multi-national technology and communications giants, Premier League football clubs, manufacturers of ubiquitous household products, ‘Big 4’ management consultancies, global law firms, international publishing houses and financial institutions. Individual clients have hailed from a variety of industries including music and television, Formula One Racing, professional football, publishing, insurance, banking and finance.
James also has the benefit of extensive in-house experience, having served as sole UK employment counsel at Yahoo! for nearly two years and undertaken a number of virtual secondments for multi-national companies. He therefore understands the challenges faced by businesses with international footprints and the need for pragmatic, co-ordinated, commercially savvy advice.
James is an active commentator on legal developments affecting the workplace. He has taken part in panel discussions and lectured extensively on a variety of ‘HR law’ issues. Examples of published materials include writing for the UK national press (The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian) as well as industry periodicals on topics such as employment law in sport, use of social media, protecting trade secrets, and the rise of automation and robotics. James has also appeared on national radio and international television (BBC World News) to discuss emerging themes as they connect with employment law.
James is passionate about making use of technology to support client needs and is keen to work with businesses to build tech-based legal solutions which deliver on quality and price. Recently he was responsible for developing one of the first apps to provide international employment law support to HR and in-house legal teams.
James is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association and European Employment Lawyers Association.