Emma Humphreys

Practice Areas

Emma is a Partner in the Employment, Labor and Pensions Group and a member of our specialist Labor team.

Emma is one of the firm’s leading collective labor law and industrial relations lawyers. She has extensive experience in helping companies with difficult labor relations issues and resolving collective disputes. She acts for a range of clients in various sectors, with particular experience of the transport sector.

She frequently provides strategic advice to assist clients in reshaping their union relationships and navigating difficult change projects, often in the context of a complex industrial relations environment.

Emma has advised on some of the most high-profile labor disputes in recent years and has particular expertise in challenging and mitigating industrial action and protests. She has substantial High Court litigation experience, having acted on various interim injunctions challenging the lawfulness of industrial action (representing clients in a number of reported cases). Her litigation experience also extends to the Employment Tribunal where she has dealt with claims in respect of a variety of issues since she qualified in 2013 including unfair dismissal, discrimination and whistleblowing; now focusing on claims which have a collective labor or trade union angle (e.g. blacklisting, trade union detriment etc). Her contentious/non-contentious workload is split approximately 50:50.

Emma’s role goes beyond her expert legal advice on complex areas of law, but also includes helping employers with union negotiations; staff engagement; managing stakeholder relations; and assisting clients to develop their industrial relations strategy.

Her recent experience includes supporting clients with various modernisation projects involving complex advice on the contractual status of proposals, the strategy to be deployed and legal requirements, as well as advising on long-standing industrial action and legal challenges. She also provides practical support in dealing with representatives and communications with staff, providing advice to clients on the impact of s.145B (the law prohibiting unlawful inducements to circumvent collective bargaining) and the Supreme Court decision in Kostal. This has included reviewing existing collective bargaining arrangements to support clients in future negotiations and supporting clients with union recognition matters.

Emma is an accomplished public speaker and regularly speaks at industry events and on behalf of the Employment Lawyers' Association, as well as delivering training to clients on employment/labor law and hosting thought-leadership dinners on key developments in labor law.