Sophie Vanhegan

Practice Areas

Sophie is acknowledged as a leading lawyer in the UK employment law arena and has extensive experience in both High Court employment litigation and strategic advisory work. Her practice encompasses all aspects of UK employment law, including injunctions, team moves, unfair dismissals, bonuses and discrimination. She has experience of outsourcings, TUPE, company restructures, redundancies and regulatory issues.

Sophie’s recent client experience includes successfully advising a FinTech company on enforcing a non-compete restriction against a former senior employee who had joined a competitor; defending a financial services firm in a multi-million pound discrimination dispute with a former employee; defending a bank in a high value whistleblowing dispute; advising a bank on a protracted financial misconduct investigation involving a regulated person; and advising a major financial services client on a restructuring of its bonus deferral arrangements. She has also advised a range of clients on reopening their workplaces following the COVID-19 lockdowns and navigating new hybrid working models.

Career

Sophie worked at Linklaters until 2012 before joining GQ|Littler. At Linklaters Sophie undertook a five-month secondment to global investment bank RBS to assist with restructuring issues, following RBS's acquisition of ABN AMRO. Sophie was promoted to partner in 2015.

Professional Memberships

Employment Lawyers Association.