Job Specifications
Location: London
Type: Full-time, Fixed Term Contract
Salary: Competitive
We are growing and looking for an ambitious, curious, dynamic and technically skilled person to join our team as Senior Employment Lawyer / Head of Employment Law, an experienced professional in law and leadership who combines deep expertise in UK employment law and investigations with a sophisticated understanding of workplace culture, people dynamics, and the legal risk landscape that sits beneath organisational behaviour.
This role requires someone who can bring together the technical rigour of legal practice, the human-centred understanding of how cultures form and fail, and the agility and pace required in a client-facing consultancy environment.
As Senior Employment Lawyer / Head of Employment Law, you will have strategic and operational oversight of Howlett Brown’s Investigations and Advisory departments, ensuring all work is legally robust, culturally aware, ethically grounded, high-quality and commercially practical. You will supervise complex matters end-to-end, provide astute legal judgement, and support clients navigating intricate intersections between law, behaviour, culture, risk and organisational governance.
Who We Are
We are a people intelligence company. We support organisations to build environments where integrity, inclusion, innovation and purpose thrive and where people risk remains low.
We specialise in:
Investigations
Advisory (legal, HR, employee relations, governance, culture)
Culture & Sustainability
DEEI (diversity, equity, equality & inclusion)
Training, Coaching & Facilitation
Resolve Routes (conflict resolution support)
Connected Communications
Business Intelligence
Independent Speak Up Services
We are the first people intelligence company in the UK regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Role Overview
The Senior Employment Lawyer / Head of Employment Law will serve as the senior legal leadership figure for the Investigations and Advisory functions.
This role combines:
Legal oversight and supervision
Investigation oversight
Employment law, HR and ER expertise
Cultural and behavioural intelligence
Organisational risk assessment
You will ensure all work delivered by both teams reflects a deep understanding of how organisational culture influences risk, how behaviours manifest in workplaces, and how legal obligations intersect with cultural systems.
You will:
Provide legal supervision across investigations and advisory matters
Oversee numerous complex matters simultaneously
Interact and liaise with clients and their needs, emerging and immediate in relation to investigations and Advisory
Identify and mitigate legal, cultural, reputational and regulatory risks
Own matters end-to-end and provide practical, strategic legal direction
Support clients in understanding and addressing the root causes of issues, not just the symptoms
This is a role for someone who can confidently navigate legal issues in context, understanding not just the law, but the cultural, behavioural and systemic conditions in which issues arise.
Leadership & Departmental Responsibilities
The successful candidate will:
Strategic Leadership
Lead and develop both the Investigations and Advisory departments, ensuring seamless integration of legal, cultural, and risk-based perspectives.
Drive and complete strategic plans as well as adapt in ways that reflects evolving legal requirements, emerging workplace culture trends, and organisational risk dynamics.
Contribute to company-wide leadership, strategy, risk discussions and governance.
Team Leadership & Legal Supervision
Supervise, mentor and develop legal, investigations and advisory professionals.
Provide legal oversight on investigation plans, evidence analysis, findings, recommendations and quality assurance processes - ensuring cultural dynamics and legal risk are fully integrated into the investigative approach.
Ensure advisory outputs account for legal risk, cultural drivers, organisational behaviour patterns, and systemic risks while remaining legally sound.
Build a high-performing, multidisciplinary team that understands both the legal and cultural dimensions of workplace risk.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Collaborate with senior leaders across all HB service lines to deliver multidisciplinary, culturally informed, legally robust solutions.
Support the evolution of an integrated people-risk offering for clients.
Matter Responsibilities
The Senior Employment Lawyer / Head of Employment Law will take ownership of, supervise and/or deliver:
Complex Investigations
Oversee and advise on investigations involving:
discrimination, harassment, bullying
conduct and behaviour issues
whistleblowing and protected disclosures
ethics, compliance and governance breaches
safeguarding concerns
Ensure all investigations consider cultural context, systemic patterns, and behavioural drivers alongside
About the Company
Howlett Brown is a people intelligence company specialising in employee investigations, culture and HR consulting solutions.
We exist to help employers operate their business in an environment where their people risk is low and their integrity, inclusion and revenue thrive.
Our approach to people intelligence is unique. We have over three decades of experience in investigations, legal services, workplace culture, inclusion strategy, eDiscovery and law enforcement.
We provide hands-on support and strategic solutions which...
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