At one time only musicians looked to get a ‘gig’. The rest of us found ‘proper jobs’ that paid a fixed monthly salary with holidays and let us plan for the future with some legal rights.Today more of us have left this traditional job model to try to make a living working for ourselves on one-off ‘gigs’ –as temporary workers, independent contractors or people selling their skills through websites. The ‘gig economy’ has firmly entered employment vocabulary, becoming a catch-all term for anything from Uber taxi drivers and Airbnb hosts to freelance professionals. It is a relatively small but growing…

A number of companies have announced plans to cut back on staff benefits to cope with the cost of the new national living wage.But is this legal? Could there be alternative ways to manage the hike in staff salaries? When the new regulations were announced in 2015, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that the wage rise to £7.20 per hour for those aged 25 and over, which is due to rise to £9 by 2020, would lead to the loss of 60,000 jobs and four million fewer working hours per week.Waitrose and Caffè Nero are among the high-street names…

 In March 2015, the Government launched the next step in their strategy to make the Court Service largely self-funding by increasing Court Fees for civil claims to recover money. How much are Court Fees for civil claims?The level of increase for civil claims was far above inflation, with some fees increasing by over 600%. For example, the cost to bring a claim of £200,000 increased from £1,315 to £10,000.The wisdom of increasing these costs by such a large amount has been questioned, especially since in most cases the claim will be settled before trial.This means that for a £200,000 claim,…

The personal information of employees at 280 UK businesses may have been compromised following a data security incident at Sage. As one of Britain’s largest technology companies, Sage supplies accounting and payroll software to companies in 23 countries. However, the event in this case reportedly involves UK companies only.Sage is investigating the unauthorised access to customer information, which is understood to have occurred using an internal computer login. It is not yet clear whether data was stolen or only viewed. The exact date that the data was accessed is also currently unknown.Sage has notified the businesses whose data was involved…

Anyone even remotely familiar with the legal system will be aware of the necessity to prove a case beyond what is known as ‘reasonable doubt’ in order to substantiate a charge being brought.Such a standard requires prosecutors to advance evidence capable of overcoming any objection if they believe that an offence has indeed been committed. Sometimes, of course, the facts put forward to corroborate an allegation of wrong-doing are simply not strong enough to sustain a case or are presented in such a fashion as to leave gaps.If cases collapse as a result, the eventuality is often described as involving…

Along with being half of one of the UK’s best-loved comic partnerships, Ernie Wise merits a place in history for his part in a telecommunications breakthrough.On New Year’s Day 1985, he made the country’s first ever mobile phone call, heralding mass adoption of devices which have become considerably smaller, more powerful and more relied-upon in the three decades since. It is perhaps slightly ironic, though, that even as smartphones have become able to fulfil a much broader range of functions and liberated us from the prospect of having to remain tethered to a landline, calls for constraints on their use…

Post Brangelina split, there appears to be a lot of media coverage surrounding the parties decision to divorce.How different is the process for a celeb than for a ordinary person? It always seems that celebs manage to obtain a “fast-track” divorce often cited as being completed not long after the news of a split. Divorce proceedings in the UK take a minimum of 6 months to complete but can take longer depending on factors relating to how well parties co-operates as well as other issues.There is unfortunately no way of fast tracking a divorce, it will be the same procedure…

Drafting a Will often presents many complexities for the testator to consider. It’s a necessary and worthwhile endeavour for most people because without a Will the estate will be subjected to the rules of intestacy and the deceased will not have any say in how their wealth and assets are distributedOne of the key decisions for the testator to make is who to assign as executor. The role of the executor carries a lot of responsibility and is not something to just be dished out at random. Simply put, an executor is a person who will carry out the testator’s…

Divorce is an emotionally turbulent time for everyone involved. If the separating couple have children, then, naturally, they will remain the main priority when making arrangements, but there are so many other issues to be sorted out. And one of the main questions will be what will happen to the family home.Deciding what will happen to a couple’s property can be a major stumbling block in a separation because as well as almost certainly being the major financial asset in the relationship, it may also hold many emotional connotations – much more than mere bricks and mortar. Depending on what…

Spending too much time online is not necessarily a good thing for any relationship. However, the lure of those glowing screens can provide a distraction for many, providing people with countless ways to avoid having a face-to-face conversation with their spouse.A big portion of online activity revolves around social media sites – which, despite being invented to bring us closer together, may ironically be a key culprit in driving partners apart. These sites can be damaging, presenting couples with false representations of their friends’ perfect relationships, which will inevitably be compared to the flawed reality of their own. But while…