People
Bethan Darwin
- DDI: 029 20829120
- bdarwin@darwingray.com
- Qualified
- 1990
- Education
- Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen
- King's College London
- Newcastle Polytechnic
After qualifying in 1990 with Dickinson Dees in Newcastle Bethan joined the London office of Bermans, specialising in commercial litigation and employment law. She became a partner in the city firm Orchard in 1995. In July 1998 she moved to Cardiff and joined Palser Grossman as a partner.
In March 2002 Bethan founded Darwin Gray with Donald Gray.
Bethan specialises in employment law and is one of the highest-profile employment practitioners in Cardiff, making regular appearances on radio and television and featuring often in the local press. With over twenty years of experience, she acts primarily for large employers and for senior executives and directors and is rated Band 1for employment law in Chambers UK 2010.
Bethan’s work for employers covers the full range of employment law issues including drafting contracts of employment and handbooks; advising on disciplinary, suspension and grievance issues; equal opportunities and discrimination; Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment (TUPE) transfers and redundancy; and employment tribunal claims. For senior executives she gives advice on entering and leaving employment including negotiating contracts; non-executive directors’ letters of appointment; terms of remuneration and share options; discrimination issues; and severance packages, including bonus entitlements. A large proportion of her instructions come from London-based clients and Bethan spends a fair bit of time in London for work purposes.
She also advises both employers and employees on litigation and insolvency issues involving directors including restrictive covenants, confidentiality, directors’ duties, disqualification proceedings and wrongful and fraudulent trading.
Bethan is a native Welsh-speaker. She advocates her own cases in the Employment Tribunal and lectures at training seminars including Cardiff University’s Employment Tribunal Skills and Discrimination Law Course. She also volunteers at Cardiff Law Centre.
Bethan is also the organiser of the women’s networking organisation, Superwoman, which provides an opportunity for business women to hear from high-profile speakers, network and share business information - while also raising money for charity. Superwoman’s website is at www.superwoman.org.uk.
In 2009 was short-listed both for the South Wales Chamber of Commerce Woman in Business award and for Red Magazine’s “Red Hot Women” awards in the mentor category. In 2010 she was one of the lawyers featured in the Lawyer’s Hot 100 report.
Examples of work undertaken
Employment and HR
- Representing senior executives on terms of departure from City employers such as BNP, Exane, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Nomura International;
- Successfully defending a firm of civil engineers against claims brought by self employed workers in the Employment Tribunal that they should be classed as employees;
- Acting for a plc in a claim against a former employee for breach of restrictive covenant, including obtaining an injunction restraining further breach;
- Acting for a director in a claim against a former employer for breach of his five year employment contract, involving claims in both the High Court and Employment Tribunal;
- Advising on a large scale redundancy exercise involving a 90 day consultation period with the trade union and elected employee representatives;
- Acting on a large scale TUPE transfer and a subsequent redundancy exercise involving consultation with elected employee representatives;
- Successfully defending a director against disqualification proceedings and obtaining indemnity costs at trial.
Memberships
- Employment Lawyers Association
Interests
Chance would be a fine thing! Bethan’s first novel Back Home was published by Honno in March 2009 and her second, Two Times Twenty, comes out in October 2010.
