The Employment Rights Act 2025: Getting Your Own House in Order

Legal practices spend their time advising clients on compliance — but are you ready for the changes that will affect your own people?

Law firms are understandably focused on advising clients through the Employment Rights Act 2025. However, in the rush to build expertise and develop client-facing guidance, there is a risk of overlooking something rather closer to home, your own workforce.

Legal practices are employers too, and many of the Act's reforms will land squarely on how firms recruit, manage, and retain their own staff from partners and solicitors through to paralegals, trainees, secretaries, and support teams. The phased implementation, running from early 2026 through to 2027, means the window for preparation is already narrowing.

Here is what your firm should be doing right now.

Recruitment: The Six-Month Clock Is Already Ticking

From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months, and the statutory compensation cap disappears entirely. That might sound comfortably distant, but the practical implications are immediate. Anyone your firm employs on or before 1 July 2026 will have accrued the necessary six months' service by the time the new rules bite. Recruitment decisions you are making today will be subject to the new regime.

For legal practices, where hiring cycles for trainees, newly qualified solicitors, and support staff often involve long lead times, this demands urgent attention.

What to do now:

• Review your recruitment processes end to end. Are you using structured interviews and competency-based assessments, or relying on informal conversations and gut instinct? The cost of a poor hire is about to increase significantly.
• Tighten up referencing. Ensure you are obtaining and properly considering references before confirming appointments, not as an afterthought.
• Be realistic about role requirements. Job descriptions and person specifications should accurately reflect what the role demands, so there is a clear benchmark against which to assess performance from day one.

Probation and Performance Management: No More Waiting It Out

Under the current two-year qualifying period, many firms have whether consciously or not relied on the ability to part ways with underperforming staff relatively easily during their first two years. That safety net is about to shrink dramatically.

With unfair dismissal protection arising at six months and no cap on compensation, firms need robust probationary processes and early, documented performance management.

What to do now:

• Review your probation policy. Does it set clear objectives, provide for structured review meetings at defined intervals, and establish what happens if standards aren't met? Many firms' policies are vague or applied inconsistently.
• Train supervising partners and managers on conducting effective probationary reviews. In a busy practice, it's easy for a six-month probation period to pass without meaningful assessment. That habit needs to change.
• Ensure performance concerns are documented and addressed early. Informal conversations that are not followed up in writing won't protect the firm if a dismissal is challenged. Build a culture where constructive feedback is given promptly and recorded properly.
• Consider whether your appraisal and supervision processes for all staff, not just those on probation, are fit for purpose. The removal of the compensation cap means the financial exposure from any unfair dismissal claim increases, regardless of the employee's length of service.

Day-One Leave Entitlements: Update Your Systems Before April

From 6 April 2026, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave become day-one rights. Your firm's HR systems, policies, and onboarding documentation need to reflect this.

What to do now:

• Update your staff handbook and family leave policies to remove any qualifying period for paternity and unpaid parental leave.
• Brief your HR team or office manager (in smaller firms, this may be a practice manager or senior partner) on the changes so that new starters are given correct information from their first day.
• Check that your payroll and absence management systems can accommodate the change. If you're still recording eligibility based on length of service, that needs updating before April.

Statutory Sick Pay: A Bigger Impact Than You Might Think

The removal of the lower earnings limit and the three-day waiting period for SSP means more of your staff will qualify, and they'll qualify sooner. SSP will be payable from day one of sickness absence.

For firms employing part-time secretaries, junior support staff, or paralegals on lower salaries some of whom may previously have fallen below the earnings threshold this is a real change.

What to do now:

• Identify any staff who currently fall below the lower earnings limit and plan for them being brought into scope.
• Update your sickness absence policy to reflect the removal of the waiting period. Staff should be told that SSP now applies from the first day of absence.
• Review your approach to sickness absence management more broadly. With SSP payable earlier, you may see a slight increase in short-term absence costs. Make sure your firm has clear, consistently applied absence management procedures.

Sexual Harassment: The Duty Is Getting Tougher

From October 2026, the standard shifts from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment, and a new duty to protect employees from third-party harassment comes into force.

Law firms are not immune from these issues. The dynamics of legal practice late nights, client entertainment, hierarchical working relationships, and high-pressure environments can create risk. Client-facing roles also bring third-party exposure, whether from clients, barristers, or contacts at networking events.

What to do now:

• Carry out a risk assessment specific to your firm. Where are the pinch points? Think about client-facing situations, social events, power dynamics between senior and junior staff, and remote or hybrid working.
• Review your anti-harassment policy. Does it explicitly address third-party harassment? Does it set out clear reporting channels, and do staff trust them?
• Invest in training not a tick-box e-learning module, but meaningful, face-to-face sessions that engage people at every level. Partners and senior associates need to understand that they set the tone.
• Consider appointing a harassment champion or designated contact person, particularly in larger firms, to whom concerns can be raised informally.

Tribunal Time Limits: Adjust Your Expectations

The extension of employment tribunal time limits from three to six months, effective October 2026, applies to claims brought by your own staff as well as your clients' employees. Former employees will have twice as long to bring claims, which changes the risk profile of departures, grievances, and settlement discussions.

What to do now:

• Review your record-keeping practices. If a claim can now be brought six months after the event, your firm needs to be confident that file notes, emails, and meeting records are being retained and are retrievable.
• Factor the extended time limits into any exit or settlement discussions. The longer window means disgruntled former employees have more time to seek advice and take action.
• Ensure that your managers understand the significance of following fair processes consistently the increased window for claims makes procedural shortcuts riskier.

Zero-Hours and Flexible Arrangements: Audit What You Actually Do

Many legal practices use some form of casual, ad hoc, or zero-hours arrangement whether for temporary secretarial cover, paralegal support during busy periods, or document review projects. The Act's provisions on guaranteed hours and shift notice requirements, expected in 2027, will require employers to offer guaranteed hours based on actual working patterns over a reference period.

Separately, flexible working requests will require employers to explain their reasoning for refusal and demonstrate that the decision was reasonable a higher bar than the current framework.

What to do now:

• Audit your use of casual and zero-hours arrangements. How many people does your firm engage on this basis, and what hours are they actually working? Start collecting data now so you can model the impact of guaranteed-hours obligations.
• Review your approach to flexible working. Legal practices have historically been resistant to flexible working, but the direction of travel is clear. Firms that develop a genuine, structured approach to considering requests rather than treating them as inconveniences will be better placed both legally and in terms of recruitment and retention.
• Document your decision-making on flexible working requests. Under the new rules, a simple "no" won't be enough. You'll need to explain which of the statutory grounds for refusal applies and why the refusal is reasonable in the circumstances.

Whistleblowing: Make Sure Your Own Channels Work

From April 2026, sexual harassment becomes a qualifying disclosure under whistleblowing law. Staff who blow the whistle on harassment within your firm will be protected from detriment and unfair dismissal.

What to do now:

• Review your whistleblowing policy to ensure it expressly covers sexual harassment disclosures.
• Consider whether your reporting channels are genuinely accessible and trusted. In smaller firms particularly, the person to whom a disclosure should be made may be part of the problem. External reporting options or independent contacts should be available.
• Train all staff on what whistleblowing protection means in practice, and ensure that anyone receiving a disclosure knows how to handle it properly.

Fire and Rehire: Check Your Restructuring Playbook

From January 2027, dismissing and re-engaging staff on worse terms will be automatically unfair in most cases. While wholesale restructuring may be less common in legal practices than in other sectors, it isn't unheard of particularly in the context of mergers, office relocations, or changes to remuneration structures.

What to do now:

• Review any planned or anticipated restructuring to ensure it doesn't rely on fire and rehire as a fallback.
• If changes to terms and conditions are needed, plan to achieve them through genuine consultation and agreement rather than unilateral imposition.

Equality Action Plans: Start Early If You're a Larger Firm

Firms with 250 or more employees will be required to publish gender pay gap and menopause action plans. Many larger firms already report gender pay gap data, but the requirement to produce and publish an accompanying action plan is new.

What to do now:

• If you are close to or above the 250-employee threshold, start drafting your equality action plan now. Don't wait for the publication deadline.
• Engage with the forthcoming menopause guidance. Consider what support your firm already offers and where there are gaps particularly for fee earners managing demanding caseloads alongside menopause symptoms.
• Treat this as a genuine opportunity to improve your firm's culture and offering, not just a reporting exercise.

The Bigger Picture: Lead by Example

Legal practices occupy a unique position in relation to the Employment Rights Act. You will be advising clients on compliance, defending and bringing tribunal claims under the new rules, and simultaneously navigating the changes as employers yourselves.

There is a reputational dimension to this. A firm that advises clients on best practice but fails to meet those standards internally will find that disconnect difficult to sustain, particularly in a profession where staff turnover is high and word travels fast.

The practical steps are not complicated, but they do require commitment. Invest time in reviewing your policies, train your people, tighten your processes, and don't assume that being a law firm means you are automatically compliant. Start now, and you will be well placed both to support your clients and to protect your own practice as the changes take effect.

Key Dates for Your Firm's Diary

Date	What It Means for Your Practice
6 April 2026	Day-one paternity and parental leave; SSP from day one; whistleblowing covers sexual harassment; protective award doubles to 180 days
7 April 2026	Fair Work Agency launches — centralised enforcement begins
October 2026	"All reasonable steps" harassment duty; third-party harassment; tribunal time limits double to six months; trade union access rights
1 January 2027	Unfair dismissal at six months' service; no compensation cap; fire and rehire restrictions
2027 (various)	Bereavement leave; zero-hours reform; equality and menopause action plans; flexible working changes

This article is intended as general guidance and does not constitute legal advice.