Congratulations To Rebecca Monk
Many congratulations to Rebecca Monk who turned 30 today.
Rebecca is based in our Saffron Walden office and received lots of presents from the staff and bouquet from the partners.
Wear It Pink Day 2019
The ladies in Adams Harrison again supported this year’s Wear It Pink day.
Breast Cancer Now’s wear it pink day is one of the UK’s biggest fundraising events, having raised over £33 million since launching in 2002. To see more about this charity please visit www.wearitpink.org
A total of £84 was raised across the three offices.
Business & Law Careers Fair at Anglia Ruskin University
A small team from Adams Harrison, Lisa Thornhill, Solicitor at the Sawston office and Sue Lawton, attended this Business and Law Careers Fair at the Anglia Ruskin University.
We received a really nice “Thank You” from them.
Sincere thanks for contributing to the success of our Business & Law Careers Fair yesterday.
We had over 200 student visitors and the feedback was excellent. Students commented on how valuable an opportunity it was to meet employers and find out about future jobs in their sector, as well as receiving tips on how to make their application stand out.
I know how difficult it is to find time in your busy diary to support events like these and I appreciate your time and effort.
Emma Jennings | BA (Hons) PGDip
Employability & Careers Adviser
Congratulations to Lucy Potter
Congratulations to Lucy Potter on 15 years service at Adams Harrison – the partners bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Lucy.
Wills for Second Marriages
There are a large number of people who have been married more than once and who have children from previous marriages or relationships.
It is important to understand how the law works if you die without leaving a Will in this situation. A marriage automatically revokes any existing Will unless that Will was made in contemplation of marriage.
If you remarry and do not remake a Will, when you die leaving this second spouse and children from a previous relationship and perhaps children from the current marriage; your estate will be distributed under the Intestacy Rules. Your new spouse will inherit the first £250,000 of your estate. The remaining value of your estate is then split into two. The new spouse will inherit the first share outright and the second share will pass to your children equally.
Depending on the value of your estate, your new spouse could potentially inherit the whole of your estate with nothing passing to your children.
You must review your circumstances and make a Will after re-marriage or in contemplation of that marriage.
You should also consider that if you and your new spouse make mirror image Wills, there is nothing to stop your spouse from changing their Will at any time after your death.
To protect your children you could consider including a trust in your Will. There are various types of trust; in particular, a life interest trust or right of residence. This allows for your new spouse to benefit from the trust assets during their lifetime, but after their death, the assets can pass to your children. This ring fences the assets in the trust from your spouse’s assets so that the trust assets cannot be given away under their Will.
The usual asset to place in such a trust is your share of your property. It is important that if you own the property jointly that you hold as tenants in common. This means that both owners have their own individual share in the property which would pass under the terms of their respective Wills rather than pass automatically by survivorship to the surviving spouse.
Our will writing team can provide guidance, explaining how to ensure that you provide for your loved ones after your death.
Sarah Bruce
Legal Executive Wills Trust & Probate
Saffron Walden Bubblerush Result
We have just received the following update from Emily Rush, Fundraiser at EACH;
I just wanted to let you know that we’ve just announced our total raised from the Bubble Rush across social media last night/this morning! (You can take a look here) We raised an amazing £11,920.25, with over 750 participants. We’re really pleased with how the event went, and have received lots of feedback from people keen to come back next year!
Thanks so much again for your support of the event, and kind regards,
Emily Rush
Saffron Walden Bubble Rush 2019 Pictures
Adams Harrison were proud sponsors of the Bubble Rush on Sunday 29th September 2019.
The event was organised by East Anglian Children’s Hospice to raise money for this charity.
The firm had a team of all ages participating running through foam.
Congratulations to Lily Grayson
Big congratulations to Lily Grayson of our Haverhill office on passing her Pitmans Typing exam
Discrimination Claims Against Employers.
It is the Equality Act 2010 that establishes the ability to bring action for unlawful discrimination. It is only in relation to a “protected characteristic” that action can be brought. The reason for the unfavourable treatment/discrimination must be due to a “protected characteristic” for the individual to be afforded protection under the act. So what is a “protected characteristic”? The Act dictates that the following are:-
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and Civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
Each protected characteristic has a statutory definition under the Act and therefore must be looked at carefully before unlawful discrimination can be established. Interpreting the meaning of each protected characteristic gives rise to various case law.
A recent case heard by an Employment Tribunal on 10th September 2019 (Conisbee v Crossley Farms Ltd and others) held that vegetarianism was not a “belief” qualifying for protection under the Act. Mr Conisbee alleged that he had suffered discrimination on the ground of religion or belief, his belief being vegetarianism. The Employment Tribunal held that although his belief was genuinely held and was worthy of respect in democratic society it failed to meet the other legal hurdles for protection under the Act. In their judgement the Tribunal ruled that it did not have a similar status or cogency to religious beliefs.
This decision does not have to be followed by other Tribunals in the future but is an interesting approach to what amounts to a “belief” for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010.
Who is protected? Under the Act there is a wide range of potential claimants for discrimination claims. This includes the following:-
- Employees
- Job applicants
- Contract Workers
- Agency Workers
- The police
- Individuals in a business partnership
If you consider you have suffered unlawful discrimination then please seek our advice. Do not delay. There are strict time limits for bringing a claim to an Employment Tribunal, whereby claims must be brought within three months of the date the discrimination occurred.
Jennifer Carpenter
Employment Specialist solicitor
Haverhill Schools Career Fair 2019
Adams Harrison supported the recent Haverhill Schools Career Fair held at the Samuel Ward School.
Children from three different schools in the area, Samuel Ward, Castle Manor and Churchill, attended the event run throughout the day on Friday 20th September, Students were given the opportunity to find out about what opportunities there were for them in the workplace.
The Police, NHS, Army, Customs and a host of other stands were there for the students to come along and find out what is involved and what qualifications they would need to be accepted.
In the photo is Practice Manager Sue Lawton addressing a group of students. Sue and Anton Bilinski, a Chartered Legal Executive, had a lot of enquiries from students looking to go into the law. Matt Hancock the local MP for the area attended to officially open the event.
After the Fair we received the following feedback, from Glen Todd of New Anglia LEP
Thank you all for attending and supporting with the first Haverhill Careers Fair on Friday. Your participation was very much appreciated by the students and staff at Samuel Ward Academy, Castle Manor Academy and Churchill Special Free School. In all we had approximately 1500 pupils attend on the day and we received extremely positive feedback from students and teachers.
The significance of your attendance to the young people I believe can be highlighted by the below research.
“Young adults who have greater levels of contact with employers while at school are five times less likely to become not in education, employer or training (NEET) and can expect, when in full-time employment, to earn up to 18% more than peers who had no such employer engagement.” https://www.educationandemployers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/its_who_you_meet_final_26_06_12.pdf
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