Jane Saunders

Director

About Jane

Jane Saunders is a director in the Labor & Employment team based in the Manchester office. Jane advises on all areas of contentious and non-contentious employment law.

In particular, Jane advises on cross-border and large-scale restructuring and project matters, as well as the employment aspects of corporate finance transactions. Jane advises clients on the full range of day-to-day employment law and industrial relations issues. Jane acts on complex and high-value Employment Tribunal claims. Jane also forms part of the firm’s investigations team.

Jane designs and delivers bespoke in-house training to clients and regularly speaks at client seminars and workshops.

Jane holds many long-standing relationships with clients of the firm, having trained with the firm and spent four months of her training contract working in the Brussels office.

Experience

  • Advising an international client on an EMEA-wide restructure affecting employees in 13 jurisdictions, including advice regarding consultation with the EWC.
  • Advising a large international organisation in the manufacturing sector on a change to terms and conditions including renegotiation of the site agreement with the recognised trade union and responding to a ballot for strike action and media campaign by the trade union.
  • Advising a large client in the chemicals sector on the change to terms and conditions of employees at a newly acquired subsidiary business including advice regarding establishment of a staff council and collective consultation to force through the changes.
  • Advising several of the firm’s global clients in relation to their approach to D&I monitoring, where in each case the client wished to implement a worldwide policy detailing its approach to collecting information about candidates’ and employees’ personal characteristics.
  • Working with the firm’s national corporate finance team to advise on all employment aspects of M&A activity, including assessing risk and providing recommendations during due diligence, drafting and negotiating the employment provisions of key transaction documents, drafting and negotiating employment ancillaries (including service agreements, settlement agreements and bonus documentation) and advising on post-completion matters, including restructures, redundancies, changes to terms and conditions and other issues arising from integration.
  • Acting as investigator in relation to internal HR investigations for a number of clients, including those in the public sector, media sector, tech sector and telecommunications sector.
  • Working with a team of investigators to investigate allegations of race discrimination made by a former employee of a professional sports club, where those allegations and ongoing conduct of the investigation received significant press interest and attention.
  • Advising clients annually in relation to their gender pay gap reporting obligations.
  • Leading and coordinating the hands-on support and strategic advice offered to certain key client(s) of the firm in responding to data subject access requests received from current and former employees.

Credentials

Education
  • The University of Nottingham, LL.B., Honors, 2003
  • Manchester Metropolitan University, L.P.C., 2005
Admissions
  • England and Wales, 2007

Recognitions

  • Named as a Key Lawyer in Legal 500 UK 2027 for Employment – Yorkshire and the Humber, and Employment – North West

Expertise

Services
Labor & Employment

Testimonials

  • “Jane Saunders is a standout lawyer. She is always so helpful, and her advice is always tailored appropriately and strikes the right tone. She is really in tune with our business.” Legal 500 2027

  • “Jane Saunders is incredibly strong and is able to get on top of queries and matters incredibly quickly.” Legal 500 2027