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Portrait of Daff Richardson

Profile

Daff is a partner in the firm’s employment team and co-leads the education sector group. Her practice for employers focuses mainly on tech and education sector clients, to whom she gives strategic advice on developing areas of employment law, as well as handling sensitive individual and collective employee relations situations, including guidance on business protection issues, re-organisations and restructuring, and senior executive appointments and departures. She also frequently acts for senior executives individually on disputes with their employers, severance arrangements and restrictive covenants.

Daff’s education work involves advising institutions on student matters (including complaints, disciplinary matters such as harassment, fitness to study and Equality Act issues), governance and employment in relation to academic staff. She also advises employment and education clients on data protection questions including complex data subject access requests, data breaches and general compliance with data protection legislation.

She is recognised as a leader in her field in the legal directories where clients have praised her approach to their work. Chambers UK notes that ‘she is extremely personable, very relaxed which in turn relaxes the client, and has a great deal of gravitas, building confidence in what you are trying to do’. She is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association.

Recent work highlights

  • Leading a team assisting a major training provider on a significant workforce restructuring, including collective consultation and voluntary redundancy.
  • Advising the CEO of a listed company on her severance arrangements.
  • Advising a qualifications provider on the implications of the new off-payroll workers rules and drafting documents to assist with their decisions on worker status.
  • Advising a higher education institution on a complicated data protection issue, including managing the withdrawal of consent by the data subject.
  • Assisting a higher education institution with management of student complaints, and defending a claim brought under the Equality Act by an undergraduate student.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC311575 and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 419867.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP