Danielle Ayres
Partner at Primas Law
Danielle Ayres is a partner in the employment team at the North West commercial firm Primas Law, and has a particular specialism in matters relating to pregnancy and maternity discrimination. She shares a day in her life with The Brief.
I am a partner in the employment team at Primas Law, a commercial firm with offices in Manchester, Cheshire, Liverpool and London. I joined at the end of 2021 and am part of a team headed by David Walton, with whom I worked at my previous firm.
Primas was founded in 2014 and has grown rapidly, focusing on all aspects of business law. We are currently engaged in a major recruitment drive across the firm.
I am based in the firm’s Manchester HQ, although I work from home most days. The nature of the work my team do means we’re on the phone an awful lot so, because of this it makes sense for me to be predominantly home-based (even more so as I have two school-age boys and a puppy!).
That said, I usually spend Wednesdays in the office to meet with the team. As well as David and me, we have a solicitor, Holly Navarro, and an executive assistant, Rebecca Alexander.
The work we do includes assisting the corporate and litigation teams on the employment law elements of transactions and advising SME employers on a range of matters, from drafting contracts and handbooks to anything that might arise during their day-to-day work – grievances, disciplinaries, breaches of restrictive covenants and in the worst cases, defending Tribunal proceedings.
We also represent employees, which makes us a bit of an outlier in the firm because we’re the only department that works with the public, rather than exclusively advising businesses. In relation to this type of work, David tends to focus on senior exits while my specialism in pregnancy and maternity discrimination work means I assist individuals from all over the country, across a variety of sectors. I run the legal helpline for the charity Pregnant Then Screwed.
Morning calls
My day starts with the ordeal of getting our two boys up and out of the house. Fortunately my husband takes them school so, once they are out of the door, I take our new puppy for a walk, which sets me up nicely for the day.
I sit down at my desk at about 8.30 and the first thing I do is write a to-do list for the day. Then, from nine o’clock to about eleven o’clock, I will be on the phone dealing with enquiries. These are diarised in advance via Rebecca, our EA, who schedules my calls.
Pregnant the Screwed have their own HR helpline which triages enquiries, so we only tend to get the more serious matters from them that they can’t deal with themselves. These might be individuals who are already embroiled in a Tribunal process and need some guidance, or, for example, need advice about a settlement or drafting a grievance.
An awful lot of calls also come in to us direct, often as a result of my activity on Instagram or LinkedIn – I’m pretty active on both platforms, which actually takes up a reasonable chunk of my time. Those direct enquiries aren’t triaged in any way so it’s just a case of talking to them and finding out what they need.
One of the most common issues that I come across and find myself advising on is redundancy during maternity leave – I have had two calls about this today already.
Other issues that come up include being passed over for promotion during maternity leave and situations where the person covering an individual’s maternity leave has taken over their job whilst they have been away and they find themselves without a role or being shoehorned into another position as a result.
We also have to deal with some really traumatic cases involving pregnancy loss and miscarriage, as well as post-natal depression and post-partum psychosis, where a work situation has exacerbated matters for the individual.
Corporate support
My work is around a 50/50 split between employee and employer matters.
A lot of my time is also taken up supporting the corporate team. That might be advice around business sales or purchases, member buyouts or share sales – matters that involve a real personal, people element.
Advising clients on transfers of undertakings, where staff are being moved from one entity to another, is a major part of a lot of transactions. We may need to draft new contracts of employment, look over service agreements and do all the employment-related due diligence on the business, if our client is purchasing it.
This would include looking at the staff currently employed by the business, how they work and what their terms are.
Service Agreements, consultancy agreements and settlement agreements are often a significant element of the assistance provided to our corporate team.
Employers
I have a bank of employer clients who call on me for advice.
Because our clients usually come to us for advice at the earliest possible stage of a dispute, we don’t tend to find ourselves having to represent businesses in many Tribunal cases.
The kinds of issues that we do handle include providing advice on any day-to-day issues that may crop up. Just today for example, an employer client calling me to say that an employee had gone AWOL for the second time.
I have another employer client that has three people off on long-term sick leave, so I am helping them manage that sensitively while also making sure we keep one eye on the needs of the business. That might involve referrals to occupational health, meetings with the individuals, and whether or not to the employer needs to make reasonable adjustments to enable them to return to work.
Something else I have been doing recently is reviewing a client’s staff handbook, going through all their policies and procedures, removing any that don’t apply to their business and tailoring those that do. On top of that I also have a contract to review at the moment, just to make sure that it’s all up-to-date.
As a result of my work in the pregnancy and maternity arena, I provide in-house training on how to handle conversations when colleagues tell their employer they are pregnant, and the kinds of issues that can arise, as well as advising on flexible working.
Management and business development
Primas Law is really refreshing in that here you aren’t a “partner in name only”. The senior leadership team are really interested in getting everybody’s feedback, and we have regular partner meetings where we all sit around the table to discuss how the firm is doing, and brainstorm things we should be doing to move the firm forward.
There are no egos and hierarchical structures. There is no attitude that partners or senior partners won’t do certain things that they consider to be beneath them.
Business development is an important part of my role as a partner. In addition to my activity on Instagram and LinkedIn I do quite a lot of face-to-face networking.
Greater Manchester Chamber run some really good lunches with some great speakers, and I also attend some Pro Manchester events, which is a representative and networking organisation for the city’s professional services sector.
I really enjoy Freshwalks. These are networking walks either in the countryside near Manchester or around the city centre.
I also do a lot of one-to-one networking. I attend BizMums and I meet people for coffee who run their own organisations that support mums in the workplace, with a view to working together. Last night, for example, I met a lady from an organisation called Maternal Matters. Getting out and meeting people is part of my job that I really enjoy.
After school
I pause work at 3.15, and if I’m in the office I leave early, so I can pick my boys up from school. I’m back at my desk at 3.45, although I initially have to juggle work with making sure the boys are fed and ready for whatever activities they have on after school, which my husband usually takes them to.
The phones tend to be less busy at this point so the work I do in the late afternoon tends to be things I can really get my head into. That might include drafting claim forms, contracts or reviewing handbooks – things I don’t like to be disturbed while I’m doing.
I can easily sit working until seven or eight o’clock at night. That’s not something we’re expected to do, but it is easy to do when you’re a working parent.
And then I’m already at home, so I can wind down before starting again the next day.
Visit
Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce
Maternal Matters (on Instagram)
Connect with Danielle Ayres via LinkedIn
