Karen Bussell

24 May

Partner, in the Employment Team

Arriving in Devon in 1982 to work as a commercial diver, Karen took up law after a varied career which included management, lecturing and journalism. She joined Nash in February 2002 from a large regional firm and has a client base of both employers and employees.

Karen brings her extensive and varied background of work outside the legal profession to bear providing pragmatic, business-focussed assistance to SMEs and schools, ranging from the day-to-day vagaries of the workplace and bespoke contracts to restructuring, TUPE and tribunal proceedings. She also advises high net worth employees particularly in regard to negotiating contract terms and settlement agreements.

Karen Bussell

kbussell@nash.co.uk
01752 827016
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Employer clients include the civil engineering, construction, care and education sectors, retail and professional services such as solicitors, accountancy firms, and architects.

Legal 500 notes:

Partner Karen Bussell is ‘very professional and hardworking’ and provides ‘pragmatic advice with the ability to understand complex scenarios very quickly’.

Karen has a reputation for preparing her cases ‘thoroughly and realistically’.

Karen can also provide training and has lectured at Plymouth University for a number of years within both the law and business schools as well as having provided in-house courses to businesses, groups, and Chambers of Commerce.

Client reviews

Employment Law insights

Insights

The Employment Rights Bill 2024: What do we know and what’s still unclear?

The Employment Rights Bill (2024), according to the government, promises major changes to the UK's employment laws, designed to enhance worker protections while also increasing transparency and fairness in the workplace.

Elf Employment Essentials: Rights and Responsibilities

It was time for the final piece of the business puzzle: recruitment. Buddy and Chip had the workshop, the supplies and the licenses they needed. But it would all be redundant if they didn’t have a talented workforce behind them.

Ringing the employment law changes for the new year

Last week, the UK Government responded to consultations on retained EU employment laws, seeking improvements post-Brexit.

Anti Social Media

A recent first instance Tribunal case has emphasized the importance of consistency of treatment amongst staff, as well as suggesting that a social media policy can be important when seeking to regulate non work-related messages.

State Pension decision should only be temporary

You may have seen in the press recently that the Government has announced that the ‘triple lock’ for State Pensions in 2022/23 will become a ‘double lock’. What does this mean for pensioners?

What are reasonable steps to prevent workplace harassments?

An employer who argued that it had taken ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent harassment by providing training to its employees, failed on the basis that the training had become ‘stale’.

The Importance of Pension Auto-Enrolment

The London-based business, which has 5,000 employees, failed to properly enrol a number of its staff into the company pension scheme and made incorrect contributions for others…. and then failed to heed a penalty notice issued by TPR.

How should employers handle employees’ post holiday quarantine?

Currently, going on holiday is a little bit like a rubbish lucky dip – will we be able to go? If we can’t, will we get our money back? If we can, will some new restrictions come in part-way through the break meaning we have to quarantine on our return?

Annual Leave and Holiday Requests

One of the biggest headaches for employers is managing the company’s annual leave.

The tricky task however is ensuring that whilst some employees are on annual leave, you’re left with enough people to carry out the day to day activities of the company, and that no real problems arise because staff are away.

Important Update – IR35 (off payroll working)

With all the uncertainty currently, the government has given businesses and individuals some welcome relief by postponing the IR35 (otherwise known as off payroll working) extension to medium and large companies in the private sector from 6 April 2020 to 6 April 2021.