Lydia Christie heads the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure group at Howard Kennedy. She is a Legal Director advising on the full range of employment law issues, both contentious and non-contentious, from recruitment through to termination of employment.

Lydia regularly advises luxury retail brands, restaurants, and hotels on their employment law issues. Her work with large international retailers includes advice on strategic HR issues such as GDPR compliance and gender pay gap and modern slavery reporting.

She assists clients with bringing and defending claims in the Employment Tribunal, particularly high value and complex claims. She drafts and advises on senior level service agreements, contracts of employment, consultancy agreements, staff handbooks, policies, and procedures. She works closely with clients on disciplinary, grievance and redundancy procedures, while also advising on termination issues, including settlement agreements and post-termination restrictive covenants. Lydia has a particular interest and expertise in whistleblowing and has contributed to various formal consultation responses on whistleblowing.