Katie Maguire
Partner
Areas of Expertise
Katie co-heads our growing Employment & Pensions Team and is based in our London office.
Katie regularly advises clients on a wide range of non-contentious and contentious employment issues, including defending complex employment tribunal claims for discrimination, victimisation, harassment, unfair dismissal, breach of contract, wrongful dismissal, and whistleblowing, as well as claims brought in the county court for unlawful deduction of wages. Katie also specialises in pensions and corporate transactional and merger work and has expertise in related issues arising under the LGPS, SHPS, the NHS Pension Scheme and the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, as well as transactional experience in completing due diligence and guiding employers through TUPE related employment and pension issues in relation to outsourcing contracts, assets sales, share sales and mergers.
Katie also regularly advises high net worth individuals in relation to exit strategies and negotiation on termination of employment, including shares and stock options.
Katie is part of our cross-departmental Care Team.
Experience
Katie worked as a paralegal at Devonshires Solicitors in the Litigation Department before gaining her training contract. Katie completed her training contract and qualified as a solicitor in 2009.
Publications
Katie regularly produces entries for Devonshires Solicitors Employment Blog which aims to keep clients up to date with case law and changes in Employment Law generally.
Katie regularly has articles published in People Management including:
- The benefits of offering electric cars as a job perk
- What do businesses need to consider when contemplating pay rises?
- Why employers should police out-of-work behaviour – discussing the importance of why organisations should have robust policies when it comes to an employee’s behaviour outside of work.
Katie had the following article in Social Housing in April 2022: How has the pandemic impacted employment issues for RPs?
Katie has featured in Small Business, providing an overview of The Equality Act 2010, the obligations it sets out for employers and the implications if an employer breaches it.
Education
Katie qualified from Reading University in 2004 with an LLB in Law, before completing her LPC at the College of Law, London.
Personal
Katie is a PADI qualified Rescue Diver who is experienced at diving in both the UK and abroad. Although she is now finding the lure of exotic warmer waters more appealing than diving in the cold off the South coast of the UK!
News Articles
In March 2022, Katie commented in The Guardian and The Mirror (among other publications) following the news of P&O sacking 800 of their staff without notice and replacing them with agency staff. Katie commented on the potential impact their actions would have in relation to unfair dismissal claims and P&O’s reputational damage. In October 2022, Katie featured in The Times, discussing the dilemma many employers encounter when faced with opposing protected beliefs of their employees.
In June 2021 Katie’s comment on care home vaccines reached 145 press publications including the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard
Professional Membership
Katie is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association.
Testimonials
One charity client recently said: “I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you did on our restructure project.
To have such brilliant advice has enabled us to make an informed decision on how we progress with this project. In fact, we can’t afford to make the changes that we had hoped to, but have implemented some of the structural changes anyway.
Your advice has also high-lighted our pensions issue and we are now working on a plan to manage that particular risk to the organisation, and step up our negotiations with the Local Authorities in respect to them transferring the assets that we lease.
Thank you once again.”
Upon completion of a recent complex share sale a corporate client in passing what he thought of the performance of different members of the team stated “Katie was brilliant."
Get in touch
020 7880 4337 |
07500015479 |
katie.maguire@devonshires.co.uk |
London Office
Devonshires Solicitors LLP 30 Finsbury Circus London EC2M 7DT |
020 7880 4263 |
ashleigh.lloyd@devonshires.co.uk |