How to negotiate a good settlement agreement?

Settlement agreements were brought in the year 2013 as a way for employers to fast-track employees out of their company without the risk of legal action from the employee. They are largely used in cases of redundancy or where an employee is underperforming and involve offering the employee a financial payout in exchange for leaving the company and agreeing not to take legal action.

For employers, settlement agreements can make it feasible to eliminate workers who are no longer valuable, while for employees they enable a way to get a financial settlement upfront, without the need to go to an employment tribunal. This is generally faster, less expensive and less stressful for both parties.

As an employer, your priority in negotiating a settlement agreement should be:

·         Getting the employee to agree to the settlement without a fight.

·         Not paying more than you need to.

·         That all possible types of claim they could bring are considered.

·         That the employee will not take any action that harms your business interests e.g. attempting to take clients with them when they leave.

Whether you are an employer looking to use a settlement agreement to remove a member of your team, or an employee who has been offered a settlement agreement, getting the right legal advice and representation is essential. This can be done by consulting one of the settlement agreement lawyers in London.

A skilled employment law solicitor will be able to ensure your interests are protected and that all likely eventualities are considered, giving you peace of mind that the matter will be truly resolved once the settlement agreement is signed.

When trying to create a fair settlement agreement that protects your interests and that your employee will be likely to accept, it is worth bearing in mind:

·         Employees do not have to pay to take a claim to an employment tribunal, meaning they may consider they have “nothing to lose” if they feel your settlement agreement offer is not generous enough.

·         Employees have the right to be paid for any unused holiday entitlement.

·         You do not have a legal right to deduct money if the employee has exceeded their holiday entitlement, unless this was specified in their contract.

·         You do not have to state the reason for termination. If the employee is being let go for poor performance, they may be more likely to agree to the settlement if this is left out of the agreement.

·         You are not obliged to keep the offer of a settlement agreement open for any length of time.

In today’s digital world, finding one of the best settlement agreement lawyers in London is not too difficult. This is because most of the lawyers have a full-fledged presence on web which means you can easily browse through their profile and take a smart decision.

A good settlement lawyer would carefully listen to your needs and give the most fruitful suggestion that would bring more value to your case from all sides. He or she can help you degrade the complexity of law by presenting genuine facts to both the parties. 

The best citizenship by investment programs for 2018.

Citizenship by investment is a process whereby wealthy individuals can obtain a second citizenship extremely quickly in exchange for an investment or donation. These so-called “economic citizenships” are largely valuable to three types of people:

US citizens who wish to quickly renounce their citizenship. Pragmatically, renunciation requires a second passport, and if you’re a high-earner, the cost of an economic citizenship might be far less than the tax and compliance costs of remaining American, particularly as tax laws have recently become even worse for business owners overseas.

Emerging world citizens losing opportunities. Chinese and Arab citizens are the largest investors in citizenship by investment programs. The wealthy in these and other countries can afford the cost in exchange for the greatly increased travel benefits.

Business owners and investors looking for a “Plan B”. While US citizens have the most immediate need for a second passport and can often earn an immediate ROI, other country’s citizens can also benefit from having another citizenship in their back pocket… just in case. This is especially true for cryptocurrency investors who may need a second passport to continue their investments. If you’re earning high six- or seven-figures, you may find buying citizenship easier than the longer, more elusive naturalization route.

There are also nationalities that are restricted from doing business in certain countries and would benefit from a quick passport for business opportunities. Israelis, who are banned from about a dozen countries, are an example of this.

Cyprus is a member of the European Union and, until recently, offered the fastest naturalization I’ve ever heard of: just 57 days. I visited Cyprus a while ago and published a video discussing citizenship programs in Cyprus. You can explore various citizenship programs in Cyprus.

There are constant rumblings that the process will start to take longer though, particularly as the EU cracks down. Cyprus’ saving grace so far has been that while it enjoys visa-free travel to all of Europe, it is not actually a part of Europe’s borderless Schengen Area.

You can obtain Cyprus citizenship with an investment of €2 million in real estate, government bonds, a bank deposit in a Cyprus bank, or investment in a new company; this amount was most recently reduced in late 2016.

Cyprus citizenship was always pricier than other options – at one point costing well into the eight figures – but unlike most other programs, you can invest rather than donate. If the return of your capital is important, Cyprus may be more attractive than the only other EU citizenship program in Malta.

There’s a bit of a catch, though: you must own a €500,000 home in Cyprus forever. The requirement to maintain a residence on the island is likely a hat-tip to foreign government demands for investors to maintain a “real presence” on the island rather than simply buying a Cypriot passport. It’s not entirely clear what would happen if you sold your property, but the law is indeed clear at least on paper.

The importance of UK immigration lawyers in today’s scenario.

There are large numbers of people who vision about legally living and working in the United States.  Making this dream a reality is a reality for many of them, but only if they are able to successfully move to the United States’ perplexing and complicated immigration laws.  Basis the amazing importance placed on being granted permanent resident status (green card) or U.S. citizenship, it is astonishing how many people strive to achieve their immigration objective without the assistance of an experienced UK immigration lawyers who specialize in immigration law.  It is also true that some do succeed, but many others fail.  And this failure may lead to their ultimate nightmare – being deported.

An individual that is currently living in the United States must submit their request for immigration benefits with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS).  However, it doesn’t mean that the process merely requires the completion of a simple form.  First, the forms are not always easy to understand.  Many of the forms contain complicated questions that require a person to understand terms and language which have a precise meaning unique to immigration law.  This meaning may differ from what many people expect it to be.  Thus, a person may deprive themselves of lawfully residing in the United States simply because they did not understand the question they were being asked.

More significant than the forms though is that an applicant should prudently check their eligibility for the asked benefit before filing any application to the USCIS.  This assessment needs an inspection of several things, including dates of entries and exits from the U.S., type of visa (if any) held at entry to the U.S., the immigration status and history of the applicant and their family members, etc.  The failure to make this assessment before submitting the application may lead to something much worse than a denial – it may lead to being deported, perhaps within a matter of hours.

After eligibility is fixed, the applicant must submit a well-documented request for an immigration benefit.  The submission of sufficient documentary evidence, ranging from a birth or marriage certificate to complex medical records, is vital since it is the applicant who has the burden of proving that they are eligible for the requested benefit.

The USCIS interviews can be demanding, nerve-wracking experiences, but the aspiring immigrant needs to do everything possible to ensure their personal interview is successful.  That is not always easy though.  It may be the applicant’s first time attending a personal interview for an immigration benefit with the USCIS, and they are likely to be questioned by an experienced USCIS officer who has conducted many of these types of interviews.  In such cases, UK immigration lawyers play a crucial role in helping their clients in passing this interview successfully.

Considering the importance of these immigration attorneys, it is necessary to choose an experienced and trustworthy expert who can understand your case and provide much-needed help in turning a dream into reality. 

The technology-led future of law firms in London.

As in any kind of client service business, the winners of the tomorrow will be those who best react to the evolving needs of clients. Clients have long been unfulfilled with the cost of legal full service delivery and many have responded by taking more work in-house, supplemented by bringing individual lawyers in through ‘lawyer on demand’ providers. Their watchword is efficiency. At the same time, they want an integrated global service, simpler and more digestible output; providers with deeper understanding of their business, and processes to which their in-house teams can actively contribute. We believe now is the time for change, is your law firm prepared for this?

One of the biggest challenges for law firms in London will be determining what the best global strategy is for their firm in order to meet the demands of international clients. Determining which geographic markets are worthy of new investment and which established markets should continue to be supported/invested in is a strategic priority for all. The full service law firm of the future will be more diverse in terms of business model by bringing in offerings such as consulting, forensics, risk to support their overall offering. Innovative firms will think not only about making current offerings more efficient, but how technology can allow them to develop new services that incorporate their expertise in a different way.

These law firms in London will need to embed best in class technology into all of their legal processes, and will need to continuously innovate as better software tools are developed. Work will still be led by people but they will be augmented by technology, including Artificial Intelligence. Data will also be play a huge part in the successful law firms’ future. Firms will be able to have command over their unstructured data and this will enable them to develop a meaningful understanding of their client’s businesses and their legal risks. Decisions and actions will not only be driven by experience, but by data too.

The new way of providing legal services will depend on a range of professionals, not only lawyers and so having multi-disciplinary teams will be key in the future. Law firms will need to develop rewarding career paths for these people in order to attract and retain them. Offering different career/work options so that it can retain access to the best talent while benefitting from a more flexible staffing model will also be necessary. Finally, the law firm of the future may not be a partnership of lawyers, but instead be a multi-disciplinary partnership, a public company or a financial investor-backed private company. The transformation required to thrive in the new order will be costly and firms will look to alternative sources of funding to pay for it.

Clients will work with fewer law firms globally and relationships will be long-term and deeply embedded. Clients will put firms through challenging procurement processes before selecting them for their global legal panels or for exclusive provider status for certain areas of legal service. Engagements between law firms and clients for ‘business as usual’ law will look more like outsourcing contracts – designed to meet long-term needs. Law firms will have analytical insight across the breadth of their clients’ activities which will make them more valuable to clients and extend relationships beyond the legal department.

What to do if you come across some mistakes in your immigration case?

No matter how carefully you chose your immigration attorney, he or she may have made mistakes that affected the outcome of your case. These mistakes can include failing to respond to requests for evidence, not submitting the required documentation along with your application, or not competently explaining options available to you in removal proceedings. If so, your attorney may have provided you with “ineffective assistance of counsel.” This article describes the remedies that are available to you and how you may be able to reopen your immigration case so you can still receive the immigration benefit that you originally applied for (or should have applied for).

If you are a noncitizen and you decide to hire one of the immigration lawyers in UK to represent you in a matter before Immigration Court or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), you have a due process right to competent representation. The attorney’s poor performance (or lack of performance) must have materially affected the outcome of the proceedings and have been so fundamentally unfair that it prevented you from reasonably presenting your case.

A classic example of ineffective assistance is when an attorney misses an important deadline that makes you ineligible for an immigration benefit. For example, your attorney disremembers to submit an application for asylum within one year of your arrival in the United States, and the asylum officer or Immigration Judge finds that you are ineligible because of an unreasonable delay in filing. He or she may have also completed forms incorrectly, made false statements on your behalf, or presented fake documents with your application. If this is the case, you might be able to get your immigration case “reopened” or be given the opportunity to submit a new application or additional evidence to support your petition for an immigration benefit.

An attorney’s catastrophe to inform clients about the immigration consequences of pleading guilty or no contest to criminal charges is also taken as ineffective assistance of immigration lawyers in UK. However, your criminal case must not be considered “final” (unable to be appealed on ineffective assistance grounds) in order to benefit.

If you come across a rejection of your immigration case, appeal, motion, or application, your attorney may seem like the natural person to blame. But don't be too quick to perceive that your attorney made mistakes just because you did not receive the benefit you requested. Sometimes an attorney does everything right, but your application is denied anyways. Immigration law can be very complicated and immigration officials and judges have discretionary powers to deny immigration benefits and relief whenever they see fit.

Other times, the immigration lawyers in UK may commit mistakes that aren’t enough to rise to the level of inadequate assistance of counsel, but may be enough for a complaint of attorney malpractice. In some cases, a simple mistake is not necessarily “ineffective assistance of counsel” or even enough evidence of malpractice.