Alison Wetherfield is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery UK LLP, based in its London office. She is head of the London office Employment Group, where her practice focuses on employment and labour law in the UK.
Alison is named as a leader in her field (Band 1) in Chambers UK 2011 (“one of the brightest in the business” and is “organised and responsive”). She is also rated as a leader in her field in both Legal Experts 2009 and the Legal 500 UK 2011. Alison is quoted in Legal 500 UK 2010 as "very persistent and makes complex legal issues easy to understand". Legal 500 UK 2011 says Alison “will fight” for clients.
Alison is an experienced advocate in the English High Court and employment tribunals, and her practice also includes all aspects of non-contentious advisory work in the employment and labour law fields. Her clients include investment banks, construction companies and professional service providers. She has particular expertise in discrimination matters, having litigated discrimination cases for companies and individuals in both the UK and US (Title VII).
Alison regularly speaks and writes on employment law issues and has taught employment law-related courses in the past on an adjunct basis at New York University and as a Visiting Professor and researcher at Tokyo University, Japan. She is a member of the European Employment Lawyers’ Association and has served as chair of the UK Employment Lawyers’ Association Legislative and Policy sub-committee on data protection, which has commented on all recent data protection initiatives in the UK.
Alison’s recent speeches include “Managing and Recovering (from and in) Complex Discrimination Cases" for the Industrial Law Society conference 2011 and "European Data Privacy" for the Association of Corporate Counsel, Boston, US, 2011 and recent articles include "Employees: International Joint Ventures", PLC Practice Note 2010 and “An Employer’s Guide to Implementing EU-Compliant Whistleblowing Hotlines" in the October 2011 edition of EuroWatch, a Thompson Reuters publication.
Representative Experience
- High Court litigation and successful mediation of multi-million pound discrimination claims (including personal injury elements)
- Advising Remuneration Committees PLCs on executive director contracts
- Pan-European data protection advice for a number of multinationals
- Expert in complex tribunal claims, including mediation and other settlement strategies (recent high profile whistleblowing, health and safety and sexual orientation discrimination claims successfully resolved for several clients)
Education
- Harvard Law School, L.L.M., 1985
- Cambridge University ((1st Class Hons.)), 1983
Languages Spoken
- English
- Japanese
