Author: Catherine Bates

In my experience, the majority of matters that go to an employment Tribunal come down to two things, either the employer has failed to go through a proper process (usually innocently but that’s no excuse) or the employee (or in this case potential employee) assumes that the employer has taken against him or her for […]

    Have you noticed that as lockdown is eased and people are starting to go out more, restaurants are obviously concerned about our short term memories and abilities to make firm commitments, Not only do many of them insist on taking credit card details with an agreed sum to be charged to your account […]

  I’ve been learning recently how many different types of personality there are.  I always knew that people were different, but the different ways in which they can be categorised is mind boggling and continues to grow. For example, there is a category of people who like musicals and they are often called melophiles.  I’ve […]

  Heated arguments over a child’s paternity used to be a regular feature of morning TV curtesy of Jeremy Kyle with parents scrapping and swearing over whether they are the biological father of the child they have brought up since birth. When a father finds out on live TV that he is not the biological […]

  Ain’t no big surprise that employers are starting to pay more attention to the love lives of their staff. Following a number of recent developments, including the #MeToo campaign and the activities of various high level employees found to be having relationships with junior colleagues, such as at McDonalds, the likes of Blackrock have […]

…..they will only make you feel ugly. For those of you who were around in the 1990s, you may remember Baz Luhrmann’s production of “Wear Sunscreen”, an essay set to music, giving advice on how to live a happier life and avoid common mistakes. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but there are […]

  Being an heir or a potential heir can raise more problems than you might think. When there is a death in the family, beyond the sadness and the funeral, there are often expectations of Hollywood style readings of the will, complete with sombre solicitors reading out the last will and testament, and an aggrieved […]

Apparently my diary is lying to me.  It is telling me that it’s August (or at least it is at the time that I’m writing this blog) but that cannot be right because according to a well known high street chain of coffee shops, it’s much much later.  They’ve just emailed me to promote their […]

  Or indeed at any other time. As a junior lawyer, I loved a document briefcase because they are really really useful if you know what you’re doing.  I learned this at the start of my first ever high profile case, where I was given a large heavy document briefcase to carry in and out […]

Who needs enemies! Or, is your best friend actually your worst enemy??? I often talk about how you shouldn’t always believe what you read.  The press is often full of “legal” comments, such as reference to common law spouses, when no such concept exists, or telling you about the outcome of a case, then their […]