Alice Kendle

Senior Associate

Alice is an experienced employment lawyer who acts for a broad range of clients including schools, universities, charities, sports clubs, and senior executives. Alice also has an extensive practice in the education sector, advising universities and schools on specialist issues related to staff, students, and parents.

Alice’s work for employers involves advising on the full range of advisory and contentious employment law issues, including complex grievance and disciplinary procedures, redundancy consultations, sickness absence or performance management, TUPE, senior staff recruitment and exits, trade union activity, strategic policy advice and much more.

Alice has extensive experience of Employment Tribunal litigation, including complicated and high-value discrimination and whistleblowing claims. She is adept at using robust preliminary applications to further her clients’ strategic aims. Her recent experience includes successfully persuading the Employment Tribunal that a claim brought against an employer and 16 individual respondents involving approximately 1000 claims of unlawful conduct was vexatious. Alice has a strong record of achieving an early resolution of claims in appropriate cases, including following judicial mediation.

Alice also has experience of High Court employee competition litigation. She has significant wider High Court experience having spent two years in the firm’s Disputes team.

Alice is regularly instructed to advise on complex investigations in varying contexts, including grievances, disciplinaries, whistleblowing, student disciplinaries, parental complaints and more. These investigations often include highly sensitive issues, such as allegations of sexual misconduct, bullying and harassment involving staff and students. She has also acted as the external investigator on a number of investigations.

Alice is a member of the firm’s Safeguarding Unit and has experience advising on a full range of issues linked to safeguarding. She has, for example, been involved with a large independent review for a school following a safeguarding crisis and has acted for both schools and sports clubs handling civil claims relating to non-recent abuse allegations. She advised clients interacting with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), including schools asked to provide material to the Residential Schools inquiry and individuals called to give witness evidence to the Anglican Church inquiry. Alice also provides general advisory support, for example drafting safeguarding policies for children and vulnerable adults, assisting with safeguarding audits, and advising on DBS checks.

Alice qualified as a solicitor in 2015. She holds a first class bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oxford. She volunteers as a pro bono legal adviser at the Mary Ward Legal Advice Centre’s employment law clinic. Outside of work, Alice represents Great Britain in tag rugby and recently won a silver medal with the Women’s team in the 2023 World Cup.

Expertise

Universities

Alice has an extensive practice in the higher education sector. She has recently spent three years on part-time secondment to Imperial College London, giving her a deep understanding of the key issues for university HR professionals. She has considerable experience of university Employment Tribunal litigation and investigations. She has built expertise across a wide range of other specialist issues affecting universities, such as updating University Statutes (alongside colleagues in our Charities team specialising in university governance), responding to trade union challenges, advising on student fitness to practice and academic research misconduct processes, providing employment law input for international collaborations (alongside colleagues in our IP & Commercial team), and advising on the handling of alleged sexual misconduct (including specific cases and strategic policy issues). Alice frequently speaks at internal and external events on matters affecting the sector.

Schools

Alice has a busy practice acting for schools on staff, parent, and pupil-related matters. She advises schools on a range of difficult staff issues. Recent examples include advising on the handling of alleged low-level safeguarding concerns about a senior member of staff and, in a separate case, the breakdown of relationships between staff in one department. She advises schools on staff consultations about leaving the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. Alice has developed expertise supporting schools in navigating particularly tricky parental complaints. She assisted a school successfully to defend a disability discrimination claim brought in the First Tier Tribunal by a prospective parent. Alice has also advised on challenging child-on-child abuse cases and the related investigations and pupil disciplinaries. She has experience of supporting a school through an inquest following a pupil suicide.

Charities

Alice is regularly instructed by charities (including schools and Oxbridge Colleges, as well as charities in other sectors) on various employment and safeguarding issues.