Employment contracts and handbooks

I draft employment contracts, staff handbooks and HR policies for UK employers, for a fixed fee from £750 plus VAT. I act for employers only. I am Geoffrey Caesar, a solicitor of England and Wales admitted in 2008, based in London and acting for employers across England and Wales.

Most small employers are running on a contract downloaded years ago, amended by whoever was in HR at the time, and never looked at since. It usually still says the employee reports to a role that no longer exists, and it almost always has restrictive covenants copied from a much larger business, which means they are unenforceable.

The contract does not matter at all until the day it matters enormously: when a senior employee leaves for a competitor, when someone claims they were promised a bonus, or when you need to change terms and discover you have no right to.

What it costs

• Employment contract, £750 plus VAT. One template you can reuse for a grade of staff. Five working days.
• Senior or director service agreement, £1,500 plus VAT. With properly drafted restrictive covenants and garden leave.
• Staff handbook and core policies, £1,750 plus VAT. Ten working days.
• Contract and handbook package, £2,250 plus VAT. Both together.

If you need contracts for several grades of staff, the second and subsequent templates are cheaper. Tell me how many and I will quote the package.

What you get

• A contract drafted for how you actually employ people, not a template with your name on it
• Restrictive covenants drafted to be enforceable rather than merely long
• Confidentiality and intellectual property provisions that put ownership where it belongs
• The statutory particulars, so the document does the job section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires it to do
• Flexibility clauses where you genuinely need them, drafted to survive challenge
• Core policies: disciplinary, grievance, sickness absence, equal opportunities, data protection and, increasingly, AI use
• One round of amendments

What is not included

• Acting for employees
• Employment tribunal representation
• Payroll, pensions auto-enrolment and tax
• Immigration and sponsor licence work
• Day to day HR handling, though see the employment advice service

How long it takes

Five working days for a contract, ten for a handbook, from payment.

How to instruct me

1. Email me. Send any relevant documents, or three or four lines describing the situation and your deadline. You do not need to prepare a brief.
2. I confirm the scope, the price and the timetable. In writing, usually the same working day, and if a short call would help I will offer one at no charge. I then invoice you, and the work starts once the invoice is paid. Larger pieces of work can be split into milestone payments if that suits you better.
3. I deliver on the agreed date. With a call or a follow-up exchange included, so you are not paying again to understand the advice.

Why instruct me directly

A law firm has premises, partners, support staff, marketing and a compliance department, and every hour it bills has to carry a share of all of it. I have none of that. You are paying for the lawyer and nothing else.

• Senior attention as standard. The person who reads your contract is the person you emailed. Nothing is delegated to a trainee.
• In-house and private practice experience. I know what a clause does to a business six months later, not just what it says.
• No onboarding process. Email, scope, fixed price, invoice, work. There is no client portal to register with and no forms to complete.
• Better value for the same expertise. Without a firm's overheads, senior time costs less, which is why fixed fees at this level are possible at all.
• Fixed prices, published. You know the number before you commit. I publish them because cost uncertainty is the main reason businesses do not take advice they need.

Who this is for

• You employ people and your paperwork predates the way you now work
• You are hiring your first senior person and want covenants that hold
• You have grown past the point where informal arrangements are safe
• An adviser, buyer or investor has asked to see your employment documentation

Questions I am often asked

How much does an employment contract cost?

£750 plus VAT for a reusable contract template for a grade of staff, and £1,500 plus VAT for a senior or director-level service agreement with restrictive covenants and garden leave. A staff handbook with core policies is £1,750 plus VAT, or £2,250 plus VAT for the contract and handbook together.

Do you act for employees as well?

No. I act for employers only. That is a deliberate choice: it keeps my position clean, it avoids conflicts, and it means the advice is written from one side of the table rather than hedged across both.

Are our restrictive covenants enforceable?

Probably not, if they were copied from somewhere else. Covenants must go no further than reasonably necessary to protect a legitimate business interest, and a court will not rewrite an unreasonable one into a reasonable one. Twelve months that holds up is worth far more than three years that does not.

It is one of the most common things I fix.

Do we legally need a written contract?

You must give every employee and worker a written statement of particulars on or before their first day. A proper contract does that and a great deal more, including protecting your confidential information and your customer relationships, which the bare statutory statement does not.

Can we change our employees' terms?

Sometimes, and how easily depends almost entirely on what the existing contract says. Businesses that need to change terms and find they have no mechanism to do it end up with a slow, expensive and morale-destroying process. Building the flexibility in at the start costs very little.

Do we need an AI policy for staff?

Increasingly yes, because your staff are already using these tools. See AI contracts and AI use policies.

About me

I am Geoffrey Caesar. I have worked on commercial contracts since 2001, first in industry and then in private practice, so I have sat on both sides of the table: as the in-house lawyer who has to live with the contract, and as the external adviser who drafts it.

• Solicitor of England and Wales, admitted 2008. SRA ID 483394.
• Practising as an SRA-regulated freelance solicitor under regulation 10.2(b) of the SRA Authorisation of Individuals Regulations. Practice SRA number 666497.
• Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and authorised to provide all legal services, including reserved legal activities.
• Called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 2005.
• Working on commercial contracts since 2001, in-house and in private practice.
• Based in London, acting for businesses across England and Wales.
• Professional indemnity insurance in place with a limit of £1,000,000 for each claim, with defence costs in addition. Details on request.
• I do not hold client money.

Two things you should know about instructing a freelance solicitor rather than a law firm. My professional indemnity insurance is not on the SRA's minimum terms and conditions; alternative arrangements are in place instead, and I will give you the details on request. And you can still apply to the SRA Compensation Fund for losses caused by dishonesty or a failure to account for money. Everything else, including the Code of Conduct, the SRA Principles and the Legal Ombudsman, applies to me exactly as it applies to any other solicitor.

Related services

• Settlement agreements for employers, £750 plus VAT
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £750 plus VAT

Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.