Why esphr?
It’s our mission to help HR professionals transform their Employee Relations capabilities and drive commercial change within their organisations.
For years, HR teams have self-created service programmes to tackle mounting ER caseloads – typically via an HR helpline for generic, non-commercial and non-strategic day-to-day advice – an online portal of downloadable HR documents and a law firm to escalate complex queries to.
All this can lead to an expensive, fragmented and inefficient way of working.
Busy HR professionals required a solution that brought specialist employment law expertise and ER technology together, so they could spend less time firefighting operational HR headaches and more time prioritising projects to drive meaningful change.
Introducing esphr
Spotting a significant gap in the market, esphr was established to help HR professionals position ER as a key strategic driver for positive transformation throughout their organisations.
As a new-model employment law firm and ER technology business, we provide integrated support services, including a dedicated legal advisory team, online HR resources, learning and development tools, and access to market-leading ER case management software – all for a fixed annual subscription fee.
Today, we are one of the UK’s first Alternative Business Structure (ABS) employment law firms built around people, processes and technology. We have successfully assisted over 700 UK businesses and sector-specific organisations spanning the NHS, Education, Technology, and Manufacturing sectors.
Our legal advice is provided by lawyers at ESP Solicitors LTD who are active members of the Law Society, Industrial Law Society and the Employment Lawyers Association.
ESP Solicitors is ranked as specialist employment lawyers in both the Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 UK guides to law firms.
Our ethos
We deliberately do not try to be all things to all people. ESP Solicitor’s team of talented and highly experienced lawyers deal only with employment law, an area which is complex and constantly evolving. They are true specialists, combining an enthusiastic approach with strong commercial advice and a commitment to quality.
ESP Solicitors take pride in offering:
- Practical advice
- Commercial recommendations, with no ‘fence sitting’
- Pre-emptive, not reactive advice
- Concise recommendations, rather than legal ‘essays’
- Meticulous preparation
- Integrity in our advice
- Close team working, both with you and among ourselves.
Our values
- Excellence: Our team possesses exceptional skills and knowledge, setting a standard for excellence in everything we do.
- Integrity: We serve as critical friends to our clients, ensuring honesty, transparency, and ethical conduct.
- Approachable: We pride ourselves on being easy to deal with, responsive, and down-to-earth. Recognizing that the quality of our relationships with each client facilitates the management of employment law issues, we take pride in our reputation for providing robust, high-quality commercial advice.
We know that the quality of our relationships with each client is paramount to simplifying the management of employment law issues. We take pride in our reputation for consistently delivering strong, high-quality commercial advice.
We aim to build strong and lasting relationships by working to understand your needs and by delivering a high-quality service. This commitment to excellence extends to our experienced support staff, who work hard to getting to know each of our clients, understanding their businesses and providing a service that meets individual requirements.
We offer competitive rates for different types of work including fixed fees. Please see Our costs, for more details.
Crown Commercial Service Supplier
ESP Solicitors is one of 42 law firms who were appointed to the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Wider Public Sector Legal Services Panel (contract RM3788) from October 2018 to September 2022. We are delighted to have recently been appointed to its successor agreement, the Public Sector Legal Services agreement (RM6240), until 2026. We are one of the preferred suppliers for employment law.
The story so far...
From our humble beginnings as a one-person vision for the HR services market to launching an award-winning Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) approved law firm and rolling out revolutionary ER technology solutions, we hope you enjoy some of our many milestones along the way.
2003
esphr is founded in Albury, Surrey, by Pete Byrne.
MAY
MAY
2004
With 50 customers on our books, and another two employees added, our modern business model and swift growth starts to get noticed more within the HR marketplace.
JANUARY
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
To mark our 10th anniversary, our whole team is taken on an all-inclusive trip to Marrakesh!
OCTOBER
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
This month we launched our latest free guide: ‘7 employee relations (ER) priorities an HR leader must focus on in their first 90 days’. This downloadable document includes an array of industry insight and guest contributions from esteemed HR professionals, for HR professionals moving into a new leadership role.
NOVEMBER
We teamed up with our customer Epping Forest District Council for a detailed case study about its People Team’s success. Read how esphr helped improve its in-house ER capability and prioritise employee welfare via rich data and legal expertise.
DECEMBER
2022
CEO Pete Byrne put pen to paper to draft a thought leadership feature for theHRDirector. For this particular piece, Pete writes about the importance of having a data-driven culture, and why he believed it would be one of the biggest HR trends in 2022.
JANUARY
At the end of February, we said a fond farewell to CEO and founder Pete Byrne, following 17 years at the helm. Following the successful acquisition by Marlowe plc, Pete knew the time was right to step aside and hand the reins over to the next-generation management team at WorkNest.
FEBRUARY
Just before Pete exited, he left with the news that he had been shortlisted in the Legal Week Innovation Awards in the ‘Lifetime Contributor to Innovation (Supplier)’ category. Not long after, esphr was also announced as a Modern Law Awards finalist in the ‘Client Care’ section following our long-established work with Entain.
MARCH
2023
Following the hugely successful immigration practice built by our Head of Immigration, Charlotte Ashton 185 attendees joined the esphr Lunchtime Express Webinar ‘EU Reform Bill | Key Predictions for HR’.
MARCH
ESP Law Ltd merges with Cater Leydon Millard Ltd (“CLM”), a fellow SRA regulated law firm from within the WorkNest group. This merger brings together two exceptional law firms, providing clients with the combined authority and resources that such scale brings. The law firm now trades under the CLM name under the esphr brand.
JUNE
Our collaboration with Speedy Asset Services goes live as our latest client case study.
JULY
Over the early part of 2023 we commissioned research by an expert market research company into the experiences of middle managers and ER issues. The research gave us insightful date into knowledge gaps within the middle manager community and the pressure this puts on HR teams. We have continued to interpret the data and publish the findings via white papers and seminars our findings to help our HR community help equip their businesses for the future.
JULY
Our Middle Managers Matter research on supporting fertility challenges in the workplace is picked up by the HR Review and Healthcare Newsdesk (BBC News)
NOVEMBER
We teamed up with Greene King to host a mock tribunal in London. Sarah Dillon and Beverley Smith from esphr ran the event, alongside barristers from St. Philips Chambers
NOVEMBER
2024
A collaboration with Vista Employers Services Ltd sees Sarah Dillon and Vicky Roberts host an ‘Insight Session’ webinar to present our findings from our Middle Managers Matter white paper series. ‘Enhancing ER through Middle Managers: From Research to Action’ is attended by 157 live delegates
FEBRUARY
Our SRA regulated law-firm, Cater Leydon Millard Limited, is renamed as ESP Solicitors Ltd to align them with the esphr family. We are excited to continue our valued relationship with clients under this new chapter
MARCH
Do not just take our word for it.
Here are some of our recent industry accolades...
The Employment Services Partnership Ltd (ESP)
Offering online HR resources, a market-leading ER case management system (MyHRCases) and elearning support services
ESP Solicitors
An SRA regulated law firm offering employment law advice and training, as well as employment tribunal case management services. All of esphr’s services are provided by the lawyers at ESP Solicitors.
ESP Safeguard Ltd
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