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Lydia Christie

Head of Retail and Leisure

Primary Expertise

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"Lydia Christie.
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It is a delight to work with Lydia.

chambers uk 2025
About

Lydia Christie heads the Retail and Leisure group. She is a Legal Director advising on the full range of employment law issues, both contentious and non-contentious, from recruitment through to termination of employment.

Lydia is an experienced, expert employment lawyer who is adept at advising businesses and senior individuals on all aspects of employment law. 

She assists clients with bringing and defending claims in the Employment Tribunal, particularly high value and complex claims. She drafts and advises on senior level service agreements, contracts of employment, consultancy agreements, staff handbooks, policies, and procedures.

She works closely with clients on on disciplinary, grievance and redundancy procedures, while also advising on termination issues, including settlement agreements and post-termination restrictive covenants.

Lydia has a particular interest and expertise in whistleblowing and has contributed to various formal consultation responses on whistleblowing.

Part of the firm's Retail and Leisure sector group, Lydia regularly advises luxury retail brands, restaurants, and hotels on their employment law issues.  Her work with large international retailers includes advice on strategic HR issues such as GDPR compliance and gender pay gap and modern slavery reporting. 

Lydia represents the firm's Employment team within LAW, the international lawyer's network, working closely with its European Employment Group.

Recent work

  • Advising a London hotel group on a collective redundancy consultation.

  • Advising an international PR agency on complex grievance process management.

  • Advising a senior executive in the financial services sector on potential whistleblowing complaints.

  • Advising a London based performing arts organisation on employee long term sickness and capability process management.

  • Advising on the employment law aspects of Lebanese restaurant chain Comptoir Group's AIM listing.

  • Acting for a luxury brand retailer to defend alleged claims of bullying and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

  • Advising a luxury brand retailer on proposed employment of a senior executive working for a competitor and associated restrictive covenants.

  • Advising senior executives on senior level termination packages at several large high street retailers.

Accolades

  • "Lydia has been fantastic to work with, she always provides outstanding advice and support, often with very short notice." Chambers UK 2025
  • Ranked "One to watch", Hotels & Leisure, Chambers UK 2025
  • Ranked, Employment: Employer (London Firms), Chambers 2025
  • "Lydia is excellent. She is very responsive and a delight to work with." Chambers UK 2024
  • "Advice from Lydia is always prompt, practical, responsive and knowledgeable." Chambers UK 2024
  • "Lydia provides very sound and thorough advice. She is a very pleasant person to deal with." Chambers UK 2024
  • Ranked, Employment: Employer, Chambers 2023
  • "Lydia is attentive, responsive, experienced and provides quality advice." Chambers 2023
  • "I felt totally supported by her throughout and I was really clear on what my options were and the decisions I needed to make." Chambers 2023
  • "She is good at finding the nub of the issue and her approach is very efficient and practical." Chambers 2023
  • Ranked, Employment: Employer, Chambers 2022
  • "She is always able to answer my questions clearly and precisely, either in person or via telephone. I find that she is very approachable and helpful, she is always swift in answering questions and she thinks ahead." Chambers 2022
  • Listed as Key Lawyer, Employment: Employers, Legal 500 2022
  • "Lydia Christie has always provided clear, concise advice. She clearly understands our company’s practices and ways of working." Legal 500 2022

Did you know

Lydia has lived and worked in Japan, loves going to the theatre and is learning to play the guitar.

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