James Champness
Senior Associate

James has worked with an array of different clients, from start-up and scale-up technology organisations, to fully-established financial services and insurance institutions. He has supported clients with challenging employee issues, including grievances, large-scale redundancies and Board-level exits. He has also gained valuable experience from various client secondments including the Bank of England, a global IT outsourcing company, and a UK-based nuclear processing organisation.

James specialises in advising on issues relating to TUPE Regulations. He has experience providing guidance for TUPE transfers arising from business acquisitions and outsourcing arrangements, and assists clients seeking to harmonise terms post-transfer in a way that is compliant with legislation. He has also provided training sessions to leadership teams on this topic to support the planning of such transfers.

James also advises more generally on day-to-day matters, including contract and handbook reviews, queries relating to holiday pay and equal pay, and guidance in respect of the employment status of ‘atypical’ workers.

Clients in the Legal 500 (2023) say the M&A Support Team are: "a (sadly) rare combination of highly technically proficient, business savvy, attuned to actual market practice, service oriented and responsive, practical problem solvers, and genuinely nice people whom it is unfailingly a pleasure to deal with."

He joined GQ|Littler in June 2022, having trained and qualified at leading private equity firm Travers Smith LLP, before going on to work at the technology law firm Kemp Little LLP, and Deloitte LLP (which had acquired Kemp Little).

James is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association.