A boutique legal and HR consultancy

Who we are

Emma Gooding is a legal consultant and Vanessa Crow and Eve Saunders are HR professionals.  Together they have over 30 years experience advising clients on commercial, HR and employment matters, and are also experienced trainers. Emma, Vanessa and Eve now work closely together as Gooding & Crow legal and HR consultancy, using their combined experience to provide clients with a seamless legal and HR / employment support service. Gooding & Crow are based in Bath and Bristol, but advise clients throughout the Uk and overseas.

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Start-up and SME support

We specialise in advising start-ups and scale-ups, assisting you with everything you need to get up and running as a new business.  We also offer ongoing legal and HR / employment support to our start-up clients and to SMEs, seeing ourselves as a flexible way for smaller businesses to access high quality advice, but at a reasonable cost.

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More about us
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Employment issues

We can advise on a full range of employment matters, and have particular expertise in advising on contentious employment issues. We can provide specialist support for:

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Training

We firmly believe dispute avoidance is just as important as dispute resolution.  As experienced trainers, we have developed a comprehensive programme of staff training, aimed at reducing or eliminating areas of potential conflict.  

Training programme
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Training programme

Dispute resolution

Where conflict does arise, we can offer accredited workplace mediation, neutral evaluation and conflict coaching to help you get things firmly back on track.

Disputes

Value for money

We understand that our clients operate lean business models.  Keeping costs reasonable is important to them, but naturally our clients do not want to compromise on the quality of the advice they receive.  We have chosen not to operate a traditional law firm model, to enable us to keep our costs to a minimum.  We firmly believe in passing those savings onto our clients.

What our clients say

See what our clients have to say about us below:

Emma was not only super responsive in delivering a review of a commercial agreement and recommending amendments, but what she gave us was extremely thorough and really useful. We wouldn’t hesitate to use Emma again for all our commercial legal requirements.  

Director, Online Learning Consultancy

Your service was fantastic! You were extremely thorough, and communicated your approach and work very clearly to me, going above and beyond to ensure I understood absolutely everything, when producing a bespoke set of terms & conditions and privacy policy for us. I would definitely work with you again.  

Director, Web Design Consultancy

Fantastic service, great communication. Highly recommend and will use again.

Operations Director, Architectural & Structural Metalwork contractor

Emma is a fantastic lawyer. She drafted our T&Cs and freelancer agreements, using a common sense problem solving approach and taking careful account of our commercial requirements.  I would highly recommend her to anyone.

 CEO, Global Education Provider

You were very helpful, professional and patient throughout the whole process of negotiating a settlement agreement on termination of my employment, and I believe you assisted me to achieve more than I could have hoped for. You always replied promptly with care and took all my queries (minute or significant) seriously.

It was a great pleasure working with you, and I highly recommend your legal and HR consultancy service and your approach to work.

Absolutely fantastic! Very knowledgeable, very thorough and exceeded all my expectations. Exceptional!

Client in claim following termination of employment

It was a pleasure working with you. Not only did you deliver what we asked but you also came up with broader suggestions as to how we could protect our business interests.  I look forward to working with you again.

Director, Consumer Claims Start-up

It has been an absolute pleasure working with Emma. She was both speedy and comprehensive in her delivery, and very thorough in answering all our questions and concerns. She took care to go through specific quirks of our business to make sure the documents / advice covered us from all angles. The quality of her work is astounding. Most importantly, she is a fantastic listener and really “gets us” – our brand, our values, and what we ultimately want to achieve… (cont.)

…Would not hesitate to use her for all future legal works (have actually already signed her up for the next piece of advisory work!). Thanks so much for the wonderful work, and very much look forward to working together again!

CEO, Global Online Clothing Supplier

I instructed Emma on what turned out to be a pretty complex area of law. Emma handled the instruction exceptionally well, quickly got to the crux of the matter and provided notably well-constructed and researched advice.

Client, employment dispute

Great job, really quick and extremely thorough! Thank you! 

Client, Prospective Franchisee

Really fantastic advice, delivered very promptly, and very much with our aims and goals in mind. Can’t recommend you enough, and I’ll certainly be using your services again in future.

Director, Software Design Consultancy

SearchStar worked with Vanessa for 4 brilliant years – she guided us through every aspect of HR from the gritty end of performance management through the loftier end of becoming a Sunday Times “Best Places To Work”. Throughout she was totally professional, deeply knowledgeable and a delight to work with – massively recommended.”

MD, Media Buying Agency

Vanessa has provided HR support to our business since 2016. Vanessa provides pragmatic advice on a range of HR matters and her influence on the business has been considerable… (cont.)

With the business at a scale that cannot justify full time HR resource, Vanessa has ensured our compliance with current HR legislation, implemented systems to help facilitate HR management, and promoted initiatives in response to data gleaned from staff surveys which she too developed. In the space of 3 years we have developed a progressive HR policy, not a reactionary one.

MD, Marketing and Publishing Services

How can we help?

Get in touch for a no obligation chat about how our legal and HR consultancy can help your business today.

 

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