Olivia Sinfield

Olivia has more than sixteen years’ experience of advising employers and senior executives in the full range of contentious and non- contentious issues arising during the employment life cycle including:-

• Employment Tribunal litigation including high value bonus claims;
• Restrictive covenants and injunctions;
• Restructuring and collective redundancies; and
• Business critical issues including board disputes, change management and discrimination claims.

Olivia leads a team of employment lawyers specialising in 'GDPR for HR' advice and runs the 'GDPR for HR' client network group. This involves advising in respect of all data protection issues impacting on HR including employee data breach, employment related DSAR's (for which we offer a bespoke service) and employee surveillance and monitoring issues. She presents regularly on employment related privacy issues.

Olivia regularly works alongside our Workforce Solutions team to provide holistic advice and practical solutions to any business involved in the supply of people based resourcing solutions.

Olivia is also actively involved in advising clients on issues relating to the Future of Work and helping them to adapt to the changing ways in which we work in light of changes fast forwarded by COVID and digitalisation. She has spoken at numerous external events in respect of this transformation driver and is recognised as a 'go to' adviser in this regard.

Olivia re-joined the London employment team in 2016 having worked for a niche employment law practice for the previous seven years. This provided her with an additional perspective having advised both employers and employees and gave her extensive experience in conducting her own advocacy in the Employment Tribunal. Prior to that, she worked for five years at Osborne Clarke joining from another international law firm.

Olivia has a particular interest, and experience, in providing legal and HR training to HR departments and managers in a broad spectrum of employment issues. Most recently, she has provided clients with training in respect of 'The impact of COVID on Diversity and Inclusion', 'Data protection in a remote working environment' and 'HR: Adapting to a transition to hybrid working'. Olivia launched our HR Talking Heads network group as part of our COVID response.

Olivia prides herself on giving practical and accessible, user friendly, ‘no nonsense’ pragmatic and commercial advice.

Olivia is a member of the Employment Lawyers’ Association and has spoken recently at events run by City HR, Oracle, Veran Performance, Business Forums International Ltd, the Institute for Turnaround and University College London. She co-chairs the Financial Services HR & Compliance Network in collaboration with Veran Performance.

In 2023, Olivia was recognised in The Lawyer Hot 100 for her work in shaping our legal apprenticeship programme. The list celebrates the most excellent, bold and relevant lawyers from in-house, private practice and the Bar.

Sinfield brings a fresh perspective to legal education that has all the hallmarks of true innovation.

The Lawyer Hot 100 2023