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Employment law brief: 11 April 2025

© Copyright LexisNexis 2026. All Rights Reserved.
11 April 2025 / Ian Smith
Issue: 8112 / Categories: Features , Employment , Tribunals , Disciplinary&grievance procedures , Litigants in person
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In this month’s brief, Ian Smith pays tribute to a titan of industrial relations & applauds the brevity of judgments in days gone by
  • Summary dismissal where the offence is not specified in the contract.
  • Use of lists of issues: the role of the employment tribunal.
  • Worker: the basic requirement of a contract, but with whom?

In the 21 March issue of NLJ there was an article about this year’s LexisNexis Legal Awards, which included the news that a lifetime contribution award had been presented to Michael Rubenstein, the editor of the Industrial Relations Law Reports. I am sure that readers of this monthly column/epistle/rant would like to join me in congratulating him on this richly deserved honour. His has truly been a monumental contribution to the development of employment law since the 1970s.

As I sit here in my freezing garret, typing through fingerless mittens yet more Harvey, I have the consolation of looking at shelves worth of box files containing the reports, back to 1977 (not quite to the

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