Kemp & Co in training contract row

Kemp & Co is being taken to an industrial tribunal by a man who claims his training contract was terminated before he even started.

However, founding partner Richard Kemp denies the firm ever offered the claimant, David Gould, a contract. He says: "Gould is claiming we offered him, and subsequently withdrew, a training contract. We are taking the claim seriously but believe it is completely groundless and we are resisting it. We did get an application from Gould for paralegal work but decided he wasn't the chap for us."

Gould maintains he signed a training contract with the specialist IT firm in August 1998 and subsequently resigned from his job as an educational director at a London school. He alleges Kemp & Co first withdrew the contract in March.

Gould claims: "Kemp & Co said that because a partner had left they had changed their minds about me."

Partner Ashley Winton left Kemp & Co for Osborne Clarke in the summer (The Lawyer, 2 August 1999). Kemp says Winton's departure is completely unrelated.

Gould adds: "They are claiming that as they told me in March and I wasn't to start until July, they gave me more than a month's notice. I don't understand how notice can be served before you start work."

Kemp says that he has "absolute" confidence the firm will win the case.