People Processes Interviews: Alison Colley
Who are we interviewing:
Alison Colley – Solicitor and Founder of Real Employment Law Advice and host of the podcast ‘The
Employment Law and HR Podcast’
How did she get here?
I qualified as a Solicitor (known as lawyer in the US) in the UK in 2006 and worked for traditional
lawyers’ firms, where I specialised in employment law and providing legal advice to employers and
employees.
After becoming disillusioned with the traditional career path, stuffy slow pace of change and
presenteeism required in the profession I found the ‘4 hour work week’ by Tim Ferris whilst
wondering around bored on my lunchbreak and from this I was led into the world of
entrepreneurship, passive income and taking control of my destiny.
For several months after reading the 4 hour work week I came up with a vast number of hairbrained
schemes completely unrelated to the legal profession, not having the confidence to consider that I
could start my own legal firm. Eventually, realising I was not quite ready to give up on my profession
and passion for helping to solve problems I set about starting my own legal practice.
In November 2013 I started Real Employment Law Advice as a Sole Practitioner completely from
scratch with no client base and no investment or capital.
I started the firm with the objective of providing a new service to my local community and with the
vision of starting something different to the traditional Solicitors brand.
My objective was (and remains) to provide legal services in a new way, disrupting the market by
utilizing technology to deliver service and provide information on a variety of platforms throughout
the UK.
I now have a team of 4 staff, including two other Solicitors and we work with clients throughout the
UK on everything from contracts to HR best practice through to representation in the Employment
Tribunal and Courts.
Podcasting
Few Solicitors in the UK are podcasting, and I was a relatively early adopter (August 2014), and have
maintained consistency throughout this time. The podcast now regularly gets between 7,000- 8,00
downloads per month from all over the world and I focus on the law, HR and best practice for
employers, managers and HR professionals.
As a result of the success of the podcast I was interviewed by the Guardian for an article on their
website about podcasting for business.
Contact Info
Check her out at http://alisoncolley.co.uk/ or connect to her company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/real-employment-law-advice/
About the author, Rhamy
Rhamy grew up watching and working with his mother and grandmother in the senior insurance market. This familiarity with the struggles faced by people trying to navigate the incredibly complicated and heavily regulated healthcare market led him to start Poplar Financial while working on his degree at the University of Memphis. After completing his MBA and Bachelors in Finance and Economics, Rhamy guided Poplar Financial through the disruptive opportunity that is the Affordable Care Act. Since then Poplar Financial has received numerous awards from major insurance carriers and has completed its fourth year in a row of doubling in size. Now his team focuses on the processes around human resources and specializes in providing companies with between 20 and 1000 employees with the payroll, benefits, and HR needs.