Business Legal Services
Employee Share Schemes
Reward your team and enjoy significant tax benefits with a tailored employee share scheme
Careful planning and expert legal advice are essential to ensure your employee share scheme aligns with your company’s commercial objectives, adapts to future changes in the business and workforce, maximises available tax efficiencies and reliefs, minimises tax risks and safeguards the company and its shareholders.
Incentives that give staff and service providers a real stake in the company they’re working to build offers tangible benefits to both growing and established businesses. Our team can design and create a bespoke share scheme tailored to align seamlessly with your business goals.
How we support you
Designing your employee share scheme
As experts in employee share schemes, we have the skills and experience to help you design a share scheme that works for your company, whether for employees, non-executive directors, or, where appropriate, contractors.
We can create a range of share schemes tailored to your needs, with EMI schemes being the most popular option due to their tax efficiency and flexibility.
Share scheme awards granted at an early stage are often the most tax-efficient, and for start-ups and growth companies, these awards can become highly valuable in the future, such as during an exit or investment round. Getting the structure right from the start is essential to maximise benefits and ensure long-term success.
Our team can support you with:
Designing a share plan that meets the company’s commercial objectives
Advising on how your company’s constitution may need to be adapted to facilitate the incentive strategy and protect the company and shareholders in the short-, medium- and long-term
Assisting with The Board level and shareholder level steps needed to put your plan in place
Advising on any regulations that relate to the employee share scheme plan
Drafting equity plan documents and template and/or individual award agreements
Advising on any employment law aspects of introducing and operating an employee share schemes plan
Obtaining any necessary clearances from HMRC and/or drafting share valuation submissions
Mitigating potential dilution and other impacts for founders, investors and other stakeholders
Advising on Directors’ remuneration and other corporate governance issues
Assist you with share plan management combing expert legal support with the ease of a user-friendly online platform
We can also help you navigate complex employment tax rules related to equity awards, ensuring compliance and timely tax reporting to HMRC, avoiding penalties and interest. Our support extends to managing the tax implications of changes to employee share rights, employee exits, and equity sales during corporate events. Additionally, we can help structure employee rewards tax-efficiently to maximise financial gains and reduce employer National Insurance costs.
Who we help
High-growth businesses, senior leaders and consultants
Senior leaders of ambitious businesses often tell us that attracting and retaining top talent during periods of scaling is one of their biggest challenges. Balancing the priorities of founders, investors, and employees, all while safeguarding cash flow and protecting working capital, is especially critical when implementing an employee share scheme.
That’s why they turn to us. We have the expertise to strike the right balance, creating an employee share scheme that aligns with your business strategy both now and in the future.
We also work with consultants to ensure that their interests are aligned with the business, helping you extend the benefits of your share scheme to key external contributors.
Making informed decisions
Navigating employee share schemes
We can assist your company with both HMRC tax-advantaged schemes and non-tax advantaged schemes.
We’ll guide you through tax-advantaged mechanisms such as EMI, CSOP, SAYE, SIP, and EOT, including assessing your eligibility, obtaining HMRC share valuation agreements, drafting incentive plan documents, and managing your dealings with HMRC.
For non-tax advantaged schemes, such as ordinary and preferred share structures, employee share classes, growth shares, share options, RSUs, SARs, and phantom share schemes, we offer tailored advice to help you design and implement plans that align with your objectives. While these schemes don’t need to meet HMRC’s strict legal requirements, careful structuring is essential to maximise tax benefits and limit tax risks. Our lawyers can help with everything from determining the right approach to structuring, setting up, and administering your scheme effectively.
Finding the right legal partner
Why work with Harper James
Choose a legal partner you can trust: we’ll help protect your goals, your business and your people so you can move forward with confidence and focus on growing your business.
Affordable, transparent and predictable pricing
Clear itemised invoices, subscription plans with up to 50% discount, and fixed fee products help you plan and manage legal spend – with no nasty surprises.
Proven track record and measurable results
We’ve supported over 8,000 businesses since 2014, with an ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot and a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 60+ from monthly client surveys.
Straight-talking, responsive advice
We’re here to make things easier, not add complexity. That means fast response times, practical expert legal advice delivered in plain English, and dedicated client service and account management support.
Risk and compliance assured
We’re an SRA regulated firm, but more importantly, we build quality, data, and compliance best practice into everything we do.
Appointing a legal partner is a big decision. That’s why we’re open about our values, culture and model, so you can see what makes us tick. And because a productive partnership starts with understanding, we always begin with a conversation – listening to your goals, pressures and plans, then tailoring our support to fit.
Testimonials
What our clients say
Our clients have confidence in our services because we offer bespoke solutions rather than generic, one-size-fits-all approaches. For further reassurance that you’re making the right choice, hear directly from our clients about their positive experiences with us.
Meet our team
Why choose our employee share scheme solicitors?
At the heart of our work is a commitment to helping businesses tackle challenges and grow. We can leverage the expertise of our colleagues in employment, business immigration, and corporate law to provide the legal backbone your business needs to succeed.
Many of us have not only worked for some of the most highly regarded law firms in the UK but have also served as in-house legal counsel or senior leaders in businesses. This diverse experience allows us to offer practical and insightful legal advice tailored to your needs.
Find out more about who you’ll be working with:
Pricing and service plans
Legal support designed
to fit your business needs
Our three transparent service plans are designed to give you the widest possible access to high-quality legal advice, whatever the size and nature of your business:
Engage
Flexible access to senior solicitors at highly competitive rates
An alternative to our subscription plans, offering access to full service legal expertise on a project-by-project basis.
Enable
Purpose built legal support for start-ups and smaller businesses
Monthly subscription plan for £239 per month, with £159 monthly credit and access to all legal services at 50% discount on our Standard Rates.
Extend
Comprehensive legal partnership for established businesses
Fully account managed and scalable annual subscription plan with support from a curated team of partners and senior solicitors, with up to 33% discount on our Standard Rates.
