Half-year legal health check: is your business protected going into H2?

1. Employment contracts and staff handbooks

If you've taken on new employees, changed anyone's hours or responsibilities, or promoted someone into a management role since you last updated your contracts, this is your first port of call.

Employment law in the UK is moving fast. The Employment Rights Act is set to introduce significant changes to rights around unfair dismissal, zero-hours contracts and fire-and-rehire practices. While many of these changes won't take effect immediately, now is a smart time to make sure your existing contracts are watertight and that your staff handbook reflects your actual workplace policies. Find out more about the changes coming to Employment Law here.

Key things to check:

1. Are all employees (including part-time and remote workers) on a written contract?

2. Do your employment contracts reflect current roles and responsibilities?

3. Is your disciplinary and grievance process clearly set out?

4. Have you updated any policies relating to flexible working, since new rules came into force?

2. Supplier and client agreements

Cast an eye over the commercial agreements that are keeping your business running. Supplier relationships that started as a quick handshake or a brief email exchange can become expensive disputes if expectations aren't properly documented.

Ask yourself: if a key supplier failed to deliver tomorrow, what remedies would your contract give you? If a client disappeared owing you money, what paper trail do you have?

Things to look for:

1. Payment terms - are they clearly stated, and are they being enforced? (The UK's Fair Payment Code, introduced in late 2024, is a useful benchmark.)

2. Liability caps - do your agreements limit your exposure if something goes wrong?

3. Termination clauses - can either party walk away cleanly, and on what notice?

4. Renewal dates - are any contracts about to auto-renew on terms that no longer suit you?

3. Freelancer and contractor agreements

If you work with freelancers, consultants or contractors - and most SMEs do - it's worth checking that your freelance agreements properly cover two things that businesses often overlook.

First, IP ownership. If a freelancer creates something for your business - code, copy, designs, photography - that intellectual property doesn't automatically belong to you unless the contract says so. This is a surprisingly common gap, and one that can cause serious problems if you later want to sell the business or defend your brand.

Second, IR35 and employment status. Misclassifying someone as self-employed when HMRC might consider them an employee is a risk that hasn't gone away. If working arrangements with a long-term contractor have evolved over time, it's worth reassessing.

4. Data protection and privacy

The ICO has continued to increase its scrutiny of SME data practices. If you hold personal data on customers, employees or prospects - and almost every business does - your data protection obligations don't just apply to big corporations.

A mid-year check should include:

1. Is your Privacy Policy up to date and reflected on your website?

2. Do you have Data Processing Agreements in place with any third parties who handle personal data on your behalf (email platforms, payroll providers, cloud storage providers)?

3. Have you had any near-misses or changes to how you collect or store data that should be documented?

5. Your website's legal pages

It takes less than ten minutes for a customer, competitor, or regulator to scrutinise what's on your website - and yet legal pages are among the most neglected documents in any SME's portfolio.

Check that you have, for example:

1. A Privacy Policy that accurately describes your data practices

2. Terms and Conditions (if you sell goods or services online)

3. A Cookie Policy and functional cookie consent mechanism

4. If you're a limited company, your registered company number and address

If these pages haven't been looked at since your website launched, they probably need refreshing.

A note on legal documents that have already changed

It's also worth knowing that legislation passed since your contracts were originally drafted may have changed the implied terms of those contracts - even if the wording looks the same. For example, employment rights introduced under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act came into force in April 2025, and if your staff handbook hasn't been updated to reflect this, you could find yourself on the wrong side of a claim.

This is why regular reviews matter - not just when something goes wrong, but as a routine part of running a well-managed business.

Where to start

If this checklist feels overwhelming, start with the areas where your business has changed the most in the last twelve months. A new hire, a new supplier, a new product line - wherever there's been growth or change, that's where the legal risk is most likely to have crept in.

Docue's library of lawyer-drafted templates covers all of the areas above, and our Legal Monitoring Reports flag when documents need updating to reflect changes in the law. So even if your business is growing quickly, you don't have to play catch-up on your own.

A little legal housekeeping now can save a lot of disruption later. H2 is a great time to make sure your foundations are solid.

Need help reviewing or updating your legal documents? Explore Docue's legal templates or book a demo to see how Docue can help your business stay protected.