Practice Area
HR Advisory
We act as outside employment counsel to HR teams, founders and CFOs — building the contracts, policies and processes that keep a Pakistani workforce compliant before anything goes wrong. Our employment litigators handle the disputes; this practice exists so that fewer of them ever start.
Most Pakistani businesses meet employment law for the first time in a labour court, and by then the file is already written. The show-cause notice that was never sent, the inquiry that skipped a step, the registration that lapsed — these are not litigation problems, they are HR problems that became litigation. This practice works at the other end. We build the contracts, policies, registrations and committees first, so that the ordinary events of employing people — hiring, discipline, exit — run on a process that was designed to be examined.
The work is harder than it looks because the law is not one law. After the Eighteenth Amendment, labour legislation devolved to the provinces, and the statute that governs your Lahore office is not the statute that governs your Karachi one; a trans-provincial employer may answer to the federal regime as well. Layered over the provincial codes sit federal contribution schemes such as EOBI, the harassment framework of the 2010 Act, and the Contract Act rules that decide what a restrictive covenant is worth. An HR team cannot be expected to hold that map in its head. We hold it for them.
Our clients are the people who own this problem inside a business: founders hiring beyond the first dozen, HR managers at SMEs who are the entire HR department, and the HR and legal teams of enterprises with sites in several provinces. For the smaller client, the engagement usually starts with the audit and the core document set. For the larger one, it is more often a specific build — a harassment committee, a handbook harmonised across provinces, a contractor-conversion exercise — followed by a retainer.
We measure the practice by what does not happen. A termination that produces no grievance petition, a complaint resolved by a committee that already existed, a due diligence that finds a clean employment file — that is the product. When something does go wrong despite the process, the matter moves to our employment litigators without a handover, because they are the same team.
Everything on this page is stated as of mid-2026. Provincial labour statutes, contribution rates and thresholds change, and several provinces continue to consolidate their labour codes. The governing statute and the numbers should be confirmed for your specific establishment and province before any step is taken; that confirmation is the first thing we do.
When Businesses Need This
The moments this practice exists for.
- 01You are hiring your first ten employees and have no contracts, no offer letter template and no policy on anything.
- 02Your headcount has crossed the thresholds at which provincial labour statutes, social security registration and EOBI contributions apply, and nobody has checked which ones.
- 03You have employees in more than one province and one set of documents written for none of them.
- 04A harassment complaint has landed and you discover the inquiry committee required by law was never constituted.
- 05An investor's due diligence list asks for your standing orders, EOBI registration and gratuity provisioning, and the honest answer is a shrug.
- 06You want to dismiss a poor performer and your HR manager is not sure whether a show-cause notice is needed or what it should say.
- 07You are converting contractors to employees, or worry that the people you call contractors are already employees in law.
How It Works
The process, stage by stage.
1
HR audit
We start with a fixed-scope review of what exists — contracts, letters, policies, registrations, filings and payroll practice — against the statutes that actually apply to your establishment, province by province. The output is a gap list ranked by exposure, not a lecture. Most clients discover two or three gaps that are cheap to close and one that is not.
2
Jurisdictional map
Employment law devolved to the provinces after the Eighteenth Amendment, so the first legal question is always which regime governs each site and each category of worker. We produce a short memo that names the governing statute, forum and thresholds for every location you operate in. Everything else is built on this map.
3
Documents
We draft or repair the core set — employment contracts by category, offer letters, probation and confirmation letters, an employee handbook, and the certified standing orders where the law requires them. Documents are drafted against the statute that will judge them, not adapted from a foreign template.
4
Processes and committees
We set up the machinery the statutes require and the machinery good employers need anyway — the harassment inquiry committee under the 2010 Act, disciplinary and grievance procedures, and an exit process that produces a clean file. We train the people who will run these, because a committee that exists only on paper fails when tested.
5
Retained counsel
Most clients keep us on after the build as retained HR counsel — a fixed monthly arrangement under which the HR team calls before acting on terminations, disciplinary matters, accommodations and policy questions. Fee structure is set by engagement letter. The point is that the call happens before the letter is sent, not after.
The Legal Framework
The law this work runs on.
- West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968
- The baseline terms-of-employment regime for commercial and industrial establishments in Punjab, as provincially amended. It prescribes worker categories, notice, and the disciplinary framework most establishments must follow. Applicability turns on establishment type and headcount, which we confirm for each client.
- Punjab Industrial Relations Act, 2010
- Governs trade unions, collective bargaining and unfair labour practices for establishments in Punjab, with the labour courts as forum. Trans-provincial establishments fall instead under the federal Industrial Relations Act 2012 and the NIRC — a distinction that decides where you get sued.
- Punjab Shops and Establishments Ordinance, 1969
- Regulates working hours, leave, holidays and registration for shops and commercial establishments in Punjab. Office-based businesses that assume labour law does not apply to them are usually within this Ordinance.
- Employees' Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976
- The federal pension-contribution regime administered by EOBI. Registration and monthly contributions are mandatory above modest headcount thresholds, and arrears surface with penalties in due diligence years later.
- Provincial Employees' Social Security Ordinance, 1965
- Requires registration and contributions to the provincial social security institution — PESSI in Punjab — for secured employees below a wage ceiling. The ceiling and rates change; we state them as of the date of advice.
- Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010
- Requires every employer to adopt a code of conduct, display it, and constitute a three-member inquiry committee. The 2022 amendments widened the definitions of employee and workplace, so pre-2022 compliance documents are usually out of date.
- Contract Act, 1872
- Section 27 voids most post-employment restraints of trade, which is why non-compete clauses copied from foreign templates fail in Pakistan. We draft the confidentiality and non-solicitation protections that courts here will actually enforce, and say plainly what they will not.
- Companies Act, 2017
- Relevant where the employer is a company — board approval for executive appointments and remuneration in certain cases, and the record-keeping that makes an employment file usable in a corporate transaction.
Statutory references are stated as of the page’s as-of date and flagged where verification is pending; the law moves, and the current position should be confirmed before relying on it.
Common Mistakes
The errors we see most — and their price.
- Copying an employment contract from a foreign template, complete with a two-year non-compete that section 27 of the Contract Act 1872 renders void.
- Treating everyone as a non-workman and discovering in the labour court that the statute, not the job title, decides who is a workman.
- Skipping EOBI and social security registration in the early years and inheriting the arrears, with penalties, at the worst possible moment — during a fundraise.
- Dismissing for misconduct without a show-cause notice and a domestic inquiry, converting a defensible termination into a reinstatement order.
- Having no certified standing orders where the 1968 Ordinance requires them, which leaves the statutory defaults governing instead of your own terms.
- Constituting no harassment inquiry committee, so the first complaint goes straight to the Ombudsperson with the employer already in breach.
- Using one contract nationwide when the establishment in Karachi answers to Sindh statutes and the establishment in Lahore to Punjab ones.
- Calling long-term full-time staff contractors to avoid benefits, a label courts look through when the relationship is examined.
Representative Scenarios
The shape of the work.
Illustrative scenarios, not case reports — composites drawn to show how matters of this kind run.
- —A forty-person software company in Lahore preparing for a Series A engaged us to run an HR audit; we closed EOBI and PESSI registration gaps, replaced template contracts, and produced the clean employment file the investor's counsel asked for. Illustrative.Illustrative
- —A retail chain expanding from Punjab into Sindh asked us to map the two provincial regimes; the same role needed different contract terms and different registrations in each province. Illustrative.Illustrative
- —An enterprise client received a harassment complaint with no committee in place; we constituted one, advised it through the inquiry, and the matter was resolved without Ombudsperson proceedings. Illustrative.Illustrative
- —A manufacturer planning a reduction in force retained us before announcing anything; the sequencing, notices and statutory dues were settled in advance, and no grievance petition followed. Illustrative.Illustrative
Questions, Answered
What clients ask about hr advisory.
This practice is preventive and operational — audits, documents, committees, and a retained line to counsel for the HR team. Employment Law is where our litigators handle terminations gone wrong, grievance petitions and NIRC proceedings. The two share lawyers, so the people who build your processes are the people who would defend them.
Office-based businesses are covered too. The Punjab Shops and Establishments Ordinance 1969 reaches ordinary commercial offices, and EOBI and social security obligations turn on headcount, not industry. As of mid-2026 the thresholds are low enough that most funded startups are within them.
Post-employment non-competes are generally void under section 27 of the Contract Act 1872, and courts apply that rule firmly. Confidentiality obligations and carefully drawn non-solicitation clauses stand on better ground. We draft for what is enforceable rather than what looks reassuring.
The statutes draw the line by the nature of the work, broadly manual or clerical versus managerial or supervisory. A workman gets the protection of the standing-orders regime and the labour courts; a non-workman is largely left to contract and the civil courts. Misclassifying someone decides the forum and the remedy against you.
Repeated fixed-term renewals for work that is permanent in nature invite a finding that the employment is permanent, whatever the paper says. Fixed terms have legitimate uses — projects, seasonal work, genuine trials — and we advise on where the line sits as of the date of advice.
The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 requires employers to adopt the code of conduct, display it prominently, and constitute a standing three-member inquiry committee with the prescribed composition. The 2022 amendments broadened who and what is covered. Non-compliance is itself sanctionable, independent of any complaint.
Each establishment generally answers to the labour statutes of its own province, and Islamabad Capital Territory has its own set; a trans-provincial employer may also fall under the federal Industrial Relations Act 2012 for industrial-relations purposes. There is no shortcut — the map has to be drawn location by location, and we draw it as the first step.
Depending on establishment type, headcount and wage levels — EOBI contributions, provincial social security contributions, and for covered establishments gratuity or provident fund, workers' profit participation and workers' welfare fund payments. Which apply to you is a factual question we answer in the audit, stated as of the date of advice.
A fixed monthly arrangement, scoped in the engagement letter, under which your HR team has a direct line to counsel for day-to-day questions — disciplinary steps, policy calls, exits, accommodations. Fee structure is by engagement letter [FEE STRUCTURE — TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE FIRM]. Most audit clients move onto a retainer once the build is done.
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Prepared by The First Counsel · As of 2026-07-12 · Pending professional review — statements flagged in the text are being verified
This publication is provided for general information only. It is not legal advice, and neither reading it nor corresponding with the firm about it creates a lawyer–client relationship. The position stated must be verified against current law before it is relied upon.