Employment Tribunal solicitors

Our overall fees vary depending on how complex your case is and what you would like us to do.

This section provides a guide to how we calculate our charges where you are an individual or an employer involved in a claim for unfair dismissal before an Employment Tribunal.

Our Employment, Pensions and Immigration Department has multiple offices with nationwide coverage, and we conduct our own advocacy in Employment Tribunal cases. This enables us to maintain relationship care and conduct of every tribunal case from its origin right through to its litigated conclusion.

For an estimate tailored to your specific matter, please contact us and we will discuss your matter and needs with you and provide you with a bespoke cost estimate.

Our charges

Our charges consist of:

• Our professional fees for the legal work.
• Costs and expenses paid to others in order to progress your matter, such as fees for a barrister’s opinion or representation. We handle making these payments on your behalf during the course of your matter, either using money that you have given us in advance, or invoicing them to you together with our fees. These payments are called disbursements.
• VAT is charged on our professional fees at the applicable rate, which is currently 20%. Many disbursements also carry VAT, and we will inform you of the VAT on each disbursement as we go along.

Calculating our fees

The costs of an unfair or wrongful dismissal claim can vary according to how complex the case is. Our fees will be discussed with you at the start of your case. The table below sets out guideline fixed fee ranges for the costs at different levels of complexity:

Please note that the fee ranges stated above reflect the work that we would expect to carry out in respect of a typical case of the stated complexity, and is based on the following assumptions:

• You are not bringing, or your former employee is not bringing, any claim other than the claim for unfair and/or wrongful dismissal. For example, there is no claim for discrimination. If there is an additional claim, we will, of course, be happy to advise you accordingly, but our fees will increase.
• The final hearing will be no more than two days.

If we do not provide you with a fixed price, or if we do additional work for you which is outside the scope of our fixed price, please note that our hourly rates may apply. The standard hourly rates for each type of solicitor or other team member who may be involved in your transaction are:

The factors which may impact on the complexity of your case and therefore the exact time spent and fees charged, include:

• If either of the assumptions listed above proves to be incorrect.
• If it is necessary to make or defend applications to amend claims or to provide further information about an existing claim.
• If it is necessary to defend claims that are brought by litigants in person.
• If it is necessary to make or defend a costs application.
• If there are complex preliminary issues, for example if the parties are in dispute as to whether the claimant has a particular disability.
• If there is a need to interview an extraordinary number of witnesses and draft statements for them.
• If it is an automatic unfair dismissal claim, for example, where an employee is dismissed after whistleblowing.
• If there are allegations of discrimination which are linked to the dismissal.
• If there is a need for any case management or any other preliminary hearing at Employment Tribunal and/or the length of final hearing is more than 2 days.

Before you commit to paying, we will explain to you any variance from the indicative fee if this is apparent from the outset. We will also keep you updated at all times if any of these, or other, factors are likely to result in an increase to our fee.

Disbursements and other expenses

In an unfair or wrongful dismissal claim the most common disbursements are for travel / accommodation and subsistence. We will confirm these to you when the location is known.

Opponent’s costs

Normally you do not have to pay your opponent’s costs in an employment claim but we will guide you further if we feel that you are at risk of this at any stage.

Funding options

Not all of our clients will have to meet our fees, costs and expenses from their own pocket. You may, for example, have insurance cover.

We will be happy to discuss with you your funding options at your first appointment.

Legal work involved in the transaction

The examples of typical fees above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of an unfair dismissal or wrongful dismissal case:

• Taking your instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on your prospects of success in the claim and the likely compensation. This advice is likely to be revisited throughout the case and may be subject to change.
• Entering into pre-claim conciliation with ACAS where this is mandatory to explore whether a settlement can be reached.
• Preparing your claim or response.
• Reviewing and advising on the claim or response from the other party.
• Exploring settlement and negotiating a settlement throughout the process.
• Preparing or considering a schedule of loss.
• Preparing for and attending a preliminary hearing.
• Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing a bundle of documents.
• Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses.
• Preparing bundles of documents for the final hearing.
• Reviewing and advising on the other party's witness statements.
• Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and cast list.
• Communicating with the other parties involved and advising you upon these communications.
• Attendance at the Employment Tribunal hearing.

It would not normally be necessary to undertake other work or incur other costs other than those described above. However, we would be very happy to provide you with a more tailored quote for all stages if your particular case once we know about your specific circumstances.

Timescale and key stages

From taking your initial instructions to final resolution of your matter will depend largely on the stage at which your case is resolved. If settlement is reached during pre-claim conciliation, your case will typically take 3-4 weeks to complete. If the claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, your case is likely to take 26-39 weeks. Typical factors which may influence the duration include:

• The complexity of the case and the length of the final hearing.
• The manner in which the other party conducts the case.
• The impact of Covid-19 has inevitably created a backlog of cases for hearing at Tribunal centres. Accordingly, current expectations are that it will be likely to take significantly longer for cases to progress to the hearing stage. We will keep you updated at all times if any of these, or other, factors are likely to result in delay.

Who will be dealing with your case?

Your case will typically be handled by a solicitor in our Employment, Pensions and Immigration (EPI) team, supported as necessary by our trainees / paralegals.

A solicitor acting for you may be described in correspondence as a “Partner”, a “Principal Associate” an “Associate” or a “Solicitor”. A Principal Associate / Associate is, generally, more experienced than a “Solicitor”. Our trainees / paralegals are not (yet) solicitors, and usually have no other formal legal qualification.

We will always ensure that the solicitor acting for you has the requisite level of experience to handle your case competently. In any event, all work will be supervised by a Partner, being the most senior member of the team allocated to you.

Once you know who will be in the team allocated to your transaction, you will be able to find further details of their background and qualifications by visiting the People section on our website.

If you have any queries, please contact Ben Daniel at ben.daniel@weightmans.com