Employment Law for Employees

The time that it takes from taking your initial instructions to the final resolution of your matter depends largely on the stage at which your case is resolved and the point in time where we are instructed. If a settlement is reached during pre-claim conciliation, your case is likely to take 2-8 weeks.

If your claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, your case is likely to take 26-52 weeks and in some cases this can be longer where we are engaged by you at a stage where internal employment processes are still ongoing. This is only an estimate and we will be able to provide you with a more accurate timescale once we have further information and as the matter progresses and taking into account your individual needs, circumstances and instructions.

Key stages

The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim including but not limited to the following:

• Taking your initial instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on merits and likely compensation (this is likely to be revisited throughout the matter and subject to change) that may be awarded to you or against you, we will also advise on our own costs at this stage as well as advising you of the likelihood of recovering any costs you incur from the other side and the risk you may have of having to pay the other parties costs if your claim or the defence of a claim is unsuccessful;
• Entering into pre-claim conciliation where this is mandatory to explore whether a settlement can be reached/ Engaging in pre claim conciliation to establish what the Claimant wants to achieve in settlement of their claim;
• Preparing the claim or the response to the claim;
• Reviewing and advising on any claim or response or other documents that may be received from the other party, this may include requests for further information;
• Exploring settlement and negotiating settlement throughout the process;
• Preparing or considering a schedule of loss and where necessary advising on mitigation evidence and/ or preparing a counter schedule of loss;
• Preparing for (and attending) a Preliminary Hearing;
• Exchanging documents with the other party, preparing an agreed list and bundle of documents;
• Taking witness statements, drafting witness statements and agreeing their content with witnesses and exchanging them with the other side prior to the hearing and in accordance with any Employment Tribunal directions;
• Reviewing and advising on the other party's witness statements and where necessary preparing supplemental witness statements;
• Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and/or cast list and/ or reading list for the final hearing;
• Preparation and attendance at the final hearing, including preparing instructions to Counsel and attending any conferences with Counsel that might be necessary;
• The stages set out above are an indication and if some of stages above are not required then the final costs total will reflect this but ultimately the amount of costs incurred will be dependent upon the amount of inter party correspondence that has occurred between the parties as well as the amount of contact and correspondence with you throughout the proceedings and at which stage the claim is resolved. You may wish to handle some or all of the parts of the claim/defence yourself and only have us provide advice in relation to some aspects or how to prepare a certain court document in these cases our time is charged on a time spent basis and we will provide you with an estimate of our costs to meet your individual needs in these type of cases.

The above fee estimates do not include any work or advice required with regard to any appeal of an Employment Tribunal decision or an application for costs or defence of an application for costs against you except where this is dealt with as part of the final hearing.