Employment Tribunals - Unfair / Wrongful Dismissal Pricing

Thank you for looking at our employment tribunal service.

We offer employment tribunal services to both employers and employees and have experience of dealing with a range of employment disputes including unfair and wrongful dismissal claims.

We understand that engaging in any form of dispute can be stressful and time consuming for you.  Our team will do all they can to help you with the process and provide guidance on each stage.  Our service is bespoke and tailored to meet your needs.  In order to provide this kind of service, we acknowledge that we will not be the cheapest firm of lawyers and we do not provide a fixed price service.  We will give a range of prices indicating what our likely fee will be.

All the figures given below are correct as of April 2023.

Why Us

We work with you to try and resolve the claim in the best way for you.  Here are some of the things that we believe make us distinctive when it comes to employment tribunal work:

• The team are all experienced in resolving claims through mediation.
• We do not pay any referral fees to professional contacts who introduce clients to us.  Our business is generated from returning clients or from recommendations from financial advisers, accountants and estate agents etc.
• Sometimes, our clients are resident in foreign time zones.  If any work requires us to be available in the evenings or weekends, we will be.
• We are happy to attend meetings away from the office as required, whatever the reason, and can include the cost of this in our estimate if required.
• While tricky problems do rear their heads in employment tribunal work from time to time, we will almost always be able to deal with anything of that nature in the house.  If we can’t we work with a number of specialist barristers who can provide advice.
• We genuinely pride ourselves on finding solutions.  We do not operate a process driven attitude to your case and will use all our imagination to find an answer to any problem generated as the work progresses.

Key Milestones and Our Fees

Our fees are charged by reference to the time spent on a matter and the hourly rate of the fee earner involved.  It is difficult to give a precise indication of costs.  The figures set out below are illustrations of the range of costs which may be incurred for the different stages of a straightforward unfair/wrongful dismissal claim.

Stage 1 – Initial Instruction

£1,500-£3,000 plus VAT

This will include taking instructions in relation to the claim, reviewing all relevant documents, providing advice on the merits of the claim and dealing with the ACAS early conciliation process.

Stage 2 – Statements of Case

£1,500-£3,500 plus VAT

We will draft your statement of case and ET1/ET3.  If there are complex issues this includes instructing a barrister to undertake that work for you.

Stage 3 – Preliminary Hearing

£1,500-£2,500 plus VAT

Almost all employment tribunal claims are listed for a preliminary hearing.  We will prepare the documents required for the hearing and instruct a barrister to represent you at the hearing

Stage 4 – Exchanging Evidence

£3,500-£6,500 plus VAT

This is the most important stage or the claim as it involves preparation of the evidence you will rely on at trial.  We will prepare or review the schedule of loss.  We will deal with disclosure of all documents relevant to the case and consider the documents received from the other party.  We will work with the other party to collate an indexed bundle of documents for the employment tribunal.  We will also prepare witness statements for you to be exchanged with the other party and consider the statements received from them.

Stage 5 – Final Hearing

£1,500-£2,500 plus VAT

To prepare for the trial we will draft any list of issues, chronology or cast list required and liaise with the barrister representing you at trial and provide them with instructions for the hearing.  A trial is usually listed to last for between 1 and 3 days.  This does not include the cost of sending a representative from this firm to attending the hearing if your barrister requests it.

Fixed Costs and Disbursements

If expert witness evidence is needed, we will obtain estimates from suitable experts and agree those with you before the expert is instructed.

A barrister will usually be instructed to represent you at trial and at the preliminary hearing.  Depending on the complexity of the case the barrister may be involved at an earlier stage to advise in relation to the merits of the claim or any specific points of law, draft the statement of case or advise on the evidence ahead of trial.  We will agree the selection of a barrister with you and provide some information about their likely fees.  Before the barrister undertakes any work on your case we will seek to agree a fixed fee.

Our Fee Earners

Below is a table of our fee earners, their experience and charge out rates.  Unqualified fee earners are supervised by a partner or associate.

Exclusions

These fees only relate to unfair/wrongful dismissal claims at the employment tribunal and do not include other types of claim such as discrimination, any appeal or a claim in the County or High Court.  Our fees are not fixed as there are many factors that affect the likely fees that will apply.  Where there is likely to be any additional cost above the estimate we provide you with at the outset, we will make sure you are informed of this at the earliest opportunity and a clear estimate of those extra costs will be provided.

Factors that may lead to an increase in cost include:

• Claims with a predicted trial length in excess of 3 days which are more likely to be complex.
• Claims involving multiple parties
• Any counterclaim made by the employer
• Participation in Judicial mediation or Judicial assessment
• Claims where either party is a litigant in person
• The need to obtain expert evidence in relation to any aspect of the claim
• Complex legal issues or claims involving a large number of documents
• The number of witnesses involved

Time Scales

The timescale will largely depend on how busy the employment tribunal dealing with your claim is.  Once a claim has been sent to the employer they have 28 days in which to submit their response.  The preliminary hearing will usually take place 3 to 6 months after the claim is sent to your employer and the final hearing is likely to be 6 to 12 months after the claim was sent to the employer.  These are estimates and will vary from case to case and do not include the time needed to deal with any enforcement measures should the employer not pay the sum awarded.