Employment litigation charging information

In the initial telephone call we aim to get a brief background of your case with a view to establishing whether it is sensible for you to be instructing a solicitor and how experienced a solicitor you are likely to need. We do not charge for the initial call if you decide not to proceed any further.

Employment is a very complex area of law and most claims will turn on the specific facts of the case. We will not be able to provide you with a detailed assessment of your case during that first conversation. However, we may be able to tell you if it seems unlikely that you would win, or that any claim would be worth bringing.

Unless we have agreed in writing to assess your case for free (or for a fixed price) we will charge for our services, from the first call or meeting onwards, applying our hourly rates. Our current range of hourly rates for members of the team is from £260 plus VAT to £510 plus VAT. You will be informed of the hourly rate you will be charged. If you do not believe you have been provided with this information, please ensure that you ask the solicitor concerned what the rate is before attending any meeting.

You should check whether you have legal expenses insurance which might cover employment litigation. Legal expenses insurance is not usually taken out separately, but is in insurance policies primarily designed to cover other risks, such as:

• home contents and/or buildings insurance
• payment protection insurance
• car insurance
• credit card insurance

Many of our clients are not aware that they have such insurance until they check their policies.

Legal expenses insurance will not usually cover disciplinary or grievance proceedings, or internal appeals. However, it will cover you from the time the claim is issued, provided the claim in question has sufficiently strong prospects and the policy terms are met. It is also possible that you will be covered under an insurance policy held in the name of someone you live with.

If you are not sure whether your policy covers the type of claim you are thinking of bringing, we would be happy to discuss this with you, or check the terms for you.

If you find you do have legal expenses insurance, but you are told by your insurers that you must use their solicitors (or solicitors from their panel) it is often possible to convince insurers to agree to your instructing your own solicitors, if you would prefer to do so, although this will partly depend on the hourly rates your insurers are prepared to pay.

We are often asked if we take cases on a no win, no fee basis. This expression usually refers either to:

• conditional fees (under which the firm recovers at up to double its usual hourly rates in the event of a successful outcome); or
• contingency fees, or damages based agreements (under which the firm takes a percentage of any amount recovered, plus any barristers’ fees which have been incurred)

We do not undertake any work on contingency fees/damages based agreements and unfortunately we can only consider a conditional fee arrangement in the Employment Tribunal if you have very strong prospects of being awarded more than £400,000. This is because of:

• the high cost of bringing claims (particularly complex claims involving discrimination and/or whistleblowing);
• the fact that, in the Employment Tribunal (unlike in the Courts), it is unusual for the loser to have to pay the winner’s costs, so the costs have to come out of any award; and
• the fact that such awards will usually be largely or entirely taxable.

These factors mean that awards of less than £400,000 may be lower than or largely cancelled out by the costs incurred, and will not therefore justify the cost, time and risk involved in bringing the claim.

Some clients will have breach of contract claims and the option of pursuing these in the Courts, rather than the Employment Tribunal. Because costs are usually recoverable from the losing party in the Courts it may be possible for us to do this sort of work on a conditional fee arrangement, if you have strong prospects of being awarded at least £200,000.

Clients who initially approach us about bringing a claim on a no win, no fee basis sometimes find they have legal expenses insurance. 

If you wish to bring a Tribunal claim which is likely to be worth less than £400,000 (which is likely to be the case if your annual remuneration did not exceed this figure) and you do not have legal expenses insurance, you have the following options:

• bring the claim yourself - Employment Tribunals are less formal than courts and many litigants represent themselves, or are represented by a friend, contact or relative. Visit the Ministry of Justice for details of how to do this. If you are considering this, you may wish to obtain an opinion on your prospects and/or the likely value of your claim at the outset. This is something we can usually agree a fixed fee for before we undertake any work. In order to agree this fee, we will usually need to see your summary of the case and the most relevant documents

• bring the claim with occasional advice and assistance from us - if you cannot afford full representation, you may wish to bring a claim relying on occasional advice and assistance. For example, we can draft your pleading (so that you can be sure that your case is put on a sound legal footing), review witness statements, advise in relation to legal points or Tribunal rules, check your schedule of loss, etc. We can usually agree a fixed fee in advance in respect of any such work

• contact the Free Representation Unit - the Free Representation Unit may be prepared to take your case forward for you

• contact your Citizens Advice Bureau - Citizens Advice Bureau have trained staff who may be able to provide you with assistance in relation to your claim
• instruct a direct access barrister 
• instruct a smaller firm, with lower hourly rates