I’d like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to you for your assistance in resolving the matter in my favour. Your calm, professional yet determined approach assured me that I had the best person and firm representing me, with the right experience to ensure I left with the best package possible. Wish you all the best for the future and will certainly recommend you to friends and family.
Your employment matters to you: Knowing your employment rights and making your rights work for you is vital to achieving the best outcome, whatever your workplace issue.
At Wellers, we understand the importance of finding the best solution to your workplace issue. We are experts in representing employees, and have a highly regarded team of employment lawyers who can work with you, to provide the advice and assistance that you need, when you need it. Our employment solicitors will listen, before acting. They will seek to understand your objectives, in order to provide the highest standard of advice and assistance. At Wellers, making a difference matters.
Not all employment lawyers are the same. Wellers’ employment solicitors combine the expertise and quality you would expect of a City firm, with the personal commitment of a local law firm. We hope that you will choose us to represent your best interests.
Our employment law services for employees include:
- Advising on and negotiating employment contracts
- Negotiating severance packages
- Settlement agreements
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures
- Unfair dismissal
- Wrongful dismissal and deductions from wages
- Equality rights
- Sex discrimination
- Race discrimination
- Religion and belief discrimination
- Disability discrimination
- Pay disputes advice for parents and carers
- Employment tribunal claims
Costs
Wellers is concerned about social justice. If you require help with an employment matter, please contact us. You will not usually be charged for your initial phone call with a solicitor. We will listen to your workplace issue, identify what you want to achieve, and explain your options including costs.
If you have a Settlement Agreement on which you need our independent advice, we can often provide this for the amount payable by your employer or will advise you if this is not possible for any reason.
Set out below are the normal range of costs for an unfair and/or wrongful dismissal claim. Should there be additional or alternative claims, such as for allegations of discrimination or detriment due to whistle blowing, this would take such claims outside the normal range and we would have to discuss the costs of such claims with you on an individual basis. You should also check whether or not you might have legal expenses cover for any employment claim through existing insurance. However, we do not offer either so-called “No Win, No Fee” arrangements or those where we would take a share of your damages instead of our usual fees.
Simple case: £5,000 to £8,000 (excluding VAT)
Medium complexity case: £8,000 to £15,000 (excluding VAT)
High complexity case: £15,000 to £30,000 (excluding VAT)
Factors that could make a case more complex include:
- The number and range of allegations being claimed.
- If you are alleging constructive unfair dismissal.
- The level of support you need to include the length and number of emails from you, the number of telephone calls and how many times we meet with you.
- Whether or not you are able to give us timely and full instructions without needing to be chased for information or documents
- If it is necessary to make or defend applications to amend claims or to provide further information about any of the claims.
- Making or defending a costs application.
- Complex preliminary issues such as whether you have a disability (if this is not agreed by the parties).
- The number of witnesses and documents.
- If it is an automatic unfair dismissal claim eg if you are dismissed after blowing the whistle on your employer.
- Allegations of discrimination which are linked to the dismissal.
There will be an additional charge for attending a Tribunal Hearing of £2,500 plus travel time per day (excluding VAT) if we are to attend. Generally, we would allow 1-3 days for a simple case and 5-10 days for a highly complex case.
Disbursements
Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as Court fees (although currently no Court fees are payable in the Employment Tribunal), Counsel’s fees and expert’s fees. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.
Counsel’s fees are normally estimated between £500 to £3,000 per day (excluding VAT) depending upon the experience of the barrister and are payable for attending a Tribunal Hearing (including some preparation). We will discuss with you in advance the level of seniority of the barrister required to present your case and how much their fees will be before we instruct them.
Key stages
The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim:-
- Taking your initial instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on the merits and likely level of compensation (which will also be revisited throughout the matter and subject to change).
- Entering into pre-claim conciliation in correspondence direct with the employer or their representative and/or through ACAS as appropriate to include where this is mandatory.
- Preparing the claim.
- Reviewing and advising on the response from the employer.
- Exploring and negotiating settlement throughout the process.
- Preparing your Schedule of Loss.
- Preparing for and attending a Preliminary Hearing and discussing and attempting to agree to the draft Agenda for this with the other side.
- Requesting further information of the employer if appropriate.
- Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing an index to the bundle of documents.
- Considering the bundles of documents.
- Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses.
- Reviewing and advising on the other party’s witness statements.
- Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and/or cast list.
- Preparation and attendance at Final Hearing including Instructions to Counsel.
The stages set out above are those expected in a normal claim before the Employment Tribunal. They are not, however, exhaustive and there may be additional stages involved which may involve an additional cost. On the other hand, if some of the stages above are not required, particularly if the matter settles before the Final Hearing, the fee will be reduced accordingly.
If your matter is not one which falls within a normal claim and the fees therefore set out above, due to additional or alternative claims or additional stages, we will discuss any further work required with you and provide you with revised advice about costs if necessary. This would also apply to any work not before the Employment Tribunal such as any Appeal or any County Court proceedings.
How long will the matter take?
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. If a settlement is reached during pre-claim conciliation or negotiation, the case is likely to take anywhere between 4 and 12 weeks depending upon the employer’s stance and both parties’ willingness to compromise. If your claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, the case is likely to take 9 – 12 months from submitting your claim. Much will depend upon the Tribunal’s ability to fix an early date to hold the Preliminary Hearing, whether this takes place by telephone or in person and then the Tribunal’s ability to fix an early Final Hearing which will, in turn, usually depend upon how long the Final Hearing is estimated to take. These are just estimates and we will of course be able to give you a more accurate timescale once we have more information and then as the matter progresses.
Your matter is as important to us as it is to you. In Rosalind Webster, we have a highly experienced, fully qualified solicitor based at our Bromley office and Nina Francis, based in our London City office, is an employment specialist. Both Rosalind and Nina regularly undertake employment tribunal work for clients. Please see their profiles on this website for further details of their experience. They are both supervised by one of the firm’s Partners or Heads of Department who have all been qualified as a solicitor for at least 14 years.
If you would you like to discuss your workplace issue with us, please call one of our employment lawyers on 0208 464 4242 for Bromley or 020 7481 2422 for London OR email enquiries@wellerslawgroup.com.
NOTICE: Tribunal claims have strict deadlines. We are unable to accept responsibility for claims until we have agreed to act on your behalf.