If you have sought legal help in the past, you will be familiar with the concept of hourly billing and the way that legal bills can start to build up very quickly.
When you’re defending your business and your staff against a claim in the Employment Tribunals, the last thing you need to worry about is escalating costs.
Wherever possible, we will work on a fixed fee basis. The amount you pay us will be agreed before we start work giving you complete peace of mind that you will not pay anything more.
If you think you might be facing a claim in the Employment Tribunals, Kate will offer you a free initial appraisal of up to thirty minutes and provide you with a breakdown of the fixed fee that will be applied. This will include agreed fixed fees for each stage of the process of defending your claim right through until the hearing.
Fixed Fee Illustation
Important “small print”: this is an illustration only. It is based on a simple unfair dismissal claim with one witness for the Claimant, two witnesses for the employer Respondent and a one day hearing. If you contact us for a quotation, we will offer you the best rates we can for the claim you are facing without you having to negotiate with us – but it might differ from the following illustration.
| PRE-CLAIM STAGE | ||
|---|---|---|
Initial appraisal (up to 30 minutes), either in person at our office or over the telephone |
FREE |
We can assess the situation in brief and advise you how we might be able to help you and what solutions you may want to consider at this early stage. If you would like to proceed with us, we will provide you with a fixed fee quotation for agreement. |
Preliminary advice |
£200 – £400 |
A preliminary review of your papers and advice on the merits of the claim against you (who is most likely to win?), the quantum (how much might the Claimant get?) and tactics (how are we going to tackle this?). We’ll talk you through our advice and send you a summary note for your ongoing reference. Please note that if you’d like us to carry out a more detailed assessment and review a large number of documents at this early stage, it will increase our costs but we can provide you with a fixed price quote before getting started. |
Total |
£200 – £400 |
plus VAT |
| EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL STAGE | ||
Drafting a response |
£1,000 – £1,600 |
This is where we do the ground-work for your case. Our work at this stage includes:
Please note that you only have 28 days to do this once the claim form (ET1) arrives. |
Advise on schedule loss |
£200 |
We will review the Claimant’s schedule of loss and advise on their prospects of recovering what they’re seeking, whether it is worthwhile negotiating with them at this stage, and whether a counter-schedule of loss should be submitted. |
Deal with disclosure of documents |
£200 – £400 |
We should have received most of your documents when drafting the response and be able to index them for disclosure at this stage without substantial additional work. |
Review Claimant’s disclosure and provide updated advice. |
£200 – £400 |
We will review all documents disclosed by the Claimant and provide you with an update on merits, quantum and tactics. As before, we’ll talk you through our advice and send you a summary note for your ongoing reference. |
Prepare bundle of documents |
£400 – £600 |
The Employment Tribunal usually orders the Respondent to prepare a joint bundle of documents for use at the hearing, even if the Claimant is represented. We’ll do this for you and send you a copy. |
Draft witness statements |
£600 – £800 per statement |
In an unfair dismissal claim the Respondent witnesses will usually be your dismissing officer and appeals officer. We should have had an opportunity to speak to them when drafting the response and can use that information to prepare first draft witness statements. We will then work with the witnesses to finalise their statements and exchange them with the Claimant/ their representative. If the matter is complex or requires additional witnesses, or if we need to arrange a meeting with your witnesses, this may add to your total costs. |
Review Claimant’s statement and provide updated advice. |
£200 – £400 |
We will review all the Claimant’s witness statement and provide you with an update on merits, quantum and tactics. As before, we’ll talk you through our advice and send you a summary note for your ongoing reference. |
Total |
£3,400 – £5,200 |
plus VAT |
| EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL HEARING | ||
Instruct Counsel |
£200 – £400 |
We will recommend a barrister for your claim based on their expertise, seniority and fees. We will agree a fixed fee with their clerk and prepare instructions to them to represent you. |
Prepare for hearing |
£200 – £400 |
We will meet with you and your witnesses to talk about Employment Tribunal procedure and what to expect at the hearing. |
Hearing – us |
– |
By the time we get to the hearing, you’ll be feeling confident and ready for the day. You’ll have spoken with your barrister and won’t need us around. But, if you want a friendly face and extra support on the day, we’re happy to come with you. We may need to charge a little extra but will agree this with you in advance. |
Hearing – barrister |
£2,000 – £2,500 |
We’ll negotiate the best fixed fee we can for you. A strong junior barrister should be able to conduct a one-day unfair dismissal hearing for around £1,500 plus VAT. |
Post hearing |
FREE |
We’ll debrief you on the claim including looking at what went well and what learning points there may be for your business or your managers going forwards. We can also look at whether management training might be helpful and what we can do for you going forwards. |
Total |
£2,400 – £3,300 |
plus VAT |
GRAND TOTAL |
£6,000 – £8,900 |
plus VAT |
*It is possible that there will be some further costs incurred along the way, though we will try to avoid this. Further costs may arise in connection with:
- The Claimant being unrepresented – litigants in person create more work for the Respondent’s representative and the Employment Tribunal in terms of greater need for correspondence and explanation of the process.
- A need to make applications to the Employment Tribunal – for example, to move the hearing dates if a witness can’t attend, to amend Case Management Orders if we need more time to comply with them, to seek Case Management Orders if we believe that the Claimant needs further direction.
- Settlement negotiations – either of the parties may wish to discuss settlement at any time and we have a duty to help facilitate this. If the Claimant or ACAS makes contact to discuss settlement, we will need to liaise with them and take instructions from you which will increase costs even is settlement is not ultimately achieved.
- Additional involvement from a barrister – it can be helpful to have a telephone or in person meeting with the barrister before the hearing date, in which case the barrister may make an additional charge for his/ her time.
**All prices are exclusive of VAT.