If you have a dispute with your employer or need legal advice about your employment rights, you have the right to legal representation.
At Morrish Solicitors, we offer a variety of options to help you fund/pay for your case. Depending on the type of case, you could have access to one or more of the below funding options.
If you are a member of a trade union or professional association, you may be entitled to free legal advice and representation.
If you are a member of one of our partner trade unions, please contact them directly in the first instance with more information about your claim and to ask them about legal advice and representation (with the exception of settlement agreement advice).
If you require advice about a settlement agreement, please contact us directly here.
It is common for home insurance and contents policies to include cover for legal fees relating to employment disputes.
If you are involved in an employment dispute and believe you may require legal assistance, it is a good idea to read the schedule of your contents policy. If you’re not sure whether you are covered or not, please contact us and we can look at your policy for you.
In cases where legal fees are covered, your policy will likely offer funding up to a set limit for employment claims that are thought to have a good chance of success. Some might provide legal expenses cover after you have been through your employer’s internal processes and sought early conciliation through ACAS, but others may offer cover from the outset.
You are entitled to choose your legal representative – you do not have to use your insurer’s solicitors. We are approved providers of legal services for a number of legal expenses insurers and can help you with the benefit of legal expenses cover.
Where other funding options aren’t available, we understand that people like a clear indication at the outset of how much they are going to pay for legal services. This is why we like to offer advice for a fixed fee wherever possible.
We may be able to offer fixed fee advice in certain circumstances, e.g. where you need an assessment of the prospects of succeeding with a case and an initial opinion of your legal options, or review your employment contract.
The amount of the fixed fee depends on the nature of the case and the type of advice required but typically ranges between £350-£400 (+VAT) for simple cases and £650 (+VAT) upwards for complex cases.
All advice about the terms and effect of a Settlement Agreement is on a fixed fee basis and better still, your employer will pay those costs for you.
In some cases, it is too difficult to determine the amount of time the advice might take or how much documentation needs to be reviewed in order to provide sensible and practical advice. In other cases, such as when undertaking settlement negotiations, until contact is made with the employer it won’t be clear how easy or protracted the negotiations will become.
Some cases are therefore only suitable for hourly rate fees, according to the experience of the solicitor handling your case. However, we pride ourselves on being open and transparent about costs from the outset. This is why we will always provide a written costs estimate in advance and will not exceed that estimate without your prior agreement.
If your claim appears to have reasonable prospects of success and a sufficient compensation value, we may be willing to offer you a Damages-Based Agreement (a “DBA” or “no win, no fee” arrangement). Under this arrangement, you will only pay legal costs if we recover compensation on your behalf.
We will explain in detail how DBA’s work if we agree to work on that basis, but in summary:
If you win your case:
We will retain a percentage of the award recovered for you (either in settlement or from an Employment Tribunal award) in discharge of our fees. Typically, we charge between 20% and 35% (which includes VAT).
In addition, you will pay any expenses, such as barrister fees or medical report fees, however, in many cases there will be no need for any expenses to be incurred. We will agree with you in advance what expenses might be incurred in a case like yours.
If you lose your case:
We don’t get paid for the work we’ve done.
The DBA Agreement
The DBA sets out your responsibilities, and ours too.
It also includes a risk assessment showing how we have arrived at the percentage level. We do not charge for this assessment.
Pros and Cons of a DBA
The advantages are usually obvious – apart from expenses (which might be nil), you risk nothing by pursuing your claim under a DBA. If you lose, your legal costs are limited to expenses.
You might decide that a DBA is less attractive if we advise you that you have a very substantial claim that is very strong – since it is likely to be cheaper in such a case to pay us on an hourly rate or fixed fee for the work done. In our experience, however, most cases are hard to classify as “very strong” so the low-risk approach of a DBA is often best.
Our Employment lawyers have over 90 years’ experience of providing expert, practical advice. Our employment team is a specialised, experienced team, being shortlisted for the Yorkshire Legal Awards Employment Team of the Year.
Regardless of who works on your matter, each individual will be supervised by one of our experienced employment law partners.
We have a friendly and professional team, who may work on your matter.
Where funding from insurance or Damages Based Agreements are unavailable, and you also do not benefit from union or association membership, we may be able to advise and represent you in an unfair/wrongful dismissal claim under a privately paying funding arrangement.
Typically, the range of costs for a privately paying funding arrangement for such cases is:
Factors that could make a case more complex may be:
There will be an additional charge for attending a Tribunal Hearing of between £750 to £950 per day excluding VAT at 20%. A simple case will normally have a hearing of only one day, a medium complexity case of two to three days, with a high complexity case of four days or more.
These are costs related to your case that are payable to third parties. Firstly, these are unusual in such a case. Secondly, if a disbursement is to be incurred it would only be with your advance permission and would only be for relatively unusual items such as a medical report from a GP or expert. A GP’s report would normally be no more than £50 to £75.
The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a case:
The stages set out above are an indication and if some of stages above are not required, the fees will be reduced. You may wish to handle the case yourself and only have our advice in relation to some of the stages. This can also be arranged based on your individual needs.
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, your case is likely to take 1-4 weeks. If your case is issued it may take longer and if it proceeds all the way to a Final Hearing (say if the ex-employer won’t agree to settle at a realistic level), your case is likely to take 6-8 months or more. This will also depend upon the speed in which the ET handles your case, as the speed can vary across the country and whether there are any postponements by the ET to hearings. This is just an estimate and we will of course be able to give you a more accurate timescale once we have more information and as the case progresses. Rest assured that we will try and represent you and resolve your case as quickly as we can.
