Employment Law Case Funding

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.