Making a claim in the Employment Tribunal

Read our step-by-step guides to help you understand and manage the employment tribunal process.

The costs for defending a claim that lands on your doorstep can vary significantly because it is heavily dependent on the complexity and what is required of it. For privately funded work, the costs can be anything from £5,000 to £20,000 for advice and representation. You may also need to factor in the fees for instructing barristers at any listed hearings.

Employment tribunal claims can be brought for a lot of reasons but the more commonly known ones tend to be unfair dismissal, discrimination and unlawful deduction of wages. Each claim comes with its own mandatory steps ordered by a tribunal, all of which have to be followed if you intend to defend the claim to the end.

Many employers will have legal expenses cover included in their liability insurance so this is certainly worth checking when it comes to your next renewal. So if you receive notification of a claim, we advise that you contact your insurer as soon as possible. As long as your claim is approved by your provider, you should be afforded the opportunity to nominate your own solicitor to represent you and the insurance provider will pay an agreed rate. That’s where Bhayani Law can step in and provide your legal representation from start to finish.

Why it pays to get advice early on

To protect your business, we recommend getting legal advice as early as possible so that a plan can be put in place for your defence. This can even be before the claim has landed when you know that it is inevitably coming. There are strict tribunal deadlines for defending claims and if you miss that deadline, you are at risk of having a default judgment being made against you.

More importantly, having our legal experts on hand from the outset means you can be armed to bring the claim to an end sooner. For example, we can request for the claim to be struck out entirely if there are no reasonable prospects of the employee succeeding or negotiate an out of court settlement on your behalf.

Proactivity always pays off and that’s why you may benefit from one of our HR fixed fee support packages. You will have a dedicated HR advisor who will take on the daily stresses and strains of people management, ensuring that you have everything in place to prevent and defend claims. For more information and to receive a quote, click here.

An early investment

There are things that you, as an employer, can do to protect your position and demonstrate your investment into legal compliance. Having your employees enrolled on regular Equality and Diversity training courses shows that you are actively taking steps to keep their knowledge up to date. This can include the intricacies of preventing discrimination in the workplace and what their individual obligations are. For example, if you can show that you have frequently trained your employees on the importance of treating everyone equally and respecting diversity, that will help to further your defence if an individual subsequently brings a claim of discrimination because it shows that you made reasonable efforts to prevent it from happening. At Bhayani Law, we can deliver bespoke training on a wide variety of employment law topics including HR Essentials and Equality & Diversity. All participants will receive a certificate of attendance. Why not take a look at our upcoming training courses which can be tailored to your business needs:

Want help with the cost of your equality and diversity training courses…

We are now Skills Bank approved!

Skills Bank is a flexible pot of funding that can provide bespoke, tailored training which directly meets the needs of employers and enabling them to choose the training provider they use.

We have a whole range of training and consultancy relating to HR, recruitment and employment law and if you are a South Yorkshire business you could get up to 40% off the training costs. To find out more about our training see here or call us on 0333 888 1360 or email [email protected]

Contact our expert employment team to find out how we can help with your claim.

For advice or for a free assessment contact us today