The Cost of Your Employment Tribunal Defence
The cost of acting for you in the defence of a Employment Tribunal Defence will depend on the circumstances of the matter, which lawyer carries out related work (due to differences in their hourly charge out rates) the complexity of the facts and/or the relevant law and the conduct of the Claimant and/or their adviser during the litigation process.
You (or the employer business) will be represented by lawyers fromour Employment team whose details can be found below. Jolyon Berry leads the team and is responsible for overseeing its work.
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- Jolyon Berry
- Head of Employment
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- Marie Allen
- Senior Associate Solicitor
TSP fees for Employment Tribunal Defences
There may be an ipportunity for the parties to litigation to agree to a financial settlement of the matter before the Employment Tribunal consider the case at a final hearing. It is true that many claims settle at an earlier stage although costs may still be incurred by the parties before settlement is reached and of course if there is no settlement, the parties must be prepared for a full hearing of the merits of the case. In the table below, we set out the ket stages in an Employment Tribunal Claim with an estimated fee for each stage, Not all of these stages may be completed if the matter settles however other stages may be required if ordered by the EMployment Tribunal.
‘Simple’ cases may be about a single issue, sor example, that an employee should have been entitled to more holiday or that their employment was terminated for an unfiair reason. More often, cases are more complicated with Claimants making multiple allegations against their employer, particularly if they asset having one or more ‘Protected Characteristic’ and the teartment of them was disciminatory. ‘Discrimination’ can be claimed for a variety of reaons (harassment, victimisation, direct discrimination etc).
Claims with a multiplicity of allegations which refer to a number of breaches of an employer’s obligations can be quite complex and usually require longer and more detailed preliminary hearings in the Employment Tribunal before the final hearing.
The fee estimate below is based on the likely minimum fee for a Simple case and a Complex case.
| Key Stages in your Defence / Complexity of Case | From Simple | From Complex |
|---|---|---|
| Initial instructions, review relevant circumstances and documents and advise accordingly. | £770 (+ £154 VAT) | £1,848 (+ £369.60 VAT) |
| Liasing with ACA and/or Claimant to explore settlement options | £385 (+ £77 VAT) | £770 (+ £154 VAT) |
| Risk/Merits review of the claim (if required). | £1,155 (+ £231 VAT) | £3,234 (+ £646.80 VAT) |
| Preparation and filing defence. | £1925 (+ £385 VAT) | £3850 (+ £770 VAT) |
| Preparing for and attending a preliminary hearing (if applicable). | £924 (+ £184.80 VAT) | £5,500 (+ £1,100 VAT) |
| Attending preliminary hearing. | £1,540 (+ £308 VAT) | £2,695 (+ £539 VAT) |
| Review Claimant’s schedule of loss and prepare counter-schedule if required. | £385 (+ £77 VAT) | £1,155 (+ £231 VAT) |
| Review and disclosure of relevant documents. | £1,540 (+ £308 VAT) | £2,695 (+ £539 VAT) |
| Review of documents disclosed and agreement of an evidence bundle for a full hearing (the ‘Tribunal Bundle’). | £1,540 (+ £308 VAT) | £2,695 (+ £539 VAT) |
| Agreement of a list of legal issues, chronology and cast list (as required). | £1,150 (+ £231 VAT) | £2,695 (+£539 VAT) |
| Preparing witness statements for relevant witnesses send to the Claimant and Employment Tribunal (cost estimate per statement). | £1,925 (+ £385 VAT) | £5,390 (+ £1,078 VAT) |
| Review of Claimant’s witness statements (cost per statement). | £385 (+ £77 VAT) | £1,150 (+ £231 VAT) |
| Instructions to a barrister.* | £385 (+ £77 VAT) | £1,155 (+ £231 VAT) |
| Conference with counsel (if required)*. | £1,150 (+ £231 VAT) | £1,925 (+ £385 VAT) |
| Attendance at the full hearing (per day, EXCLUDING barrister’s fees).* | £1,540 (+ £308 VAT) | £8,085 (+ £1,617 VAT) |
| Related legal and commercial advice, correspondence, updates, liaising with related parties (eg other side, Tribunal, witnesses etc) and file administration throughout the duration of the matter (exclusive of travel or other related expenses). | £3,850 (+ £770 VAT) | £5,775 (+ £1,155 VAT) |
| Total | £20,559 (+ £4111.80 VAT) | £51,392 (+ £10,278.40 VAT) |
* The total assumes the hearings are conducted remotely (ie without travel time or associated expenses). It also assumes a one day full hearing with one witness on each side after a half day preliminary hearing for a simple case, and a three day hearing with two witnesses for the Respondent after a full day preliminary hearing for a complex case. The total does not include barrister’s fees.
The hourly rates for the members of the Employment team are set according to their respective levels of experience. Currently, they range from £139 (plus £27.80 VAT) for a Trainee Solicitor / Paralegal to £385 (plus £77 VAT) for a Director / Solicitor.
Details of the rates of the relevant individual members of the team will be provided to you at the outset of your matter and the work will be undertaken by an individual team member with an appropriate level of experience.
Charges for Identity Verification – Individual Clients
We are required by law to verify our client’s identity and also a number of other types of individual, for example, Executors. We will charge £12 plus VAT (£14.40 in total) per individual that we are required to check.
We may also be required to verify the identity of third parties to your matter, such as beneficiaries and individual’s making gifts in property transactions, for example. We will charge £12 plus VAT (£14.40 in total) per individual that we are required to check.
Charges for Identity Verification – Companies and Organisational Clients
We will charge £20 plus VAT (£24.00 in total) for each Company or Organisational client that we are required to check. Where a company or organisation is located overseas the charge will be £45 plus VAT (£54 in total). We may need to charge additional time at our hourly rate if the company or organisational structure is complex or unusual.
We will charge £12 plus VAT (£14.40 in total) for each individual associated with the company or organisation whose identity we are required to verify. This will usually be the beneficial owners, some directors, and individuals giving instruction, for example.
We are also required to conduct sanctions checks for any company directors whose identity we do not need to fully verify. We will charge £2.50 plus VAT (£3.00 in total) for each individual that we are required to check.
Charges for Checking Counterparties to your Matter
We will also need to check that any counter parties to your matter and relevant parties connected to them do not appear on the UK consolidated sanctions list. In addition to the above, we will charge
- £2.50 plus VAT (£3.00 in total) for each individual that we are required to check
- £5.00 plus VAT (£6.00 in total) for each company or organisation that we are required to check
Authorised Company Services Provider (ACSP)
When we are providing your company with this type of service, we will usually be required by Companies House to conduct an Enhanced Identity Verification check on the Individuals associated with the company. We will charge £20 plus VAT (£24.00 in total) per individual for this service
More information on the types of individuals we are required to check can be found in our Terms of Business.
If we were instructed to act for you for specific limited aspects of any case, this can be arranged and agreed.
If you wish to manage certain parts of the claim yourself and only take advise or require our assistance with specific parts of the defence this can be agreed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Perhaps but usually not completely. It is critical for us to know if you have legal expense insurance as soon as possible so that we can confirm that you can make a claim and that we do not do anything that might invalidate a claim under the policy and/or to ensure that as much of our work as possible is covered by your policy. Your insurer may prefer that you use a law firm from a panel of lawyers and that TSP might not on that panel.
While your insurer cannot compel you to use their preferred firm, the terms of their cover might entitle them to provide financial cover that does not meet out full costs. In that case, we would need you to confirm that you would meet any fees incurred that are not covered by your insurer. There are many things to consider before making a claim under a legal expenses policy and/or whether you would be advised to instruct us or to work with the insurer’s lawyers.
It will depend on the experience of the barrister (also known as ‘Counsel’) and the complexity of the case.
Barristers sometimes charge their time in a similar way to solicitors, ie at an hourly rate that is usually similar to ours (ie between £250 and £400/hr +VAT). This is often the case when the barrister is required to attend meetings or if it is agreed that they will prepare or draft specific applications (which is not common and only in complex cases).
Otherwise barristers charge a ‘Brief Fee’ and a ‘Daily Refresher’ (or ‘Retainer’). These are the fees charged for preparing for and attending the first day of a preliminary or a full hearing. The Brief Fee might also cover the cost of a meeting too. If the hearing is for more than one day the barrister will charge a Daily Refresher for the second and subsequent days.
Brief Fees vary but could be from £2,500+VAT in a simple case or from £6,000 for a complex matter. Daily Refresher fees are usually less than the Brief Fee, from £1,500+VAT.
While our solicitors have experience of tribunal advocacy, it is not their ‘day job’, whereas managing the correspondence, evidence and the parties to the litigation is the work that solicitors carry out regularly. The experience of barristers on the other hand is in Court or Tribunal presenting oral argument for their client while dealing only with refined information (prepared by the solicitor).
Our experience informs us that our clients are best served if we instruct a barrister at the appropriate time during the preparation of a claim.
Being ordered to pay the other side’s costs is unlikely, but not impossible. The Employment Tribunal process works on the assumption that the parties pay their own fees however if either party has conducted itself in a way that is contrary to the rules, specifically if a party is vexatious, abusive or particularly unreasonable in the way that they behave during the litigation process, it is possible that the other side (whether or not they win the case, and at any stage of the process) can make an application for ‘costs’.
If it appears that the case was determined by reference to a misapplication of the relevant law, if there is strong evidence to suggest that the Tribunal was biased in reaching its decision or if the decision was completely perverse (in the eyes of a neutral observer) then, yes. However, permission to appeal must be granted by the Employment Appeal Tribunal and an appeal must be lodged within a specific timescale.
Work undertaken to seek leave to appeal, to lodge an appeal and to attend an appeal hearing will incur costs and much more of the work is undertaken by the barrister in the appeal process. An appeal is not a re-hearing but an examination of the point of appeal. In most cases, the outcome of a successful appeal is for the case to be re-heard in full or in part which again will incur costs.
The Employment Tribunal system is under a huge deal of strain at the moment and new laws proposed by Sir Keir Starmer KC’s government are expected to be enacted from end 2025 and throughout the current parliament which will put greater pressure on the system which is not expected to receive any more funding.
The system is therefore slower than it should be and is likely to experience further delays.
A simple case could take up to 12 months to be determined. A complex one could take twice that.
The appeal process will extend this significantly too.
The calculation of an award to a successful Claimant can be complicated, depending on the circumstances but essentially he or she will be able to recover their losses, ie lost pay. If the Claimant has mitigated their loss, the amount of mitigation (ie income received from other sources) is set off against the loss they can recover. Compensation for lost salary is also capped at an amount equal to the Claimant annual pay or an upper amount (£115,115 from April 2025).
The Tribunal has power to reduce compensatory awards by a percentage if it is considered appropriate in certain circumstances, eg for the Claimant’s contributory conduct or if dismissal was possible in the circumstances.
Successful discrimination claims entitle Claimants to recover an amount for their injured feelings that are awarded in line with ‘the Vento bands’ and the cap on compensation is lifted.
Claims for compensation for a breach of contract have been limited to a maximum of £25,000 since 1994.
Ultimately the amount awarded to a successful Claimant is dependent on a number of factors which will need to be explored.
Contact our Solicitors in Colchester or Clacton
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