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If you are a member of a trades union that we act for (UNITE, NUM, NAUTILUS, RMT), your trade union will liaise with us on your behalf and deal with our costs. If you are not a member of a trade union we can still act for you concerning your employment matter.
If you require legal advice on an issue that will not require litigation then we charge £200.00 per hour plus VAT for our services. It is likely that we will ask for some money in advance before beginning work. We will inform you of the number of hours of work that we will need to bill for in advance, after ascertaining the task you want us to carry out.
It is hard to give an estimate of costs without understanding the particular task that you wish us to carry out but if you wanted some advice on a contract, that is likely to take two or three hours, i.e. £400 to 600 plus VAT, and similarly if you wanted some advice on a Settlement Agreement that is likely to take two or three hours on average, i.e. £400 to £600 plus VAT.
If you need advice on a matter that may lead to litigation at an employment tribunal then our fees will be £200.00 per hour plus VAT.
We will estimate the number of hours we will need to carry out work in order to advise you whether your claim has reasonable prospects of success. Depending on the complexity of the issues, and the number of documents, that is likely to take somewhere between two and six hours (i.e. £400 to £1,200 plus VAT) and we will ask for the money for our time to be paid in advance of the work being carried out.
If at the end of that process our advice is that your claim does not enjoy reasonable prospects of success then we will bill you for the time that we have spent and that will be the end of the matter.
If our advice on your prospects of success is that your claim does enjoy reasonable prospects of success it is possible, depending on the value of your claim, that we will either:
(a) Enter into a Contingency Fee Agreement where we will take a percentage of your compensation. That is likely to be somewhere between 25% and 33% of your compensation. Accordingly, if you were to win £20,000, we would deduct from that sum between £5,000 and £6,000 plus VAT (i.e. a total between £6,000 and £7,200). We will not ask you to pay any costs out of your own pocket unless you are ordered to pay the other side’s legal costs due to your instructions being unreasonable or you are found to have misled the Tribunal.
(b) Alternatively, we will charge you for the time spent in dealing with the dispute, and whilst it is difficult to estimate the costs of dealing with a dispute if it is contested to a hearing, typically it might be:
i. Simple case: £5,000 to £7,500 plus VAT
ii. Case of medium complexity: £7,500 to £15,000 plus VAT
iii. Complex case: £12,500 to £25,000.
We provide guidance below on factors that determine the level of complexity.
The factors determining the complexity of your case are difficult to list, but they include:
Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as court fees and barrister’s fees. We incur and handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.
As well as charging you for our own costs set out above, we will also charge you for disbursements we incur on your behalf. The most likely disbursement will be Barrister’s fees, a medical expert fee (likely to be between £500 and £750 plus VAT) if you are pursuing a claim related to disability or incapacity and travelling expenses. We will advise you of those fees and seek your agreement before incurring those fees on your behalf. Typically a barrister’s fees will be £1,000 to £2,000 plus VAT, and travel expenses are usually no more than £250 including VAT.
Your legal work will be carried out by a suitably qualified member of our staff. At the outset we will let you know who is carrying out the work on your behalf and who they are being supervised by. You may ask for a particular member of our staff to deal with your case. The full details of all the members of staff handling cases can be found on the Meet the Team page of our website.
The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a disputed claim:
The stages set out above are an indication and if some of stages above are not required, the fee will be reduced. You may wish to handle the claim yourself and only have our advice in relation to some of the stages. This can also be arranged 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 4-6 weeks. The later your claim settles in the litigation process, the longer it will take. If it cannot be settled and has to proceed all the way to a final hearing, then that can take anywhere between one to two years depending on the time it takes the Employment Tribunal to list your case for a final hearing. 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 matter progresses.
We are required by law to add ‘Value Added Tax’ (VAT) to our fees and to recover it from you. VAT is currently 20%, e.g.
OHP is a trading name of OH PARSONS LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (registered number OC385704) which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority | 606560.
Any reference to a partner in relation to OH PARSONS LLP is to a member of OH PARSONS LLP
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