What we set out below are initial considerations if you have an employment law issue and are seeking advice. If you consider the below and try to obtain the information, you will save a lot of time and anguish trying to get help / advice.
1. Do you have legal expenses cover?
- You need to check for this asap.
- It is most found under your home insurance – lots of people have legal expenses cover and don’t realise.
- If you don’t have it, think about adding it to your policy for future issues. It is relatively inexpensive and often comes with £50,000 worth of cover.
- Any lawyer you consult should make you check for cover.
- If you don’t have insurance, can you get funding and / or pay for advice. If not, think about why you are contacting a lawyer and instead look for free sources of information / advice (we have set some out below).
2. What claims are you considering?
- You may think this is what you want advice about, but you need to be able to discuss this.
- At the outset, it is much easier to consider and discuss the potential claims you may have, as opposed to a long narrative.
3. What do you want help with / the employment lawyer to do?
- You need to think about this.
- Is it just advice? Do you want them to negotiate with your employer? Bring a claim in the employment tribunal?
- If it’s just to talk things though, this is rarely helpful / appropriate. The employment lawyer is restricted in what they can do during the first phone call. The initial considerations (for the lawyer) will be to determine if you have legal expenses cover, what help you are looking for and what needs to be done to produce the advice /work you want.
- The lawyer will be reluctant (and rightly so) to give much, if any, advice during the first call. The wider picture and key documents must be considered first. There are also regulatory requirements that must be completed before you can become a “client” and receive advice.
4. Can you make the claim you are considering?
- For example, do you have the requisite length of service? If you are looking to bring a claim of unfair dismissal or constructive dismissal, you need at least two years’ continuous service.
- There are exceptions to this, for example if you allege that your dismissal was discriminatory or because of whistleblowing. You will need to discuss this with an employment lawyer. You also need to check you received all entitlements at dismissal (notice pay, holiday pay etc).
- Is your claim in time? The time limit is often 3 months less 1 day. For example, if your employment ended on the 15th of January 2022, the deadline to start Early Acas Conciliation would be the 14th of April 2022.
5. Do you have all the documents collated and ready to share?
- To quote, or at least consider your case, your lawyer will need to read the key documents.
- You need to have these ready to share. Ideally, collate everything, place it in date order, and either scan or copy it.
- If its scanned, you can email it directly to your lawyer. If you copy it, you can keep the documents and post the copies to your lawyer.
- There are lots of good free scanning apps on smart phones, photographs of documents are hard to read and don’t print well.
- This will take time and effort, but it’s worth it. Your lawyer is likely to require you to do this anyway. If your documents are all over the place and you want your lawyer to organise them, this may not be a problem, but it may increase your quote.
KEY POINTS / CONCLUSION
- Think about / do the above before contacting a lawyer.
- This can be a stressful process, our aim is to reduce that stress by providing key information.
- A list of potential sources of advice can be found here.
Disclaimer:
This blog is for information purposes only. Nothing should be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice and nothing written should be construed as legal advice or perceived as creating a lawyer-client relationship.