Our rates are competitive and represent good value for money. We either charge a fixed fee, hourly rate or fixed percentage fee depending on the type, nature or complexity of your case.
Fixed Fee Range:
Simple case: £3,750-£5,000 (excluding VAT)
Medium complexity case: £5,750-£8,500 (excluding VAT)
High complexity case: £12,500-£25,000 (excluding VAT)
Factors that could make a case more complex:
- If it is necessary to make or defend applications to amend claims or to provide further information about an existing claim
- The number of witnesses and documents
- Nearness to limitation period
- Claim amendment or further information about an existing claim
- Disbursements
Disbursements
Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as court fees. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.
Counsel’s fees estimated between £750 to £1250 (excluding VAT) per day (depending on experience of the advocate) for attending a Tribunal Hearing (including preparation)
Other type of fee arrangement:
We also offer Damages based agreement in appropriate cases. This is a type of fee arrangement where subject to some exceptions listed below you will only pay us our fee if you win. The amount you will pay us if you win will be a percentage of the amount of money you recovered from the claim. The maximum percentage of your award that we can deduct as our fee is 30% of total money recovered. This is inclusive of vat.
Please note that the 30% deduction for our fees does not include the expenses / disbursements listed above. These disbursements and expenses will remain your responsibility whether you win or lose.
Circumstances under which you may pay our costs win or lose:
There are circumstances under which we may require you to pay our fees whether you win or loss. These are:
- If you mislead us by not providing truthful information to us about your case
- If you fail to cooperate with us and provide instructions when required
- If you cancel the agreement before the employment tribunal decides the case or the case is agreed with your opponent
- If you fail to pay counsel fee or any other experience required to progress your case when required to do so
- If you ask us to work in an improper or unreasonable way
- If you fail to attend the court when required to do so.
- If you reject our opinion about making a settlement with your opponent, then under the terms of the agreement that is deemed to be you behaving unreasonably. However, if you recover damages of at least 22% more than the offer that we advised you to make or accept then the agreement deems your behaviour to have been reasonable in that regard and you will not have to pay us anything except our expenses and disbursements.
If you breach the Damages based agreement and we require you to pay our fees, then our fees will be calculated on hourly basis. The hourly rate to apply to your case will be given to you in your client care letter when you instruct us.
From time to time, we will provide you costs information detailing the amount of costs that we have incurred in your matter. This is not a demand for payment but an information for you to know up to date costs in your case as it progresses. This costs update will include any disbursement or expenses that have been incurred in the period the costs update covers.
Our hourly rate
We charge hourly rates of between £150 -£210 per hour (excluding VAT) depending on the level of experience of the person handling your case and the complexity of your case.
Key stages
The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim:
- Taking your initial instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on merits and likely compensation (this is likely to be revisited throughout the matter and subject to change)
- Entering into pre-claim conciliation where this is mandatory to explore whether a settlement can be reached;
- Preparing claim or response
- Reviewing and advising on claim or response from other party
- Exploring settlement and negotiating settlement throughout the process
- preparing or considering a schedule of loss
- Preparing for (and attending) a Preliminary Hearing
- Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing a bundle of documents
- Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses
- preparing bundle of documents
- Reviewing and advising on the other party’s witness statements
- Preparation and attendance at Final Hearing, including instructions to Counsel
- The stages set out above are only a guide and some of stages above are not required and may not be reached. Our fee would not change
The stages set out above are only a guide and some of stages above are not required and may not be reached. Our fee would not change.
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.
How long will my matter take?
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. If your claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, your case is likely to take 26-52 weeks. 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.
COMPLAINT PROCEDURE
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards. If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details.
What will happen next?
- We aim to resolve your complaint within eight weeks of your notification. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
- We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our client care Partner, Dr. Wilson Diriwari, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
- Dr Wilson Diriwari will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. He will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- Within three days of the meeting, Dr Wilson Diriwari will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.
- If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Dr Wilson Diriwari will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including her suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for someone unconnected with the matter at the firm to review the decision.
- We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
- If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ about your complaint. You can also e-mail the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or telephone them on 0300 555 0333 or +44 121 245 3050 if calling from overseas. For further information, please access the Legal Ombudsman (LeO)’s website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
- Please note that the time limit for complaint to the LeO is within one year from the act/omission or one year from realising the cause of complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) must usually be made within six months of the date of our final decision on your complaint.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.