For settlement agreements, there is a legal requirement that you take legal advice for it to be legally binding and effective. Therefore most employers will contribute to your legal fees and offer you an initial budget (usually between £300 and £500 plus VAT.) The Court's judicial guidance suggests £500 plus VAT is an appropriate fee for advice on such agreements.
Our firm operates on an hourly fee rate basis which means that we charge for our time according to the amount of time you use. £500 plus VAT will allow us adequate time to discuss with you the background to the termination of your employment. We will also be able to advise you on the value of any claims, the options available to you and discuss any changes or corrections which might be required to the draft agreement.
In our experience, if you agree with your employer as to the amount of money they are proposing in the full and final settlement, then the fee contribution is generally sufficient to conclude the agreement promptly.
However, if you need us to help you negotiate further, either concerning the amount of money that the employer is proposing or about specific clauses in the agreement, then this is likely to cost more in legal fees. We will advise you on how much we think it will cost and then seek negotiations with your employer to increase their contribution as part of our discussions with them. If the employer refuses to increase its contribution, then the additional costs will need to be covered by you. Generally, we expect an additional one to two hours of work (at our hourly rate) is necessary to complete negotiations.
Rest assured we won't charge you any more than your employer is willing to contribute without your agreement to those additional fees.
Please note, if your employer has stated they will contribute to your legal fees, but fail to settle these fees on your behalf, we reserve the right to charge the incurred costs to you personally. Your employer will remain liable in any event.