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Employment tribunal claims can be high-stakes, time-sensitive and reputationally sensitive. Whether your organisation is facing discrimination allegations, whistleblowing issues, an unfair dismissal claim, urgent tribunal time limits or an interim relief application, early strategic advice can make a significant difference to the direction and outcome of the case.
Our Employment Tribunal Litigation Hub is designed as a one-stop shop for employers facing or anticipating employment tribunal claims. It brings together employment tribunal solicitors with deep experience of defending and resolving workplace disputes, alongside practical updates, stop-press developments and accessible routes into our wider tribunal-related products and services. We support employers from the earliest stages of risk assessment and ACAS early conciliation through to ET3 response drafting, disclosure, witness preparation, advocacy strategy, settlement discussions, judicial mediation and final hearing.
Clients value our ability to combine technical employment law expertise with calm, pragmatic and commercially focused advice. We understand that tribunal litigation is not only a legal process but also a management, reputational and operational challenge. Through the Hub, our role is to help clients stay informed, access the right support quickly, remain in control, make informed decisions and achieve the best possible result.
Latest employment tribunal statistics, published on 11 June 2026, show a 55% increase in new single claims being issued compared with the same period last year.
The latest statistics also show that the continuing rise in new claims is exceeding the tribunal’s capacity to resolve cases, increasing pressure on employers to assess risk and strategy early.
We are now seeing final hearings being listed in 2029 and early 2030. BBC News reports that unfair dismissal claims face five-year delay as tribunal backlog grows.
Ellis Jessica Walby, Legal Director, was recently interviewed by the Financial Times regarding the rise of tribunal claims, impact of AI technology and pressure on employers – including a backlog of almost 72,000 claims.
Our team supports employers across the full life cycle of employment tribunal proceedings. To make the support easier to navigate, the services below have been grouped by the stage of the claim and the type of help employers commonly need.
Our aim is to resolve employment tribunal claims in the way that best protects our clients’ legal, commercial and reputational position. That may mean defending a final hearing, but it can also involve alternative dispute resolution, including ACAS conciliation, employment mediation, judicial mediation or a Dispute Resolution Appointment.
ACAS early conciliation is usually the first opportunity to resolve an employment tribunal claim before it becomes more costly, public and time-consuming. ACAS is an independent body that has a statutory duty to explore whether employment tribunal claims can be resolved through a negotiated settlement.
Whether you are involved with ACAS early conciliation before a claim has been lodged at the employment tribunal, or liaising with ACAS during the life cycle of a tribunal claim, HCR Law can guide you through the process. We can represent you and liaise with ACAS on your behalf, using our experience to approach early conciliation strategically and secure the best available outcome for you and your organisation. If a broad agreement for resolution can be reached, we can ensure the written settlement document, called a COT3, properly reflects the deal and protects your interests, including appropriate confidentiality provisions.
Mediation and judicial mediation can give employers a structured, confidential route to settlement without committing to a full tribunal hearing. Mediation involves an independent third party (the mediator) helping to facilitate settlement between the parties. Mediation is a voluntary and confidential process and either party can walk away at any time. The mediator does not decide the case and say who is right/wrong nor do they impose an outcome on the parties. The mediator may play “devils advocate” to help the parties realistically assess the strengths and weaknesses of their case so the party can properly explore settlement and resolution. Mediations can take place in person or online and can last a few hours, a day or even multi-days. Judicial mediation involves a specially trained judge acting as mediator.
Judicial mediations typically take place online and last all day (unless there is no prospect of an agreement being reached).
The team at HCR Law has extensive experience of representing employers at mediation and judicial mediation. We know how to present your case effectively, work constructively with the mediator, negotiate on your behalf and help the other side take a realistic view of the claim. Once negotiations reach the framework for a deal, we can prepare and negotiate the written agreement that records the settlement, including confidentiality provisions where appropriate. We can offer fixed-fee representation for mediation and judicial mediation; please contact us for a quote.
As well as mediation advocates, we also have a number of the team who are trained mediators and workplace mediators.
A DRA hearing gives both sides an early indication of risk and can create useful momentum towards settlement. In more complex or longer employment tribunal claims, the Tribunal will list a compulsory DRA hearing. This is usually conducted online and gives a judge the opportunity to review the key arguments on both sides and give a preliminary, non-binding assessment of each party’s case. A DRA hearing will often then move into settlement discussions, making it similar in practical effect to judicial mediation.
We have considerable experience of representing parties at DRA hearings. We can help ensure that any unrealistic expectations held by the other side are addressed by the judge. If there are to be settlement discussions we can adopt the right strategy for the negotiations and seek to reach a resolution on the best possible terms. If a broad agreement for resolution can be reached we can then ensure that the written settlement document properly reflects the deal and protects your interests including ensuring appropriate confidentiality provisions are in place. We can offer fixed fee representation for mediation/judicial mediation and please contact us for a quote.
Employment tribunal claims can quickly become more complex if key deadlines, evidence or settlement opportunities are missed. These are some of the issues we regularly help employers manage.
Employers have limited time to respond to a claim, so internal escalation and early advice are critical.
You have 28 days to file your ET3 response and the tribunal will not wait. For smaller businesses, the temptation to put a claim to one side while you “deal with it later” is a recipe for default judgment. In larger organisations, the claim may arrive on time but sit in a post room, bounce between departments or gather dust on the wrong desk. By the time it reaches someone who knows what to do with it, the deadline may be bearing down and your response risks being rushed, incomplete or missed entirely.
AI-generated claims can look more sophisticated than they are, but they often take extra time to unpick and narrow.
Unrepresented claimants are increasingly turning to AI tools to draft their claims, witness statements, and correspondence. The result is often voluminous, legalistic-sounding documents that are poorly tailored to the actual issues, peppered with irrelevant legal arguments and inflated in scope. Far from simplifying matters, this can generate significantly more work for respondents in unpicking what is actually being alleged which can increase an employer’s legal costs.
Weak claims still need active management, including early assessment, costs warnings and procedural applications where appropriate.
Claimants do not always appreciate the employment tribunal costs risk of pursuing weak or misconceived claims, and we are seeing an increase in misguided beliefs about the strength and value of claims given the growing reliance on AI. A well-timed costs warning letter can focus minds and open the door to early resolution. If the claim presses on regardless, an application for a deposit order can put real financial pressure on arguments that lack reasonable prospects. Too many respondents let these tactical opportunities pass them by.
It is natural for HR professionals to want to be fair and transparent, but there is a critical difference between acting reasonably and actively assisting the claimant’s case. Oversharing documents, volunteering information that has not been requested, or guiding a claimant through process goes beyond your remit as respondent, particularly where in-house teams are used to an employee welfare mindset. Be fair, be compliant with your disclosure obligations, but do not do their lawyer’s job for them.
If a claim includes automatic unfair dismissal for making a protected disclosure, the claimant can apply for interim relief and that application must be heard within seven days. This is an extraordinarily tight turnaround that catches many employers off guard. You need legal advice immediately, not next week, because if the Tribunal orders continuation of the contract of employment, the cost and disruption can be significant while the full claim works its way through.
Where a claimant remains in your employment, the risk of a victimisation claim is acute. Every management decision, every change in duties, every sideways glance from a line manager can become alleged evidence of detrimental treatment “because of” the Tribunal proceedings. Ensure that decision-makers are properly briefed, that there is a clear paper trail for any legitimate management action, and that the temptation to manage the claimant out is firmly resisted.
Claims naming multiple respondents, whether group companies, individual directors, fellow employees, or entirely unrelated parties such as the Secretary of State in redundancy payment claims or a transferor in a TUPE situation, bring their own layer of complexity. You need to understand early on who is properly a party, who should seek to be dismissed from proceedings and where interests between co-respondents may diverge because an assumption that everyone is pulling in the same direction can be a costly mistake.
Solicitors have full rights of audience in the employment tribunal and instructing specialist representation, particularly for preliminary hearings where case management directions, strike-out applications, and deposit orders are in play, can set the tone for the entire case. For in-house teams already stretched across business-as-usual demands, consider whether your capacity genuinely allows for effective advocacy on the day, or whether bringing in external support is the better investment.
Witnesses leave. Emails get deleted. Memories fade. The time to secure your evidence is the moment a claim is intimated, not the week before the hearing. Take statements early particularly from employees who may move on and ensure that document preservation notices are circulated so that relevant records, messages, and system data are retained. The potential ramifications of losing a key witness to a competitor six months before trial is a problem you can avoid.
The opportunity to resolve a claim commercially does not expire after the first round of ACAS early conciliation. Settlement can be explored at every stage, through ongoing ACAS conciliation, direct negotiation, employment mediation, judicial mediation or a formal Dispute Resolution Appointment. Even if you believe your defence is strong, the management time, legal costs and reputational exposure of a full hearing deserve a hard-headed commercial assessment. That said, be alive to the precedent you set, particularly if you have other employees watching, and take advice on pitching any offer at the right level.
Our employment tribunal experts bring together the experience, judgement and practical insight employers need when facing employment tribunal claims.
These FAQs answer common questions employers ask when facing, defending or trying to resolve an employment tribunal claim.
The employee must usually contact ACAS before bringing a claim but employers can decide whether and how to engage in settlement discussions.
Before most claims can be brought at an employment tribunal (previously known as industrial tribunals (which they still are in Northern Ireland)), the employee must notify ACAS and go through early conciliation. Notification to ACAS is a mandatory pre-step for the employee before issuing a claim, with the intention of trying to settle claims before they ever need to reach the employment tribunal. However, whether you actively participate in early conciliation discussions is entirely voluntary.
The process lasts for 12 weeks, although can be stopped by either party if they do not wish to participate in early conciliation any longer.
Generally, an employee has 3 months, less a day, to bring their claims against their employer in the employment tribunal. This is known as the ‘limitation date’. From 1st October 2026, the limitation date for claims will be 6 months.
What matters for employers is that the limitation clock pauses while early conciliation is ongoing, and the deadline for bringing a claim is recalculated afterwards. This ordinarily gives the employee more time than you might expect to lodge their claim. Early conciliation is also a genuine opportunity for settlement: handled well, it can lead to an early, cost-effective resolution. Treat it as a strategic moment, not a box-ticking exercise, and consider taking advice before engaging with Acas.
Act immediately: the ET3 response deadline is strict and missing it can result in default judgment. You have 28 days from the date the ET1 was sent to you to file your response on an ET3 form. This deadline is strictly enforced – even a short delay can mean the tribunal refuses to accept your response. If you miss it, the tribunal can enter a default judgment against you without ever hearing your side.
Your ET3 matters. What you say, and what you do not say, can shape the rest of the case. A poorly drafted response can box you into arguments that do not serve you later, miss key defences that might be open to you, or undermine your credibility at a hearing. Get specialist advice from employment tribunal solicitors as soon as the ET1 lands.
It depends on the type of claim, but employment tribunals are currently under significant pressure, resulting in backlogs. We are seeing some final hearings being listed as far as three years in advance. In broad terms, a straightforward wages or unfair dismissal claim could take a year or so. Complex discrimination or whistleblowing cases can take significantly longer. For employers, that means more distraction from day-to-day business and more time living with uncertainty. It is almost always worth considering early settlement options to avoid a drawn-out process.
Most claims move from claim and response to case management, disclosure, witness statements and hearing, with settlement possible at any stage.
Employment tribunal proceedings typically follow a standard sequence; once the claim and response are lodged, the tribunal will then issue case management orders, directing the parties to cooperate and prepare for an effective final hearing.
The person bringing the claim (usually the employee) is referred to in proceedings as the Claimant, and the person/company defending the claim (usually the employer) is called the Respondent.
At any stage during the case, the parties may explore alternative dispute resolution, including private mediation or the tribunal’s own judicial mediation scheme, which offers a free, confidential process conducted by an Employment Judge with a view to achieving a settlement without the need for a full hearing.
Preliminary hearings may be held to deal with procedural directions or substantive applications such as strike-out, deposit orders, or jurisdictional issues (e.g. if the claim has been filed out of time, or whether the individual’s claimed disability or employment status is being challenged).
At the final hearing, the tribunal may comprise a Judge sitting alone or a full panel depending on the claim type, and the hearing may last from one day to several weeks. Witness statements are prepared in advance of the hearing and exchanged between the parties in good time beforehand, so that each party has time to see and prepare their case. These statements represent the chief evidence before the tribunal and witnesses are questioned (cross-examined) by the other party (and the tribunal) on those statements.
Most claims currently have a three-month less one day time limit, but ACAS early conciliation can extend the final deadline.
The standard tribunal time limit for most claims is three months less one day from the event complained of. For unfair dismissal, that usually means three months from the date of termination; for discrimination, it runs from the date of the discriminatory act or, if there is an ongoing course of conduct, from the last act in the series. In addition, the ACAS early conciliation period can pause the limitation clock and extend the final deadline.
This time limit is set to double to 6 months under the Employment Rights Act 2025, with the change expected to take effect from 1st October 2026. That will give employees significantly longer to bring a claim.
In reality, due to backlogs at the employment tribunal in sending out notices of claim in the post, we are currently advising employers who suspect a claim is coming to expect to wait up to 6 to 9 months before they can be reasonably confident that there won’t be an employment tribunal claim. From October 2026, the wait will be significantly longer than this.
Preparation is evidence-led: preserve documents, identify witnesses early and make sure the hearing bundle and statements support your strategy.
The case management orders directed by the tribunal usually include:
Preliminary hearings deal with procedural or legal issues before the full hearing takes place. They can cover questions such as whether the claim was brought in time, whether the claimant has the right employment status to bring the claim, or whether weak parts of the claim should be struck out.
For employers, a well-prepared preliminary hearing is an opportunity to narrow the claim, remove weak allegations, and take early control of the case. A poorly prepared one can produce findings that shape the rest of the proceedings against you.
HCR can provide Counsel and advocacy support for Preliminary Hearings.
Potential exposure depends on the claim type, with discrimination, whistleblowing and some dismissal claims carrying the greatest financial risk.
This depends on the claim type:
Tribunals can also make non-financial orders, such as requiring you to change policies or deliver training. Build these risks into your assessment from the start; HCR provide a high-level early case merits assessment (using a user-friendly template) at the outset, to focus on legal and commercial strategy and cost-efficiency. We can also offer an initial steer on merits and commercial strategy – please speak to one of our litigation experts – wording to be updated once product finalised.
The highest-risk claims are typically those that are uncapped, fact-sensitive, and heavily dependent on credibility. This is not least because these factors make negotiating a settlement harder.
The main categories to watch are:
Claims for unpaid wages or redundancy pay, while still important, tend to be more predictable in outcome and cost. A common mistake is treating all claims the same rather than matching your response and budget to the actual risk.
It is possible, but rare. In other courts, costs usually follow the event, meaning the losing party pays the legal fees of the winner. In the employment tribunal, the default position is that each side pays its own costs, win or lose. That said, the tribunal can order costs where a claimant acts unreasonably, vexatiously or disruptively. In practice, the bar is high and costs orders remain the exception. Do not go into an employment tribunal case expecting to recover your legal costs; plan your budget and employment tribunal costs on the basis that you will not.
Settlement is a commercial decision, not just a legal one and should be weighed against cost, precedent, management time and reputational risk. This is one of the most important commercial decisions you will face. Settlement reduces uncertainty, caps costs and gets the matter off your management team’s desk. However, settling is not always the right call. Employers who routinely settle weak claims can encourage further claims, undermine management authority and send the wrong message internally.
Sometimes, defending a claim is the better commercial decision: to set boundaries, protect your position or deter repeat claims. The decision should weigh the legal merits and cost of each claim, the reputational risk of defending usually public proceedings, and the wider signal it sends within your organisation. HCR Law can advise on the commerciality of settlement at the outset and throughout. You may also want to consider whether employment mediation or workplace mediation could offer a quicker, less adversarial route to resolution. Our workplace mediators are specialists in this area, helping to resolve conflicts before legal action is taken and working with both parties to agree an outcome and actions to improve the working relationship.
Yes. It is open to any employee to lodge a claim: there are currently no fees to bring a tribunal claim, and the system is designed to be accessible. Some claims are speculative or brought to extract a settlement. Even weak claims can cost real time and money to deal with.
HCR can advise on tools to help manage this, including advising on:
Early assessment and proactive use of these procedural tools is key to keeping costs under control. We can also offer an initial steer on merits and commercial strategy.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and represents the biggest shake-up of UK employment law in a generation.
Changes are being rolled out in phases:
Already in force (from April 2026): the duty to prevent sexual harassment has been strengthened — employers must now take “all reasonable steps” (rather than just “reasonable steps”) to prevent sexual harassment.
From October 2026:
From January 2027:
Together, these changes significantly increase the risk profile of every dismissal, performance management process, and disciplinary decision.
Employers should be reviewing probationary processes, disciplinary procedures, and overall tribunal readiness now.
Yes. Many tribunal claims are brought while the employment relationship is still ongoing. Discrimination, whistleblowing, unpaid wages, and working time claims can all arise without a dismissal. Discrimination and whistleblowing claims can be brought regardless of length of service.
There is also a status risk: individuals you have engaged as contractors or consultants may still qualify as “employees” or “workers” for tribunal purposes, giving them access to the tribunal system regardless of what their contract says. Do not assume that the risk of a tribunal claim only starts when someone leaves.
What if we do not have evidence to support our case, or a witness leaves our employment?
In employment tribunal claims, both parties are expected to support their case with evidence. Where either party does not have sufficient evidence to support its position (whether that be documents or witness testimony) the tribunal is entitled to draw adverse inferences against that party and may well find in the other’s favour.
A particular difficulty arises where a key witness is no longer available. For instance, employees may have resigned or passed away during the tribunal process. The tribunal will not simply accept what you say that person would have said; it will assess the claim on the evidence actually before it, and the absence of that witness may leave significant gaps in your case. It is therefore essential to maintain thorough records at every stage (particularly when taking disciplinary or dismissal action) so that your position does not rest solely on any single individual’s account. Even where witnesses are available, recollections fade over time. Proper documentation is, in practice, your best safeguard against being unable to discharge the burden of proof at tribunal.
