To not follow my lawyers advice

[marinariv]

Can anyone shed light on how an out of court settlement agreement with an employer works, is it good practice to accept the first offer?. My employer has admitted wrongdoing and has requested to settle, my laywer put forward the damages I suffered at a total of of 65,000 and my ex employer made an offer of 30,000, my lawyer is keen for me to accept, but I just think its a little odd that he is not even trying to negotiate more and wants to accept the first offer, is this usual practice ? My lawyer has said the offer was reasonable, and he does not think I would get more if I pursued the claim to court.

This is very facts specific and depends entirely on the case.

I would get your lawyer to explain why they think you should accept in the context of your case.

TBH I think the offer depends on the facts of the case, their likely costs, etc.

If they have just offered you £30k then I would expect them to accept a high counteroffer.

I think you have to look at how strong your case is, how realistic your damages are and so on.

They clearly want to settle, the trick in some ways is to say 'look I'm not going to settle for a penny less than £65k, and I'll happily go to court to do so'. You don't necessarily want to sound TOO reasonable, because if they think they are going to lose, they're on the hook not only for the damages (if £65k is really realistic), but also costs, staff time, reputational damage, etc.

Do you have a % feeling on how strong your case is? Obv. if you are running up legal fees then that's to be considered but my view on £30k is that it's a relatively small % of what they stand to lose in terms of legal costs and the damages.

When I was in this situation I eventually settled for the full claim, only forefeiting costs & interest.

Bear in mind that your costs are not recoverable in an employment tribunal (unless the other side has behaved particularly badly).

Making a counter offer won't extinguish their offer unless you expressly reject their original offer or they withdraw their original offer.

Don't accept the first offer. (Your lawyer might be being bit lazy.)

I got another £4,000 from original offer.
Solicitor wasn’t that interested in my case and it had been passed down twice already. One of my witnesses lied and said she didn’t see anything because she didn’t want to get involved. The other thankfully spoke up. The hospital said I had no broken bones. Last year I had an x ray of same area to which they said
“ I see you have an old fracture of your collarbone how did you do that?”

I would have had much more for that. I knew it was fractured and my Osteopath pushed it back in so it would heal. I was livid when I should have had proof. I didn’t go to court because I risked losing according to solicitor and I could risk us losing our house to pay court costs.
I was dazed at the accident but if I had called police I would have had more evidence. The driver should have, the passengers could have, my two friends could have but no one called police or an ambulance. I went to hospital later that night.

I would say push it some more but weigh up whether your case is strong enough to go to court. Mine wasn’t due to lack of witnesses.
It took me six months to get over injuries and stress. After I settled the 3 year stress went.

I would be wondering if it's just easier for the solicitor to stop at this point. If it's through insurance there may be no benefit to them of spending more time on it once you have an offer.

I am paying privately for the lawyer, lawyer has not been too interested in my case from the start to be honest.

In that case just ask them why they think £30k is right and also suggest they push for say £40k and may be then settle at £35k. It is not a precise science doing these things unless it is a specific invoice due for payment with the work done perfectl.

I defend claims like this and I certainly wouldn’t advise you to settle at that offer. If your employer has admitted liability they categorically will not want to go to trial, and will very likely go higher. Go back with a counter offer a little lower than your first and see where that gets you.

When I defend these types of claims I advise my clients to settle up to the full amount rather than go to trial if liability is admitted - they will probably do the same. I would also always make a low initial offer well below the maximum my client was actually willing to pay, to try and chance it.

Ask them how they determined that amount and then pull their reasoning apart if you can. Your lawyer should be doing this for you.

I told my lawyer to put a counter offer of £45,000, so we shall see.

My lawyer repeatedly advised me to accept £20,000. I dumped him and went to one of the top employment solicitors in the country (and a former judge) who advised me to take £15,000 and that 'I had no case', despite my employer admitting guilt in writing. It was honestly shocking how wrong they were in just about every aspect of their advice.

In the end, I settled for over £80,000, which was more than twice my annual salary. Go with your gut.

The problem is often where the law is not clear - so in cases where no one admits liability and the amount that might be due for something is as long as a piece of string. It is not necessarily that the lawyers are useless but it is worth getting their advice eg sometimes one side makes an offer to settle and if you go for more than that and win less you pay both side's costs and lose every penny so all those things have to be considered. Or the amount in dispute is too low to recover any legal fees from the other side so only worth if you use lawyers incurring a limited amount (or no) costs.

We reached a settlement of £40k

Thank you all for your input, I'm glad this is finally over

Glad you were able to agree something you're happy with.

A Solicitor can only advise you. Ultimately they have to either act on your instructions, or cease to act for you.

Well done. Just as well you pushed for more.

Congrats! Hope you can move on properly now.