ACAS or Tribunal. Has anyone been through it, or is going through it?

[sellotape12]

I'm desperate for community and support from any other women going through, e.g. an employment unfair dismissal claim/ sex discrimination/ maternity discrimination.

We filed ACAS today. I've spent £3.5k + VAT with my solicitor already. Still no settlement. I have no idea what my walk-away figure is, even though my case is pretty good. Employer is an arrogant, stubborn owner, not like a typical big corporate. | was not able to instruct a no-win-no-fee solicitor as technically we have over £8k savings (or did...!). Plus I like the solicitor - he's experienced.

Is anyone else in this pre-tribunal situation? Or did you go through a similar case where an employer finally settled, but before tribunal proceedings?

I'm an employment solicitor. It's always a balance. Going to tribunal on a discrimination matter is likely to cost you £15K +. Do you have this? There is no guarantee of a settlement and no guarantee that you will win. Has your solicitor spoken to you about the danger of a costs award against you if you lose? Do you have legal expenses insurance?

Most employment cases are tricky to assess in terms of compensation. Redundancy cases are likely to result in very limited compensation because of the Polkey defence which allows employers to say that running a legally compliant process would only have taken a few weeks so compensation should be limited to a few weeks' pay. Compensation in unfair dismissal cases (and constructive dismissal cases) is dependent on how quickly you find another job. Discrimination case are effectively assessed for the main part in bands depending on the severity of the acts of discrimination. The average/typical award is still very low and in most cases lower than the cost of going to tribunal.

You need an estimate of likely compensation from your solicitor before you invest any more money in this IMO.

No win no fee is very rare I'm afraid (and the lawyers that work on this basis are typically not very good).

Thanks so very much. Yes good to know - my lawyer is very good and has the right experience. He's being open about how much we're spending. It's just been ... a lot of time to unpick my evidence (no smoking gun - is there ever - but lots of little suspicious things and a very dodgy timing sequence). I'll ask him if he can be more confident about giving me a probability if it goes to ET.
We did put in a punchy offer at first, months ago. I was a senior manager. Discrimination x2 grounds and injury to feelings. But all I want to walk away with is my immediate losses covered. However, employer playing hardball and instructed a certain breed of 'firm' to scare me off. Their letter includes falsehoods and threats. So we've gone back and outlined the bullets of our case. And opened ACAS at the same time as I'm up against the time limit.
I just don't know how many cases like this (owner occupier, naive, defensive) are likely to settle or is he calling my bluff to go all the way to ET? He claims he has a 'devastating, claim-ending piece of evidence that will unequivocally disprove that discrimination occurred and that the dismissal was on grounds of [something else]' but hasn't shared it. So I guess I have DSAR up my sleeve too.

It's a horrible, horrible experience. I have been out of work for 3 months now just stewing.

I have been going through ACAS & ET ( currently at disclosure stage and final hearing is in August. It has been a long emotional journey but I am willing to see the end of it. I am up against a Local Authority for disability discrimination & constructive dismissal. Be mentally prepare as it will drain you. My case has been since March 2024 & is still on going. I think my former employer try to hold out to see if I blink but unfortunately for them I am a stubborn.

ps: put in the DSAR as soon as possible as that could take months. Mine took 3 months as I was there for over 8 years.

I'm also an employment lawyer but can't improve on the good advice @user746016 gave - save that you don't need DSAR in litigation, as they are under a duty to disclose relevant evidence (whether it helps them or you) and it sounds like they would want to disclose this alleged document if it would help them. Indeed if such a document existed they might be inclined to send it over sooner to try to get you to discontinue and/or to apply for a strike out (which is when one party can knock the other's case out before a full trial because it has no reasonably prospect of succeeding).

If they are lying about its existence, or anything else, in documents that might help you if/when it comes to costs.

I’m an employer of a small business on the receiving end of an ET several years ago. We had to make redundancies during COVID but took advice and went through a fair process.

it was really stressful and very hurtful, we had many spurious claims made against us.
thankfully it was all thrown out in the end.

the main take home points for me at the end of the day were the stress of it all, the time it was hanging over us. The whole thing took months. The damage done to our reputation ( and that of the pursuer), the wish for conciliation before it got to the stage it did ( which never happened),the need to DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, but mostly to trust in the legal process. If you have a case, you will likely be successful

I think you need to proceed with caution here. Your solicitor ought to have given you an idea already of the chances of success and the likely compensation if you win. £3500 on fees before you’ve even started early conciliation is quite a lot (circa ten hours of work based on average rates for a reasonably experienced lawyer). Most good employment solicitors would be able to give you a rough assessment of your case including chances of success and likely compensation levels based on a couple of hours of work briefly reviewing papers. When you say you went in with a punchy offer what sort of figure are you talking about?

Be careful. The more time your solicitor spends the more you will need to ask for by way of settlement. Keep this in mind when negotiating. You don’t want your legal fees to eat up any compensation you get. Also keep in mind your employer is under no obligation whatsoever to offer any compensation by way of settlement at all. People often think they are going to walk away with tens of thousands. That is rarely the case.

It's just been ... a lot of time to unpick my evidence (no smoking gun - is there ever - but lots of little suspicious things and a very dodgy timing sequence).

This is ringing alarm bells with me. In order to shift the burden of proof onto your employer you need more than this. You need to show that there is no reasonable explanation but discrimination.

Okay, thanks for the responses, everyone I’ll try reply here:
@FrodoBiggins to check I understand correctly are you saying that there’s no point asking for the DSAR we should wait until disclosure where they won’t have to redact anything? If it was such devastating evidence, I don’t know why they haven’t shared it so far. I’m pretty sure if any feedback was collected, it was after i disclosed my protected characteristic. I received no prior written warning and only positive feedback. So it’s a bit weird.

@user746016 Alarm bells? Okay, I’m worried. My solicitor says there’s enough. I’m happy with DM if you prefer. The challenge is the employer has come back and claimed that there is devastating piece of evidence that will sink my case. But they haven’t shared it. Employer also wrote back with falsehoods claiming I never told them about my prot characteristic, even though I actually do have it in writing that they knew.

@scotlands thank you for sharing your experience on the other side of the fence. That doesn’t sound like it was an easy thing to go through. Am I right to assume that you felt pretty worn down by it all? I just want my employer to settle without going to ET.

I said there are alarm bells because you said you'd had to try to unpick your evidence. It also seems like a lot of hours have been spent prior to even starting acas early conciliation.

Obviously I don't know any of the detail whatsoever so I can't comment on the strengths or otherwise of the case.

I do however see lots of cases where the lawyers spend hours writing long letters prior to even issuing a claim and the main thing that does is make it difficult to settle because the expectations as to the amount of money that will be achieved goes up and moves it out of commercial offer territory (a couple of thousand) into the territory of "well we might as well fight this".

Yeah I totally get you. I don’t think he was trying to overstate my claim. I think we are just trying to get some costs covered. I’m just hoping that the ACAS part of the process might encourage some settlement. I need to emotionally decide my walk-away point too.

It might encourage settlement but my personal approach when acting for employers is to always shut acas early conciliation down immediately unless I think I can settle it for less than about £2k. It's tactical since it puts pressure on the claimant.

@sellotape12 you can make a subject access request if you want but the same evidence will also be part of the disclosure if it gets to that point (disclosure comes after the claim is issued and before witness statements)

Yes. Pretty worn down. It was a six month process from start to finish. It felt like there were no winners in the process. Well, maybe ( like they say) the lawyers. We didn't feel satisfied or jubilant. Just flat.

I’ve been through an ET, it’s a long and stressful process. If you have submitted your ET1 with the help of a solicitor you might be able to continue without them as a litigant in person. There is a Facebook support group I found helpful. I would submit a DSAR request as soon as possible, listing people who you think might have written messages /documents mentioning you. Although in theory all documents should be disclosed, the employer might not think documents that might help you are relevant. Getting them early will help you understand and build your case. Best of luck.