Few employers would be prepared to go into an employment tribunal hearing without the benefit of legal representation. But now research suggests that the more employers pay their lawyers, the less satisfied they are with the outcome of their case.
A government-funded study by the Work Foundation reveals, not surprisingly, that employers are more satisfied with their outcome of a case when they win (PDF format, 397KB), and less satisfied when the claimant wins.
But legal costs are highest where the employer fights and wins the case. And because legal costs rise with the duration of the case, this means that victory is seldom a particularly happy experience for employers.
Interestingly, there are factors other than cost which affect employers' satisfaction with the employment tribunal process.
Employers that had contact with an Acas official after the claim came in were significantly more satisfied with the outcome of the case than those that did not. In contrast, claimants were less happy with cases in which an Acas official had become involved.
Employers were also more satisfied with the outcome of their case if their organisation had an active trade union or staff association.
The research, funded by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (as we must learn to call the old Department of Trade and Industry) is based on data from the large-scale 2003 Survey of Employment Tribunal Applications.
Two other new pieces of research, also commissioned by the DBERR, look at the effect of no-win, no-fee lawyers on employment tribunals, and at settlements in employment tribunal cases.
At the time of writing, not all these reports are available on the DBERR website, but in due course all three should appear on the Employment Relations Research Series index page.
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