How to get a settlement agreement: An 8-step guide

Being badly treated at work and deciding what to do about it can be a confusing and stressful experience. But it can be much easier to cope with if you know what your options are and which option to choose to get a successful resolution in the shortest possible time.

In this guide, we outline the 8 practical steps and decisions you are likely to have to take, from the time you were badly treated to getting a financial settlement. 

The first few steps are typical of the process you’ll go through in trying to deal with your workplace  problem. From the time you decide to contact an employment law specialist to help you with your case, the steps outlined are what typically happens at Monaco Solicitors. 

Links to our other guides giving more detailed information about the issues being discussed are highlighted throughout. See in particular our main guide on settlement agreements.

You can also get an idea of what your settlement agreement might look like from our settlement agreement examples.

Step 1: You decide to act after you’ve been treated badly

You’ve been treated really badly or unfairly by your employer, either once, or over a period of weeks/months.

You’ve talked to your friends and family about it and tried the actions they suggested, but they haven’t worked. So you decide that you’re not going to put up with it any more and want to take further action. But what should you do?

 

Step 2: You seek an early meeting with your employer to discuss the problem

You ask for a meeting as soon as possible with your manager or HR person to try to resolve the issue informally.

You don’t let the matter drag on, because the longer you leave it, the less likely you are to be able to get a settlement, particularly if you end up having to make an employment tribunal claim in order to get your case resolved. (See more below)

You prepare for the meeting by making notes (initially for your own use) about what happened to you, when it happened, who was involved and whether or not there were any witnesses. The notes are important as they may be the foundation for building evidence to use in negotiations for a settlement agreement or employment tribunal claim.

You have the meeting. You’ll probably be told that you will be informed what your employer is going to do about your situation after they’ve had time to investigate the matter properly. They should give you an indication of when you can expect their response.

If you haven’t heard from them by that date, you should follow up – in writing – and ask for a response within 7 days.

 

Step 3: If no action by your employer to resolve the problem

If you haven’t received your employer’s decision about proposed action to resolve your complaint, or you’ve been informed about proposed action but no action has been taken, you need to ramp up the pressure on your employer now.

Remember that if you decide to make a legal claim, you have very little time to submit the claim (usually 3 months less one day from the date of the event you are complaining about). So you need to do something, but what do you do?

 

Step 3 Option 1: Submit a formal grievance

Your motive for submitting a formal grievance may be one of the two following possibilities:

1] You really want to stay at your place of work, so you submit a grievance outlining why you are unhappy about the treatment you have received. Your primary goal is to get the issue resolved and continue in your role.

2] You do not want to remain employed at your place of work, but you still submit a formal grievance with details about why you are unhappy about the treatment you have received.

Why bother? Because if you had eventually to submit an employment tribunal claim, you could demonstrate to the tribunal that you took all possible steps to try to resolve your complaint with your employer before proceeding to an employment tribunal.

Grievance outcomes:

Your grievance is heard by your employer, with an outcome either in your favour or rejected 

If the grievance is accepted,  you work with your employer to find an acceptable and practical resolution so you can continue working for them. You therefore no longer have an issue, at least in the short term and assuming that the resolution holds.

If the grievance is rejected, you still have a problem but no resolution. If it’s rejected and you were hoping you could stay on, then you could appeal, but you may decide that you’ll have to leave after all. If that’s the case, you contact a specialist employment lawyer such as Monaco Solicitors, for help.

 

Step 3 Option 2: Contact an employment lawyer without submitting a grievance

You really don’t think you could continue in your role after the bad treatment you’ve received. So even though it might be advisable to submit a formal grievance, you decide not to, as you really want to leave and the time you have left to make a claim is short. You contact a reputable firm of employment law specialists such as Monaco Solicitors without delay, for advice and possible help.

 

Step 4: Your first consultation with an employment solicitor

The steps from here on are what typically happens at Monaco Solicitors.

First of all, you submit brief details to Monaco Solicitors online about your case. (If you haven’t already done so, you can submit your details here).

A specialist employment lawyer reviews your details to assess whether we might be able to help you settle your case out of court, by way of a settlement agreement.

You have your first consultation – by phone – with the employment lawyer best qualified to assess your case. If we think we can help you, we offer you either a free consultation or a paid consultation:

• Free consultation: If your case appears to have potential, we will email you (usually within an hour if you’ve submitted your case details during office hours) and offer you a free consultation.
• Paid consultation: If the information you provided is insufficient for us to be able to assess the strengths of your case, you may be asked for further detail and/or offered a paid consultation. We only ask you to pay for a consultation if your case appears to be very complex and/or if we need more time than a free consultation permits to elicit further details from you. (See our prices page.)

Outcome of consultation

We let you know following your consultation whether or not we can help you.

If we can’t help you, we will tell you why. If we can help, we will let you know the terms we can offer for helping you, as outlined below.

 

Step 5: You consider Monaco Solicitors’ offer to help you get a settlement

If we can help you, we will offer you either ‘no win no fee’ terms or alternatives as follows:

No Win No Fee (NWNF) terms:

With No Win No Fee (NWNF) terms, you won’t have to pay anything up front and you only have to pay us a fee if we succeed in winning your case for you and achieving a fair settlement agreement. We explain in plain English what the terms of this arrangement are and how it works in practice.

Alternatives to NWNF:

If we can’t offer you NWNF terms, we will clearly explain the alternatives that we can offer. These will vary, depending on the nature of your case, and are assessed by us on a case-by-case basis, but could include:

• Hourly fees for us to prepare specific parts of a claim on your behalf (eg the Details of Claim in your Employment Tribunal claim form or an initial Without Prejudice letter to your employer).
• Access to our letter-building tools or other tech-based solutions, to help you approach your employer yourself for a settlement, with little or no lawyer guidance. For example: our ‘Grapple‘ legal letter writing tools.

Whatever alternatives to NWNF we may be able to offer, you will be clearly informed about whether there is a fee to be paid (and if so, how much) or whether it is free of charge. You won’t be asked to accept any offer unless we’re convinced that you fully understand the nature and terms of the offer, and you are willing/able to proceed.

Our ‘Client Care Letter’ clearly sets out the terms we have agreed during our consultation(s) and you accept those terms by signing and returning the letter.

 

Step 6: You provide a timeline of events and documents to support your case

We ask you for what we call a ‘timeline’ (an outline of the key events in your case, presented in the order that they occurred). We give you guidance on how to set this out if you need it. We also ask you for any documents (eg emails, texts) that may form useful evidence to support any aspects of your case.

 

Step 7: We make the first communication with your employer

We communicate with your employer, making the initial legal contact on your behalf. This communication will probably take the form of a ‘without prejudice’ letter/email. It may also involve a ‘without prejudice’ phone call. Any key letter or email that we propose to send to your employer will be sent to you first to ensure that you are happy for us to send it.

 

Step 8: Response from your employer

Your employer may deny your claims or refuse outright to negotiate, or they may enter into a negotiation. Here’s a brief summary of what’s likely to happen in each circumstance:

A] Your employer denies the claims and/or just refuses to negotiate

If for any reason your employer won’t negotiate or make a reasonable settlement offer, then you may have to make an employment tribunal claim.

Whether or not you intend to see a claim all the way through to a tribunal hearing is another matter.  You may at least start a claim and do everything within the time limits for making a claim, so your employer thinks you really intend to see the claim through to a tribunal, with all the expense that will mean for them.

If they see you doing that, they will be more likely to settle as a settlement would probably cost them less.

The steps you need to make a claim are clearly set out in our separate guide about your journey as a claimant through the tribunal system. You need to begin the process of getting an employment tribunal claim underway as soon as possible, as there are very strict time deadlines involved (see Step 3 for more).

Don’t despair if your employer refuses to negotiate, because there is every chance that they may change their minds about settling out of court at any time before the tribunal hearing. This is particularly likely once they have had time to study your tribunal claim form and supporting evidence, with all the cost implications for them if you win your case.

B] Your employer agrees to negotiate a settlement

We immediately start negotiating with your employer on your behalf and communicate/consult with you at key stages in the negotiation process.

• The outcome is a negotiated settlement agreement that you and your employer have both agreed, setting out fair financial compensation for the injustices you’ve suffered.
• You sign the settlement agreement, with your lawyer advising you.
• Your employer pays Monaco Solicitors directly for advising you on the settlement agreement and makes the payment agreed to you in settlement of your claim.
• If you have a NWNF agreement with Monaco Solicitors, you then pay us the fee you’ve agreed for successfully concluding your case.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE A SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT!

What next?

Monaco Solicitors is a specialist employment law firm that only represents workers and employees. We can give you expert advice on your best course of action in nearly all kinds of employment law cases and can act for you to negotiate the best possible settlement agreement, possibly on a no-win-no-fee basis.

For expert employment law advice from an experienced and friendly team of specialist employment lawyers, contact us at Monaco Solicitors using any one of the following options:

• through our website here
• by email: communications@monacosolicitors.co.uk
• by phone: 020 7717 5259