The web is a wonderful place but if you put “employment law” into your Google search you will come up with over 48 million results. Among the first pages alone you will find solicitors, employment law specialists, lawyers, information sites, charities, claims companies, employee bodies, employer bodies and a whole host of directories. How can you possibly be sure you are getting accurate and up to date information from people who really know what they are talking about? Here are our top 10 tips for getting the best out of your internet search:
- Decide what you are looking for! If you are only looking for information, go to reliable public information sources. Start with the government website www.direct.gov.uk or ACAS www.acas.org.uk. You can be sure that the information on these sites is correct and kept fully up to date. Avoid question and answer websites, so-called information websites and even be wary of websites hosted by employment law advisers and solicitors. Even if the information originally posted on the site was accurate, you cannot be sure that it has been kept up to date.
- A tip for searching the direct.gov.uk website is do a specific search for your topic through your search engine and then click on the direct.gov result rather than use the search engine on the direct.gov website. Your search should bring you straight to the page you are seeking e.g. your rights on redundancy or flexible working, while searching through the direct.gov search engine will bring you up a number of results from which you will have to make further choices.
- If you are looking for a professional to advise you on employment law or to represent you in the Employment Tribunal, look for genuine specialists in this field. Employment law is a highly specialist area of law and the only way a solicitor can really calls him or herself an expert is by making this their main, if not only, area of specialism. BEWARE – just because a solicitor calls him or herself an employment law specialist does not necessarily mean they only undertake employment law work. Check out the website and see whether employment law is their main area of specialism or whether it is just something that they offer as part of a mixed bag.
- Many of the websites you will come across on the internet are not solicitors at all but employment law advisers. Nowadays they are regulated in a similar way to solicitors but they are still not bound by all the same professional rules of conduct. Be clear about who you are contacting and what level of protection you will have if you are not happy with the service provided
- Don’t restrict your internet search to your immediate geographical area. A lot of employment law matters can be dealt with remotely on the telephone or by email and going a little further afield in your search could provide you with someone more specialist and knowledgeable than the Firms available in your local area.
- Some websites will give you the option of emailing for free advice. By all means use this service, but restrict your enquiry to a question on a general point of law. No adviser can advise you of your personal rights and the options open to you in respect of a situation at work without taking your full instructions. If you do receive detailed advice, take it with a pinch of salt and find yourself another adviser. A good solicitor may give you some general advice in principle, but will suggest a consultation to advise you properly. You will probably have to pay for this but don’t be put off and assume that the solicitor is only after your money. Use the consultation to meet the Solicitor and to get a feel for the practice and how they work. It will tell you so much more than a website and an experienced employment law solicitor will know exactly the right questions to ask you to get the information he or she needs to give you clear and meaningful advice.
- If the reason for your internet search is to find someone who can give you statutory advice on a Compromise Agreement, you will need to find a “relevant independent adviser”. In summary, this will be: a practising solicitor, employed barrister or legal executive, a trade union official or a certified employee or volunteer of an advice centre which gives free legal advice. In all cases the person must not be acting or otherwise connected with the employer who has given you the Compromise Agreement. In practice you will most likely be searching for a Firm of solicitors. Look for a Firm that explains about compromise agreements on their website and has a clear charging policy. Your employer will probably be paying most if not all of your legal costs, but some solicitors take advantage of this and say they charge whatever your employer will pay! They cannot possibly be acting in your best interests and should be avoided at all costs.
- Be wary also of Solicitors who offer nothing but a Compromise Agreement service. Advising on a Compromise Agreement is not just a question of rubber stamping the Agreement to enable the employee to get their money. In order to be able to advise you of your rights and tell you whether what you are getting is fair and reasonable, your solicitor needs to have wide knowledge and experience of employment law. This will also give them the negotiation skills to seek to improve your offer. If you are not able to get a fair deal on your Compromise Agreement you might decide the best option for you is to take your claim to an Employment Tribunal. Make sure that the solicitor advising on your Compromise Agreement has the experience and infrastructure to do this for you. Otherwise you will find yourself being referred elsewhere and you will have incurred unnecessary duplicate costs.
- Avoid comparison websites – yes, they do now exist even for solicitors! Do make your own comparisons but base them on your own enquiries and make sure you compare like with like. Charges will always be an issue when appointing solicitors but do not make your choice solely on cost. The hourly charge out rate of a partner or senior solicitor will almost certainly be higher than that of a junior solicitor but it is likely that they will need to spend less time reading and researching in order to advise you. You may find their services actually cost you less in the long run. Sometimes it is a prompt approach and/or the solicitor’s personality that gets the result you are looking for and this is something that you cannot glean by simply looking at a website.
- Don’t be wooed by offers of free advice and no-win no-fee arrangements. Just with everything else in life, you get what you pay for and there really is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to professional, accurate and timely employment law advice.
Tags: compromise agreements, employment law, finding a solicitor
