Settlement agreement - Legal Costs

[bennno]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 18 November 2025 at 19:07

[Inbox]

bennno said:

Is anybody here a lawyer specialising in employment law, have a settlement agreement which needs review.

What does review and advice typically cost?

Regards

Ben

When I had this, the company paid upto £250 towards the cost which covered it. If you do a search on here there are threads about this with some suggestions.

[BertBert]

Standard settlement agreements what the terms aren't in dispute done cost a lot. Although I would think that £250 might be on the more side a bit.

It gets more expensive if you need the solicitor to advise on how to get more or to do the negotiation for you.

[Ian Geary]

My ex employer offered a out £300-£400 towards it.

Cost about £700 in the end (total)

No particular contention - they read it once, spoke to me for say 20 mins, then a other email to confirm


This was from picking 3 "local" compa ies from Google, thogh despite regional offices they were a national.company I think.


Ultimately it is what it is: you're paying all the support behind the solicitor, not just their face time (zoom) that you get.

[Dan_The_Man]

My old company offered £400 + VAT so I just asked my solicitor mate if he could work with that and he did. Pretty much as above, a 20 min chat and email follow up. It's a lot easier if you are happy with the deal as I can imagine fighting it could get messy and expensive.

[jonwm]

I had to go through this start of the year, ended up being about £1800 for quite a simple one, mainly because the solicitor cost £300 an email!! luckily my then employer stumped up £1500 towards it.
Solicitor was a good one, but kind of contradicted herself with my company lawyer so ended up having to go back with emails costing me money!

Anyway all done now and in the past.

[Jasandjules]

Your employer will pay a sum towards the costs. It is usually set out in the agreement under a heading Legal Fees. Most lawyers should be able to review the agreement with you for that sum so you do not bear any costs (it is helpful if you have read the agreement and are happy with the sums offered etc)

[bennno]

Jasandjules said:

Your employer will pay a sum towards the costs. It is usually set out in the agreement under a heading Legal Fees. Most lawyers should be able to review the agreement with you for that sum so you do not bear any costs (it is helpful if you have read the agreement and are happy with the sums offered etc)

They've verbally mentioned a figure of circa £600, but i'm yet to have visibility of the settlement proposal... will revert.

Work is making circa 15k redundant globally, so think HR are slightly rushed off their feet.

[BertBert]

bennno said:

They've verbally mentioned a figure of circa £600, but i'm yet to have visibility of the settlement proposal... will revert.

Work is making circa 15k redundant globally, so think HR are slightly rushed off their feet.

Interesting. With a large scale redundancy programme it's unusual to be doing settlement agreements ime.

Hope it works out ok in the end. For you.

[omniflow]

BertBert said:

Interesting. With a large scale redundancy programme it's unusual to be doing settlement agreements ime.

Hope it works out ok in the end. For you.

Total opposite in my experience. If they're paying you more than the statutory minimum then they want something in exchange. I've been through several large scale programs of redundancies, on both sides of the process (well, "management" not HR) in 2 different global companies and in every single case settlement agreements were used for people based in the UK.

For the OP, unless you think you've got a case to get extra cash then you want the process to be as simple as possible. Most Lawyers will bill the company directly, so you don't need to get involved. The settlement agreement will state the maximum the company will pay, and by sheer co-incidence, that's how much the bill will be.

[BertBert]

omniflow said:

Total opposite in my experience.

Ah interesting, different experiences then. Good to know.

[Hol]

It’s been 24years but my employer at the time paid the entire cost direct.

I just went with a local solicitor though as you don’t really need a specialist to break the key clauses down.

[Jasandjules]

BertBert said:

Interesting. With a large scale redundancy programme it's unusual to be doing settlement agreements ime.

Hope it works out ok in the end. For you.

No they tend to offer a bit over statutory to get things wrapped neatly up (to prevent multiple claims etc for starters).. And also some will start the WP process early to get voluntary redundancies etc out of the way. All different tactics can be used by companies.