Settlement agreement lawyers and solicitors

Your employer has handed you an agreement and, almost certainly, has offered to pay for you to take advice on it. This page is about what that advice legally has to be, what it is worth asking for on top, and how to check that the person giving it qualifies.

Before anything else: check which document you have actually been offered. A COT3 reached through Acas binds you without any of the following.

What the law actually requires

There is no such thing as a “settlement agreement solicitor” in legislation. The phrase is a search term, and behind it is a defined statutory role.

Lawyer or solicitor? The statute’s own word is “lawyer”

People search for a settlement agreement lawyer far more often than for a solicitor, and the statute is on their side: the first category of adviser it lists is a “qualified lawyer”, and it defines the term.

So in England and Wales the test is not the job title but the authorisation: someone authorised under the Legal Services Act 2007 to exercise a right of audience or conduct litigation. Solicitors with practising rights qualify, and so do others who hold those authorisations. In Scotland the statute names them directly — an advocate, or a solicitor who holds a practising certificate. Whichever word you use, what you are looking for is someone who meets that definition, is insured for the advice, and has no connection to your employer.

Three categories, then, and the third is genuinely useful to people who do not want to pay for anything: an advice centre worker who has been certified in writing by the centre as competent and authorised. The second, a certified trade union officer, is the reason union members frequently pay nothing at all for this.

What none of them can be is connected to the employer. The exclusion at the end of the extract is absolute and it is not something you can agree to waive. That is the bit to keep in mind if your employer offers to arrange the adviser for you: suggesting a firm is normal and unobjectionable, and the firm still has to be independent of them in fact.

What a settlement agreement solicitor does, step by step

The statute fixes the minimum, and the steps follow from it. A typical sign-off, by a solicitor or any other relevant independent adviser, works through five things:

1. Checks the agreement can bind you at all. Section 203(3) sets six conditions — in writing, relating to particular complaints, advice from an independent adviser, insurance in force, the adviser named, and a statement that the conditions are met. If one is missing the waiver fails.
2. Explains what you are giving up. The agreement lists the claims it settles. The adviser goes through them with you and checks nothing has been included that you did not expect, or left out that you meant to keep.
3. Checks the money. Statutory redundancy pay, notice, accrued holiday and the tax split all have right answers that can be checked. Redundancy pay · notice · tax.
4. Checks the other terms. The reference, confidentiality, restrictive covenants and any warranties you are asked to give. References · covenants · every clause.
5. Signs the adviser’s part. The agreement has to identify the adviser, and many include a short certificate for them to sign confirming the advice was given and their insurance was in force.

How long it takes

The Acas statutory Code of Practice recommends at least 10 days to consider the written terms and take advice, unless both sides agree otherwise. Nothing in section 203 requires the advice to be given face to face, so how long it takes depends mostly on getting the documents and on any negotiation that follows. How long you have to sign.

Who pays the solicitor

There is no statutory right to have the advice paid for. Acas puts the position plainly:

Where an employer does contribute, check that the agreement states the sum, whether it includes VAT, and that it is paid to the adviser’s firm. Whether it covers the whole fee depends on what you ask the adviser to do. Fees and contributions.

What the advice has to cover, and what it does not

Condition (c) of s.203(3) is specific. The advice must be on the terms and effect of the proposed agreement, and in particular on its effect on your ability to pursue your rights before an employment tribunal. That is the statutory minimum and it is what a fixed sign-off fee buys.

It does not include, and is not the same as, an opinion on whether the figure is fair. That requires somebody to form a view on what your claim is worth, which is a different piece of work on a different timescale. Most advisers will give you a steer without being asked. If you want the analysis rather than the steer, say so when you book, because it changes the quote.

What firms charge and who pays for it · What is actually negotiable

Two situations change what the advice has to cover. In a redundancy, much of the offer may be a statutory entitlement rather than compensation. And where a discrimination claim is in play, the agreement has to satisfy the Equality Act as well as the Employment Rights Act, and the rules on who may advise you are stricter.

Five questions worth asking on the first call

1. Will you cap your fee at my employer’s contribution? Frequently yes, for a straightforward sign-off. Get it in the client care letter.
2. Is that inclusive or exclusive of VAT? The difference is about twenty per cent and it is the usual reason a quote and an invoice disagree.
3. What happens to the fee if I decide not to sign? Many employer contributions are payable only on completion.
4. Do you act in this jurisdiction? A trivial question in Manchester, a load-bearing one if you worked in Scotland.
5. How quickly can you do it? Same day and next day are both common for a sign-off, which changes how frightening a short deadline actually is.

By city

Each city page carries the tribunal venue that actually hears claims from that city, taken from the HM Courts & Tribunals Service court and tribunal finder, and the median full-time gross weekly pay for jobs located there, from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025. The second figure is there for a reason: statutory redundancy pay is calculated on a week’s pay capped at £751 for 2026/27, so how far the typical local job sits above that ceiling decides how badly the statutory formula understates a local worker’s loss.

• LondonCentral London Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• ManchesterManchester Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• BirminghamMidlands (West) Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• LeedsLeeds Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• GlasgowGlasgow Employment and Immigration Tribunals (Eagle Building) · cap applies
• BristolBristol Civil and Family Justice Centre · cap applies
• CardiffWales Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• Newcastle upon TyneNewcastle Civil & Family Courts and Tribunals Centre · cap does not apply
• EdinburghEdinburgh Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• LiverpoolLiverpool Civil and Family Court · cap does not apply
• NottinghamMidlands (East) Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• LeicesterLeicester Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap does not apply
• SheffieldSheffield Combined Court Centre · cap does not apply
• Milton KeynesBedford Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• NorwichNorwich Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• SouthamptonSouthampton Combined Court Centre · cap applies
• AberdeenAberdeen Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• CoventryMidlands (West) Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• StockportManchester Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• DerbyMidlands (East) Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• NorthamptonBedford Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap does not apply
• CambridgeCambridge County Court and Family Court · cap applies
• HullHull Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap does not apply
• BradfordLeeds Employment Tribunal · cap does not apply
• Stoke-on-TrentNorth Staffordshire Justice Centre · cap does not apply
• ReadingReading Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• OxfordReading Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• CroydonLondon South Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• MaidstoneAshford Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap does not apply
• CheltenhamSwindon Magistrates’ Court · cap applies
• IpswichBury St Edmunds County Court and Family Court · cap does not apply
• WarringtonManchester Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• BournemouthSouthampton Combined Court Centre · cap does not apply
• SwanseaSwansea Civil Justice Centre · cap does not apply
• YorkLeeds Employment Tribunal · cap applies
• BrightonHavant Justice Centre · cap applies
• ChelmsfordEast London Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• ColchesterBury St Edmunds County Court and Family Court · cap applies
• DundeeDundee Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap does not apply
• PlymouthPlymouth Magistrates’ Court · cap does not apply
• BathBristol Civil and Family Justice Centre · cap does not apply
• SwindonSwindon Magistrates’ Court · cap applies
• PeterboroughBoston County Court and Family Court · cap does not apply
• LincolnLincoln Magistrates’ Court · cap does not apply
• GuildfordReading Tribunal Hearing Centre · cap applies
• ChesterMold Justice Centre · cap does not apply
• ExeterPlymouth Magistrates’ Court · cap does not apply
• BelfastIndustrial tribunal · Northern Ireland: a compromise agreement

More cities will be added. Each of these was written from that city’s own tribunal listing and earnings data rather than from a template, which is why some of them reach opposite conclusions about the same statutory figure.

How busy the tribunal actually is

Every settlement offer is priced against one thing: what it would cost the employer to say no. That makes the size of the tribunal queue the most underrated number in this process, and HMCTS publishes it.

In April to June 2026 the employment tribunal received 25,122 jurisdictional complaints and disposed of 11,232. About 2.24 arrived for every one that left. The open caseload at the end of the quarter was 100,338 — which, at that quarter’s disposal rate, is roughly 8.9 quarters of work before a single new claim is added.

Two things there are worth a second look. The average number of separate complaints per claim is a shade over two in every region, which is the practical reason a settlement agreement has to list the claims it settles by name rather than waving at all of them: section 203(3)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires it to relate to the particular proceedings, and a typical claim is more than one proceeding. And the spread between the busiest and the quietest region is more than tenfold, which is worth knowing before you accept anyone’s confident assertion about how quickly a hearing comes round.

A note on Scotland

Employment rights are reserved to the UK Parliament under Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998, so the Employment Rights Act 1996 applies in Scotland exactly as it does in England and Wales — the statute is printed with an extent of England, Wales and Scotland. The same six conditions, the same independent adviser requirement, the same time limits.

What differs is everything underneath the tribunal: a separate 1994 jurisdiction order, the sheriff court rather than the county court, and a statutory rule that keeps claims up to £100,000 in the sheriff court exclusively. It changes nothing about what you sign and quite a lot about what happens if the other side does not honour it. The detail, with the instruments named.

A note on Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is not covered by any of the statutes above. The Employment Rights Act 1996 says of itself that it does not extend there; the equivalent is the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, the document is still called a compromise agreement, claims go to an industrial tribunal, and early conciliation runs through the Labour Relations Agency rather than Acas. Several of the numbers differ too. Belfast and Northern Ireland, set out against the British rules.

Common questions