As of the 6 December 2018, the Solicitors Regulation Authority requires all practising law firms to publish certain information, concerning their team of solicitors, specific costs information relating to tribunal claims for unfair and wrongful dismissal and their formal complaints procedure.  This information as it relates to Jones Chase can be found below.

Our team has well over 100 years of collective experience in delivering high quality work in all aspects of employment law and are experts in the field.

All work is carried out by one of the following qualified solicitors.  They will have sole responsibility for your matter, often with the supervised assistance of one of the firm’s trainee solicitors or paralegals.

Qualified Solicitors

Dean Jones – Managing Partner

Dean qualified as a solicitor in 2003.  His hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

Susanna Rynehart – Partner

Susanna qualified as a solicitor in 1998.  Her hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

Shona Newmark – Partner

Shona qualified as a solicitor in 1990.  Her hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

Carl Soan – Senior Associate

Carl qualified as a solicitor in 2007.  His hourly rate is £425 plus VAT.

Harriet Bowtell – Senior Associate

Harriet qualified as a solicitor in 2001.  Her hourly rate is £425 plus VAT.

Liza Knight – Senior Associate

Liza qualified as a solicitor in 2002.  Her hourly rate is £425 plus VAT.

Josephine van Lierop – Senior Consultant

Josephine was admitted as a solicitor in 2013.  Her hourly rate is £425 plus VAT.

Jane Stuart-Smith – Senior Consultant

Jane qualified as a solicitor in 1990. Her hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

Sarah Robinson – Senior Consultant

Sarah qualified as a solicitor in 1996. Her hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

David Woffinden – Senior Consultant

David qualified as a solicitor in 2000. His hourly rate is £450 plus VAT.

Domonic Lyons – Associate

Domonic qualified as a solicitor in 2024.  His hourly rate is £250 plus VAT.

Non-qualified staff 

James Mathews – Paralegal

His hourly rate is £175 plus VAT.

Awel Roberts – Trainee Solicitor

Awel joined Jones Chase in October 2024 on secondment. Her hourly rate is £175 plus VAT.

Tanya Kaka – Trainee Solicitor

Tanya joined Jones Chase in October 2024 on secondment. Her hourly rate is £175 plus VAT.

All of the work undertaken by non-qualified staff will be supervised by one of the firm’s partners or senior associates.

The prevailing rate of VAT is 20%.

Cost Estimates

Our pricing for bringing and defending claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal is as follows:-

Simple case: £7,500 – £10,000 (plus VAT)

Medium complexity case: £10,000 – £20,000 (plus VAT)

High complexity case: £20,000 – 40,000 (plus VAT)

The prevailing rate of VAT is 20%.

Factors that could make a case more complex:

• If it is necessary to make or defend applications to amend claims or to provide further information about an existing claim
• Defending claims that are brought by litigants in person
• Making or defending a costs application
• Complex preliminary issues such as whether the claimant is disabled (if this is not agreed by the parties)
• The number of witnesses and documents
• If it is an automatic unfair dismissal claim e.g. if the claimant is dismissed after blowing the whistle on his or her employer
• Allegations of discrimination which are linked to the dismissal

Disbursements

Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as court fees. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.

Counsel’s fees estimated between £750 to £2000 plus VAT per day (depending on experience of the advocate) for attending a Tribunal Hearing (including preparation).

Key stages

The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim:

• Taking your initial instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on merits and likely compensation (this is likely to be revisited throughout the matter and subject to change);
• Entering into pre-claim conciliation where this is mandatory to explore whether a settlement can be reached;
• Preparing a claim or response;
• Reviewing and advising on a claim or response from the other party;
• Exploring settlement and negotiating settlement throughout the process;
• Preparing or considering a schedule of loss;
• Preparing for (and attending) a Preliminary Hearing;
• Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing a bundle of documents;
• Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses;
• Preparing a bundle of documents;
• Reviewing and advising on the other party’s witness statements;
• Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and/or cast list;
• Preparation and attendance at Final Hearing, including instructions to Counsel.

The stages set out above are an indication and if some of the stages above are not required, the fee will be reduced. You may wish to handle the claim yourself and only have our advice in relation to some of the stages. This can also be arranged on your individual needs.

Timescales

The time that it takes from taking your initial instructions to the final resolution of your matter depends largely on the stage at which your case is resolved. It can take between 3 – 14 days to prepare and lodge a claim form. It may be the case that your matter settles shortly after a claim, or response, is lodged, which would mean that the matter may take 2 – 4 weeks to settle. Otherwise, a claim may be settled during the course of the proceedings, meaning that the matter will run for longer.  If your claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, your case is likely to take between 26 – 52 weeks. This is just an estimate and we will of course be able to give you a more accurate timescale once we have more information and as the matter progresses.

In addition to the above, it is general practice for the firm’s solicitor assisting you with your matter to provide a more case specific costs estimate and breakdown of key stages, as the case develops.

As a firm, Jones Chase does not offer conditional or damage-based fee arrangements.

Please understand that we have set out above an overview of the typical steps involved in concluding an Employment Tribunal claim. Depending on the actions of the parties to a dispute, it is possible that additional steps may be required.  We will discuss these with you as the need arises.

As mentioned above, these figures cover the typical tasks in this type of litigation, but they are an estimate only and the actual may vary as the time required to complete each task may exceed that estimated.  We propose that regular costs reviews are undertaken. 

The general position is that the winning party at an Employment Tribunal is not permitted to recover their accrued legal fees from the losing party unless they can show that the losing party, or their representative, has acted vexatiously, abusively, disruptively, or otherwise unreasonably in the bringing or conducting of the proceedings, or a part of them and/or any claim made in the proceedings by a party had no reasonable prospect of success. The threshold for showing either of these bases for seeking recovery of legal fees from the other side is high.  Legal fees orders against a losing party are rare. 

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to our clients and have an unwavering commitment to obtain a positive outcome. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards of service.

Making a complaint

If you have a complaint, please raise your concerns with the lawyer responsible for your matter, or if you prefer, our Client Care Partner, namely Dean Jones dean.jones@joneschase.com.
If your complaint is about Dean Jones, you should refer the matter to Julie Field, Office Manager at julie.field@joneschase.com.
Please note that there is no charge for complaints handling.

Prospective Clients

This Complaints Procedure may also be used by prospective clients who have been refused our services or those who have been persistently or unreasonably offered an unwanted service if there is evidence to show that we did not have reasonable grounds to do so.

Investigating the complaint

What will happen next?

1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing usually within seven days of receiving it and enclose a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve our Client Care Partner reviewing your file and speaking to the fee earner and team who acted for you.
3. We will keep an open mind with regard to reasonable remedies and solutions.
4. We will have eight weeks to consider your complaint. However, within four weeks of receiving your complaint our Client Care Partner will either endeavour to:
   – invite you to a meeting (by telephone, in person or by video call) to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint;
   – write to you with their findings; or
   – contact you to clarify their understanding of the complaint and to ask you for copies of any relevant documents.
5. Following a meeting, the Client Care Partner will write to you to confirm what took place, any solutions agreed with you and their final response to your complaint (final letter).
6. If we have to change any of these timescales we will let you know and explain why.
7. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within eight weeks, you may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider your complaint.
8. You should note that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of you receiving a final written response from us about your complaint and within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring; or within one year from when you should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for a complaint.
9. The Legal Ombudsman may be able to extend this time limit where it is fair and reasonable to do so.

Legal Ombudsman

The Legal Ombudsman is an independent body established by the Legal Services Act 2007 to deal with complaints against Solicitors.

The Legal Ombudsman may:

• Investigate the quality of professional service supplied by a solicitor to a client.
• Investigate allegations that a solicitor has breached rules of professional conduct.
• Investigate allegations that a solicitor has unreasonably refused to supply a professional service to a prospective client.
• Investigate allegations that a solicitor has persistently or unreasonably offered a professional service that the client does not want.

Before it will consider a complaint the Legal Ombudsman generally requires that the firm’s internal Complaints Procedure has been exhausted.

If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the firm’s proposals for resolving a complaint are reasonable, it may decline to investigate further.

The Legal Ombudsman’s address is:

• PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
• 0300 555 0333
• enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
• www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Note that the Legal Ombudsman service cannot be used by businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristics. Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.