How much will it cost?
5th November, 2019
Employment law advice can be unforeseen and costly. But our HR Protect package allows you to fix your costs and manage your budgets. Here’s how.
It’s the age old question that you may often ask your solicitor; ‘How much will my HR and employment law advice cost?’ You don’t want to pay over the odds, and you need an idea of likely costs to ensure that you remain within your budget. However, the response to that question is often ‘erm,’ ‘hmm’, and then an awkward silence.
Law firms, like many other professional service businesses, use billable hours and hourly rates as key metrics to measure the productivity of their people. The more hours a solicitor bills, the more productive they are and the more money the law firm makes.
Solicitors are reluctant to be held to a price, which can end up being way lower than the number of hours that they end up putting in to complete the job, which in turn impacts on how productive they are. You can see why your solicitor is hesitant to answer the question of how much it will cost, and wants to stick with the comfort and safety of the billable hour.
In the real world, billable hours and hourly rates are alien concepts to those of you that run a business.
Let’s say at the start of the year, you allocate to the HR budget, a cost for taking external employment law advice. Part way through the financial year, the business has to deal with a complex employee grievance, which requires you to take significant external employment law advice. Your allocated HR budget for legal costs is blown out of the water as the grievance investigation unfolds. Worse still, after the grievance has been concluded, you’re hit with a messy employment tribunal claim, which you have not budgeted for.
A larger, longstanding and financially stable business can probably withstand these types of unforeseen costs, compared to a start-up or SME, but whatever your business size, these type of unforeseen events hit your bottom line.
When you’re faced with a complex grievance, you want the ability to take as much legal advice as you need to fully protect the business, without having to worry about racking up legal costs. If you’re then hit with an employment tribunal claim, then the comfort of having in place employment tribunal insurance, to meet further legal costs and any award of damages, will protect your balance sheet.
The smart way for SME’s and start-ups to fix their employment law and HR spend: HR Protect
With HR Protect every time you need legal advice, you won’t have to ask the question ‘how much will it cost?’ because for one upfront agreed price, you get all the legal advice you require, no matter what unforeseen HR issues you face.
We’ve helped more than 150 SME’s and start-ups fix their employment law and HR spend by using HR Protect. With HR Protect, you’re given access to unlimited legal advice, personally assigned employment solicitors, legally compliant online documentation and optional employment tribunal insurance.
If you would like to understand how HR Protect can help you fix your employment law and HR legal spend, please complete the short form. We will be in touch to provide you with an indicative monthly cost.
Please note that this briefing is designed to be informative, not advisory and represents our understanding of English law and practice as at the date indicated. We would always recommend that you should seek specific guidance on any particular legal issue.
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