Often, in written submission or oral advocacy, you will need to quote from another text. It might be a document from the bundle or from a piece of case-law.

Most documents will be far too long to quote in full. You should trim them to what is relevant and useful. After all, the full document or case will also be available to the tribunal.

What you must not do, however, is selectively quote to give a misleading impression.

For example, an EAT case may say something like:

Such and such is an attractive and powerful argument.

This is a great quote if you want to argue that ‘such and such’ is true.

If, however, the court then went on to say:

Having carefully examined it, however, we have concluded that it is completely wrong

You absolutely must not quote the first paragraph, but leave out the second. Not only is it dishonest, it will not work. Your panel was not born yesterday. And one of the most effective submissions in a tribunal is one that begins “Let me read you the paragraph just after the one my colleague referred to, so we can look at what he left out”.

Unfortunately, while dishonesty is simple to avoid, it is surprisingly easy to do this accidently.

Many judgments, for example, set out a general rule, but then go on to discuss the limits of that rule or circumstances where it does not apply. It is easy to focus on the general rule, and miss what comes after.

This is something to be alert to. If there is a slight reversal of the quote you want to use, it is much better to deal with it up front. For example:

This rule was set out by the EAT in Smith v Jones at paragraph 17:

“…quote…”

The tribunal went on to discuss circumstances in which this rule should not be applied:

“…quote…”

For the following reasons, these exceptions do not apply here…

By identifying and dealing with the point you have secured two advantages. Firstly, there is no possibility that the tribunal will think you were shading the truth. This disarms a potentially dangerous attack from the other side.

Secondly, you have dealt with the point on your own terms. If you allow it to be raised by the other side you will be on the defensive. By raising it yourself, you get the chance to discuss it before your opponent; frame the issue and get your retaliation in first.

If you do not have a lawyer or other professional adviser to represent you in the tribunal, you may want to take a friend or relative with you to help you present your case. Tribunals have a tendency to insist that one person or another must present the case and not both. So if you are representing yourself, your friend may not be allowed to speak for you. If your friend is representing you, then you may be prevented from putting your own questions to the witnesses on the other side, or speaking to the tribunal at all except when you are giving evidence.

It is not obvious why tribunals take this line. It is true that more often than not in employment tribunal cases there will be only one representative for each party. But those who are legally represented do occasionally – if they think the case is particularly difficult and important – instruct two barristers, known as a ‘leader’ and a ‘junior.’ Both barristers may cross-examine witnesses and make submissions, and it is up to them to decide who does which part of the case. If a represented party is allowed to divide the work of representation in this way, it is hard to see why a claimant who does not have a professional representative should not do something similar.

So if you particularly want to share the task of presenting your case with someone else, explain to the tribunal at the beginning of the case that that is what you want to do. If they are reluctant to let you, point out that what you want to do is not very different from a barrister acting with a junior – and it is the more important to you to share the load because you are not used to this kind of work. Do try to be clear, though, who is in the driving seat at any given moment – the tribunal will get understandably impatient if you and your companion both try to speak at once.

Most awards of compensation made by the employment tribunals are of fairly modest amounts that are unlikely attract any tax: the sum of money that the tribunal orders the employer to pay is the sum of money the claimant ends up with.

However, awards can attract tax at up to 40% and, in some cases, can also be subject to national insurance. In such cases, it is necessary to take the effect of tax into account in calculating the schedule of loss; this is the calculation known as ‘grossing up.‘

If you are the claimant and you have done this calculation, you will probably remember when you get the tribunal’s judgment that the sum awarded is larger than it would otherwise be because you are going to have to pay a substantial amount of tax. But if you are an adviser acting for a client, don’t assume that they have understood the grossing up calculation or remembered what you told them about tax on any award the tribunal might make. At least on first sight, they are likely to read the judgment saying that their former employer has to pay them £X, and think that that means they are going to end up with £X. It will then come as a let-down when they realise that what they’re actually going to get is £Y, substantially less than £X, because quite a lot of it is going to have to be paid to HMRC.

So when you contact your client to tell them the result of the case, tell them the news in the right order. That is to say, don’t tell them:

‘The tribunal has awarded you £X in compensation.

Instead, make sure you have done the tax calculation before getting in touch, so that you are in a position to say something like:

‘The tribunal has awarded you a sum of money that will leave you about £Y after tax.’

That way, by the time they see the judgment telling their employer to pay then £X, they will know what it means in terms of the money they will actually get.