by Naomi Cunningham & Michael Reed
Tribunals will often ask you whether you agree with a particular formulation of a point, as a way of checking they understand the issue.
For example, a Judge may ask:
Mr Reed, as I understand this you accept that there was no breach of the statutory dismissal procedures, but say that the hearing was procedurally unfair. Is that right?
This is often a good thing.
In the course of employment litigation you will often have to turn gross salary figures into net.
One way of doing this is to sit down with the tax legislation and work things out. This is boring, time-consuming and difficult.
A much easier solution is to use one of the ready reckoners available online. A good one is
listentotaxman.com.
An important part of case preparation is drawing up a schedule of loss. This is a list of the money that you are claiming from your employer.
A schedule should be complete and optimistic, without being silly. It should include everything that, if things go very well indeed, the tribunal might award.
This means that most schedules ask for an amount much higher than you are actually likely to get.
If you want to say in a witness statement that someone said something, just say that they said it.
Some litigants and lawyers act and write as if they’re just a little over caffeinated.
When they object to something they do so ‘firmly’ or ‘vigorously’. When they make submissions they do so ‘passionately’ or ‘strenuously’. They have made ‘heroic’ or ‘valiant’ efforts to comply with the tribunal’s orders.
A little calm goes a long way and is normally more convincing.
Schedules of loss normally divide the compensatory award for unfair dismissal into past loss (loss up to the hearing) and future loss (loss that will happen after the hearing). A very similar approach is also taken to equivalent loss in other types of cases
This is a sensible system, because the tribunal will have to think about these things differently. Past loss is about what has actually happened. The tribunal will focus on making findings of fact about the claimant’s earnings post-dismissal and his efforts to mitigate. Future loss, however, is about predicting what will happen next.
There is no rule, however, that these are the only two categories that you can use.
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.
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. If you want to share the task of presenting your case with someone else, explain to the tribunal what you want to do.
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