Employment Disputes - Why No Win No Fee is Better

We are serious about justice for our clients.  Because we were concerned about people not being able to afford legal representation in employment disputes we decided to switch from charging by the hour to low cost fixed rate fees and no win no fee arrangements. We still offer hourly rate charging, and for some types of cases this is the best way to calculate costs, however, most of our cases are no win no fee.

No win no fee has many advantages for employees:

• You know that if we take your case, on a no win no fee basis, that we believe that your case is a good one. We can accurately assess the strength of your case based on our extensive legal experience and because we have acted in so many cases. Knowing that you have a good case provides reassurance to you.
• You know that we will be working very hard to obtain a good outcome for you because if we don’t, we don’t get paid. We would of course work equally hard for you if you instructed us on an hourly rate or fixed rate fee basis, however, some clients have experienced bad service from other employment law representatives before they come to us, and for them it is important to have this assurance.
• There is no financial risk to you in making a claim. In the unlikely event that the case does not succeed you will pay nothing. If the case succeeds and you receive a payout this will have effectively been at no actual cost to you (other than our initial $150 case evaluation cost). Please note that if you did take your case to the Employment Relations Authority and you lost, that you may have to pay costs to the employer, however, very few of our cases go to the ERA as we are skilled at conflict resolution and almost always obtain a settlement by direct negotiation or at mediation. If you are represented by someone who has many cases that go to the ERA they will be putting you at risk of having to pay costs to the employer. We don’t do that to our clients.
• You are assured that fees are not disproportionate to the payout obtained. We have seen cases where employees have had a lawyer acting for them and they receive a payout of, say, $5,000 but they were charged legal fees of around $20,000 by their own lawyer. That kind of result is completely unacceptable and will never happen to our clients. 
• We can help people on a no win no fee basis anywhere in New Zealand.

Please don’t hesitate to talk to us about your situation or case. We will provide you with an honest assessment and respond quickly to your inquiry.