How we work

Lightburn Legal Consulting is a trading name of Lightburn Legal Ltd.

Lightburn Legal Consulting only act for businesses in the UK. We do not act for individuals.

I will be acting for you in the capacity of an Employment Law Consultant and not as a Solicitor.

There are some legal activities that can only be undertaken by authorised or regulated persons such as Solicitors or Barristers, these are known as ‘reserved legal activities’. However, Employment Law advice and representation in the Employment Tribunal is not one of them. Indeed it is common in this area of work to find HR Consultants (who are not legally qualified) doing exactly the same work.

If we were to undertake this work as a Law Firm and practising Solicitor it would involve regulation and increased levels of management time being devoted to this which in turn would increase operating costs which would ultimately increase the costs to our clients.

There are a number of differences which you should be aware of:

• Solicitors are required to maintain a minimum level of Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) of £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 per claim (depending on whether the Firm is limited liability). We maintain PII of £1,000,000 per claim which we consider appropriate for the potential value of work we undertake involving Employment Law advice and Employment Tribunal representation for small businesses. We are however happy to increase this for specific projects if clients require this.
• Solicitors and Solicitors practices are highly regulated in terms of professional standards. As a Legal Consultancy, we are not subject to such regulation but Andrew Lightburn remains a qualified Solicitor (but non-practising) and can be found on the Roll of Solicitors at the Law Society. This also means that AL is required to comply with the following principles in relation to his activities:
  • Uphold the rule of law;
  • Act with integrity; and
  • Act in a way that maintains public trust.
• Solicitors advice to clients can be ‘privileged’ which means that in most cases it cannot be disclosed in legal proceedings (including Employment Tribunals). Advice from a Legal Consultant would not be ‘privileged’ up to the point where legal proceedings are reasonably likely and therefore could be disclosed as part of the Employment Tribunal process. Our advice would therefore be treated in the same way as an HR Consultant, Accountant or Management Consultant. In practice this makes little difference as we would certainly not be advising a client to deliberately breach employment law or good practice.
• If your small business is successful in defending a claim in the Employment Tribunal, it may be possible to reclaim costs from the losing employee. Recovering costs in the Employment Tribunal remains relatively rare and is the exception rather than the rule.Costs are not awarded simply for winning, they are only usually awarded where there has been unreasonable conduct on behalf of the employee during the Tribunal process. If your small business instructed a Solicitor then you would seek recovery of the costs you have paid your Solicitor (and Barrister if they represented you at a Hearing) and you may receive some of those costs certainly not all of them. However, as a Legal Consultant, costs recovery is limited to the amount of time spent on the case by us but also by the employees of your business and then multiplied at a fixed hourly rate of £37 (which increases by £1 each April). In practice this can still result in a reasonable costs recovery but is usually less than recovery if a Solicitor was instructed. However, it is worth bearing in mind that Solicitors costs are significantly higher to begin with and recovery of costs remains relatively rare.

Generally, we charge on a time spent basis (by the hour) but will quite happily provide a free no-obligation quote for work. There are two fundamental differences between how we charge and how you are likely to be charged by a Solicitor.

1. We only charge for the actual time that is spent on the job. Solicitors charge in 6 minute increments, so for example if an email takes 2 minutes to draft you will still be charged the full 6 minutes. All that extra time adds up to a big bill.
2. To compound the 6 minute rule, senior Solicitors in medium sized law firms can charge anywhere up to £260 per hour plus VAT. Our rates are up to 50% less as we don’t have the overheads such as city centre offices or legions of admin and marketing staff to factor in.

Therefore if you instruct us you will save a significant sum of money against employing a Solicitor but retain the same expertise and experience.

Below is a list of additional expenses that may apply to your matter:

• Photocopying/Printing – routine photocopying or printing is included in our fees but where a document or bundle of more than 50 pages is copied or printed then a charge of £0.06 per page will be charged.
• Postage – routine postage is included however any postage costs in excess of £5 will be charged.
• Travel – business mileage will be charged at £0.45 per mile. All standard class travel tickets will be charged.

Yes, we carry professional indemnity insurance of £500,000 of cover per claim.

Hopefully you will never have cause to complain about my services but if you do we will do everything we can to try and resolve your complaint. All that we would ask is that you put your complaint in writing as soon as possible.

We will usually invoice you at the end of each month. Our payment terms are 14 days.

If there are any disbursements to be paid e.g. Barristers Fees then these will be billed in advance.

As a non-practising Solicitor, Andrew Lightburn is still required to comply with certain professional rules which are:-

• Uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice;
• Act with integrity; and
• Behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in Solicitors and in the provision of legal services.

Notwithstanding this Lightburn Legal Consulting has its own key business principles which are:-

• Acting with integrity;
• Always acting in your best interests;
• Charging fairly;
• Exercising skill and care in relation to your matter.

Yes. Whilst the majority of my clients are based in Yorkshire and the North East, quite a few are based elsewhere in the UK. Often it is not necessary to meet a client face to face, as much can be done by telephone and email or if necessary FaceTime or SKYPE. However, sometimes it is necessary to meet face to face or attend a client’s site to undertake work e.g. investigations or appeals. I am more than happy to travel including Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I am happy to represent businesses at an Employment Tribunal Hearing. However, it is often far more cost effective to use a Barrister. Depending on the type of case and seniority of the Barrister you use costs can start from as little as £500 – £600 per day. I can advise you on how to instruct a Barrister (which is very simple).