A settlement agreement arrives by email on a Friday afternoon from an HR department in Birmingham, with a deadline of the following Wednesday and a note that the company will contribute to independent advice. For employment law solicitors in Lichfield this is the commonest way a new client appears, because so many residents work for the banks, professional firms, hospitals and universities of Birmingham and come home wanting a solicitor they can sit across a desk from. The agreement cannot bind them until an independent adviser has signed it, and a Lichfield solicitor will check the figures, the reference and the restrictive covenants before doing so.
Local employers supply the rest. Whittington Barracks employs civilians as well as service personnel, and the two groups have very different rights: civilian staff can go to a tribunal like anyone else, while members of the armed forces must use the service complaints process and can only bring certain claims, mostly discrimination, to a tribunal afterwards. The distribution operators at Fradley Park produce agency-worker, shift and redundancy disputes; the schools, the district council, the cathedral and the restaurants along Bird Street add disciplinary, sickness and holiday-pay questions.
The deadlines are unforgiving. Acas early conciliation has to begin within three months less one day of the dismissal or the treatment complained of, and once a claim is issued it is managed by the Birmingham employment tribunal, in person or by video. Employers in Lichfield use the same solicitors for contracts, handbooks and defending claims.
Fixed fees for settlement agreements and contract reviews are standard, with hourly or staged charges for a contested claim and a free first discussion from many firms.
Employment solicitors serving Lichfield are listed below, verified firms first. Read the general employment law solicitors guide and what employment law covers; the employment law solicitors in Birmingham page lists the larger practices in the city where many clients work, and the business law solicitors in Lichfield page is for employers.
