EQUAL PAY No Win No Fee ?

UNISON has supported it’s Dumfries & Galloway Council members with equal pay cases & claims since 1999 and a report on our work was issued to the 2015 AGM (Copies are available on request).

Some eligible members did not participate in our legal cases and their claims are now time-barred.  The Council has expressly said it cannot pay compensation to time-barred employees and there is a full explanation of their position on the Council employee website.

Our members are now being approached by lawyers and encouraged to become clients by signing no win no fee contracts.  These contracts appear reasonable and require no payment by the client – unless the client cancels the contract before the conclusion of the case, at which point the client will be liable for all of the legal costs incurred by their lawyer up to that date.

Given that legal cases are usually lengthy drawn out processes and the obvious concerns if a case doesn’t progress as hoped for, it would be cruel if any Council employees who are time-barred are then hit with huge legal fees should they stop being clients of these companies in the future.

UNISON will always support it’s members whenever it is possible to do so.

We would encourage any member who has already signed up with this type of company to carefully read the contract and then ensure that they comply with every clause in the contract to meet the no win no fee criteria which has been offered to them.