Unfairly Dismissed: How to Bring an Employment Tribunal Claim Without a Solicitor

You have just been dismissed. You think it was unfair. You probably have a real claim — and you have an extremely tight deadline to bring it. The Employment Tribunal is one of the most accessible courts in the UK, but the procedural traps are unforgiving. Miss the three-month limitation period and your claim is dead, no matter how strong it was.

Here is what unfair dismissal actually means in UK law, what you have to show, and the steps to take in the next 14 days.

The basic framework

The right not to be unfairly dismissed comes from section 94 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. To bring a claim you generally need:

• Two years' continuous service with your employer (the “qualifying period”);
• To be an employee (not a self-employed contractor or worker — different regime);
• To have been dismissed (or constructively dismissed);
• To bring the claim within the limitation period (more on this in a moment).

Even if your employer dressed it up differently — “redundancy”, “mutual agreement”, “not the right fit” — the question is whether you were dismissed in law. If your contract was ended by them, you were dismissed.

When the two-year qualifying period does NOT apply

A long list of dismissals are automatically unfair from day one — no qualifying period required. If any of these apply, the two-year rule is irrelevant:

• Pregnancy, maternity, adoption, paternity, parental leave
• Whistleblowing (protected disclosures under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998)
• Trade union activities
• Asserting a statutory right (e.g. minimum wage, working time)
• Health and safety reasons
• Discrimination on a protected characteristic — sex, race, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation (claim under the Equality Act 2010)
• Refusing to work in breach of working time regulations
• Acting as an employee representative

If you are within two years of joining and you suspect any of these grounds, you very likely have a claim — and the limitation period is the same: three months.

The most consequential clock in UK employment law starts ticking the moment you walk out of the dismissal meeting. Three months less one day from the effective date of termination, including weekends, public holidays, and the day you were sick.

The three-month limitation period

You have three months less one day from the “effective date of termination” (EDT) to bring an Employment Tribunal claim. The EDT is usually the last day of your employment — typically the date your notice expired, or the date of summary dismissal.

This deadline is strict. The Tribunal can only extend it if it was not reasonably practicable for you to have brought the claim in time, and that bar is high.

The mandatory ACAS Early Conciliation step

Before you can issue an Employment Tribunal claim you must notify ACAS. This is compulsory under the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 s.18A. The process:

• Submit an Early Conciliation notification to ACAS — online, free, takes ten minutes;
• ACAS contacts your employer, offers conciliation;
• Standard period: up to six weeks, extendable by mutual agreement;
• If conciliation fails or the employer declines, ACAS issues an Early Conciliation Certificate;
• You then have at least one month from the date of the certificate to issue your ET1.

The clock effectively pauses while ACAS is dealing with your case — but only between the day you contact them (Day A) and the day they issue the certificate (Day B). Plan around this carefully.

What “unfair” actually means

Under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the employer must show:

• The reason for dismissal fell into one of the five “potentially fair” categories: capability, conduct, redundancy, statutory restriction, or “some other substantial reason”.
• That, in the circumstances, the employer acted reasonably in treating that reason as a sufficient basis for dismissal.

The reasonableness test is where most cases turn. The Tribunal applies the well-known British Home Stores Ltd v Burchell [1980] test in misconduct cases: did the employer hold a genuine belief in your guilt, on reasonable grounds, after a reasonable investigation? In all dismissals it asks whether the decision fell within the range of reasonable responses a reasonable employer might adopt.

Procedural fairness — the ACAS Code of Practice

Even where the reason for dismissal is fair, the dismissal can still be unfair if the procedure was wrong. The benchmark is the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. Common failures:

• No written invitation to a disciplinary hearing setting out the allegation;
• No right to be accompanied;
• No real opportunity to respond to the evidence;
• The decision-maker was already biased or had pre-judged;
• No right of appeal offered;
• No proper investigation before the meeting.

A breach of the ACAS Code can produce an uplift of up to 25% on your compensation under section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

Constructive dismissal

You can be dismissed without anybody saying the word. If your employer commits a fundamental breach of contract — refusing to pay, demoting you, harassment, undermining you publicly, ordering you to do something illegal — and you resign in response, that is a constructive dismissal.

The test under Western Excavating (ECC) v Sharp [1978]:

• The employer must have committed a serious breach of contract;
• You must resign in response to that breach;
• You must not delay — a long delay implies you have accepted the breach.

Constructive dismissal claims succeed less often than ordinary unfair dismissal, because the resignation hurdle is high. Take advice before you walk out.

What you can recover

If you win an unfair dismissal claim, the Tribunal can order:

• Basic award — a statutory formula based on age, length of service, and weekly pay (capped weekly figure, currently around £700).
• Compensatory award — compensation for your actual financial loss, capped at the lower of 52 weeks' pay or a statutory maximum (currently about £115,000).
• ACAS Code uplift — up to 25% of the compensatory award.
• Reinstatement or re-engagement — rare, but available where requested.

Polkey deductions can reduce the compensatory award if the Tribunal thinks you would probably have been dismissed fairly in any event. Contributory fault reductions apply where your conduct contributed to the dismissal. Both can take large bites out of the headline number.

Settlement agreements

Many employers will offer a settlement agreement before or after dismissal — a lump sum in exchange for waiving your right to claim. Two things to know:

• A settlement agreement is only legally binding if you have taken independent legal advice on its terms (typically the employer pays a contribution, often £500–£1,500).
• The first £30,000 of a genuine compensation payment under a settlement agreement is tax-free under the relevant tax rules — useful but not unlimited.

Your timeline

Where LAW-BUD fits in

Employment law is procedural, evidential and time-pressured all at once. The cases that win are the ones where the facts are organised, the procedure was followed, and the law was cited correctly from the start.

• Deep mode — give it the dismissal letter and a brief chronology. We map every procedural failure against the ACAS Code and the relevant section of the ER Act 1996.
• Knowledge Base — upload the dismissal letter, the disciplinary correspondence, the appeal outcome, performance reviews, the contract. LAW-BUD reads them in context and finds the inconsistencies.
• Voice transcription — speak your factual chronology aloud, in your own words. LAW-BUD turns it into a structured timeline fit for the ET1.
• @ templates — DSAR letter to former employer (devastating in dismissal cases), grievance letter, internal appeal letter, ET1 skeleton.
• Document Vault — every email, text, slack message and document, organised and ready for the Tribunal bundle.
• Solicitor Search — for cases that should be settled or escalated, we search SRA-regulated employment solicitors in your area.

The Tribunal exists precisely so people who have been dismissed unfairly can be heard without paying £500 an hour. But the procedural rules are unforgiving and the deadline is the deadline. The next 14 days matter more than the 14 weeks after.