How Start My Claim works

Everything you need to know about every tool — what it does, when to use it, and how to get the most from it. Organised by the journey.

on the homepage. Enter your email and a password -- no card required at this stage, or at any stage until you choose to upgrade.

Answer the intake questions

The onboarding wizard asks about your situation -- what happened, when, your employer name, weekly pay, and start/end dates. Answer as accurately as you can. All of it can be updated later from

. The quality of your guidance depends directly on what you enter here.

Once you complete the intake, you land on your dashboard. Key things to understand:

Everything in Start My Claim is organised around five stages that mirror the actual employment tribunal process:

Plans -- what each one unlocks

Free -- stages 1 and 2 tools

Core -- £99 one-off (stage 3)

Full Case -- £179 one-off (stage 4)

Pro -- £39/month (stage 5)

Which plan do I need?

If you're still deciding whether to bring a claim -- use

. The Rights Checker and Pay Calculator will tell you what you're dealing with.

If you're ready to file your ET1 -- you need at least

If your ET1 is filed and you're preparing for a hearing --

covers everything you need from that point forward.

The Full Case plan sits between them -- worth it if you want the outcome prediction and ET3 analysis before deciding whether to settle or fight.

, with a plain-English explanation of the reasoning. A weak result doesn't necessarily mean no recourse -- ask the Case Companion to explore the specific facts in more depth.

Updating after new information

If you receive your employer's ET3 response, a medical report, or any other new information that changes your situation, update your case details in

and re-run the Rights Checker. The analysis will update to reflect what's changed.

The Companion can handle almost any employment law question tied to your situation. Examples:

The Companion has access to your case details -- situation type, employer, key dates, salary -- so you don't need to re-explain your situation every time. If you update your case, the Companion's answers update too.

Free accounts have a monthly message allowance. Pro subscribers have unlimited messages. If you hit the limit, you can upgrade or wait for the monthly reset. Your message count is shown in

Updating your ACAS certificate number

When ACAS issues your Early Conciliation certificate, enter the certificate number in

My Case → ACAS details

. This recalculates your ET1 deadline to reflect any extension granted during the conciliation period.

Start My Claim sends email reminders at

30 days, 14 days, 7 days, and 3 days

before your ET1 deadline. Make sure your account email is one you check regularly. You can update it in

What the calculator covers

Entering your figures

Enter your gross weekly pay (before tax), employment start date, end date, and date of birth. The calculator applies the current statutory weekly pay cap (updated each April) automatically. You can override figures if your contract specifies higher entitlements.

The output feeds directly into your

-- the document submitted to the Tribunal showing what you're claiming financially. You can export the figures or copy them across when you build your Schedule of Loss (Core or Pro).

Tribunal judges give significantly more weight to notes made at the time of events than to accounts written months later. Making a brief journal entry within hours of an incident -- even just a few sentences -- is worth far more than a detailed account written from memory six months on.

From journal to witness statement

When you build your witness statement (Core or Pro), your Case Journal entries are pulled in as a structured chronology. The cleaner your journal, the stronger your witness statement.

Why a grievance matters

Under the ACAS Code of Practice, employers are expected to follow a fair grievance procedure. If they fail to do so after you've raised a grievance, a Tribunal can increase any compensation award by up to

. Conversely, if you fail to raise a grievance when it was reasonable to do so, your award can be reduced by up to 25%.

What the tool generates

The Grievance Handler takes your situation details and drafts a formal letter that: names the specific acts complained of, references the relevant legislation, requests a formal grievance meeting, and preserves your legal position without prejudicing your ET claim.

Review the draft carefully. Add specific incidents, dates, or witness names that only you would know. When ready, send by

email with a read receipt

(or recorded delivery if posting), and keep a copy. Upload it to your

Drafts professional letters and emails to your employer -- asking questions, following up on a grievance, challenging a decision, responding to disciplinary correspondence, or chasing unpaid wages. Maintains the right tone and preserves your legal position without escalating unnecessarily.

Paste in an email from your employer and the Decoder analyses it -- identifying legal significance, evasive language, implied threats, admissions, or commitments the employer may later try to walk back. Particularly useful for complex or lawyerly HR communications where the plain meaning isn't obvious.

Any letter you draft should be saved to your

immediately after sending. Include the date sent and method of delivery in the filename. Courts sometimes need proof of exactly when a communication was made.

You must have completed ACAS Early Conciliation and received an ACAS certificate number. Enter the certificate number in

first -- you cannot submit an ET1 without it.

Section by section guidance

Start My Claim walks through each section of the ET1: your personal details, your employer's details, your employment history (start date, end date, notice, pay), and the particulars of your claim. For each field, it explains what is required and why it matters.

Section 8 -- the narrative

Section 8 ("Details of your claim") is the most important part of the form -- it is where you tell your story. Start My Claim drafts this for you from your case details, in the structured format tribunals expect.

and add every specific incident, date, name, and conversation that only you would know. Be factual, chronological, and complete -- what you don't mention in your ET1 can be difficult to add later.

Submitting to the Tribunal

Once you're satisfied, you must submit the form via the official

GOV.UK Employment Tribunals portal

employment-tribunals.service.gov.uk

). Start My Claim prepares your answers -- you copy them into the official system and submit there. Save the confirmation email you receive from the Tribunal as proof of filing.

Structure and format

Start My Claim builds your statement in the required format: a numbered introduction, your employment background, the key events in chronological order, your response to the dismissal or treatment, and a conclusion. Tribunals expect numbered paragraphs -- the tool handles this automatically.

Writing in first person

Witness statements must be written in the first person ("I saw...", "I was told..."). Start My Claim drafts in this style. Avoid speculation ("I think they did this because..."), legal argument, or emotive language -- stick to what you personally saw, heard, said, and experienced.

Adding your evidence references

Where you refer to a document (an email, a letter, a payslip), reference it as it appears in your hearing bundle: "As shown at page 47 of the bundle...". You will need to add these cross-references once your bundle is assembled, typically a few weeks before the hearing.

At the bottom of the statement you'll find a signature pad. You can draw your signature or type your name. The signed statement should be saved as a PDF and is submitted to the Tribunal as part of your witness evidence pack.

Tribunals expect you to have taken reasonable steps to find alternative employment after dismissal. The Schedule of Loss requires you to enter your job search history -- applications made, interviews attended, and any income received. Failing to mitigate can significantly reduce a compensatory award.

Updating as circumstances change

If your financial position changes before the hearing -- you find a new job, your search extends, or you receive benefits -- update the Schedule of Loss to reflect this. You should serve an updated version on the respondent before the hearing.

Subject Access Request

What a SAR can uncover

Generating and sending your SAR

Start My Claim drafts a formal SAR letter under UK GDPR. Your employer has

to respond (extendable to 3 months for complex requests). Send it to the Data Protection Officer (DPO), or to HR if there is no DPO, by email with delivery confirmation. Keep a copy.

Using what you receive

When documents arrive, review them carefully for anything inconsistent with what you've been told. Upload every relevant document to your

, annotate it with why it matters, and raise anything surprising with the Case Companion.

What the assessment covers

Alongside the qualitative assessment, the Outcome Predictor uses your case facts and comparable Tribunal statistics to estimate a win/loss probability and a likely compensation range. This is a statistical estimate, not a guarantee -- individual tribunal outcomes vary significantly based on judicial discretion and witness credibility.

Using it to make decisions

The assessment is most useful when you receive a settlement offer and need to decide whether it is fair. Compare the offer against the realistic discounted Tribunal outcome (probability × likely award). If the offer materially exceeds your realistic recovery, it may represent good value. If it falls well short, use the gap to anchor your counter-offer.

Getting your employer's ET3

After you file your ET1, the Tribunal serves it on your employer. They have 28 days to file an ET3 response. You will receive a copy from the Tribunal. Upload it to your Document Vault and run it through the ET3 Analyser immediately.

What the analyser finds

After the ET3 Analyser, update your Case Journal with any new information the response reveals. You may also need to update your witness statement to address new points the employer has raised -- the Analyser will flag these explicitly.

Entering the offer details

Enter the gross settlement amount, any non-financial terms (agreed reference, notice extension, confidentiality clause), and any legal fees contribution the employer is offering. The more detail you enter, the more precise the analysis.

What the analysis covers

The tool does not tell you whether to accept. It gives you an honest picture of what you'd likely get at Tribunal versus what's on the table -- so you can negotiate or decide from a position of knowledge rather than anxiety or guesswork.

Hearing preparation tools

A structured written legal argument submitted to the Tribunal before the hearing. It summarises your key legal points, cites the relevant case law, and tells the judge what you are arguing and why. Start My Claim generates the skeleton from your case facts, which you then review and refine. Submit it to the Tribunal and serve on the respondent in accordance with the case management directions.

Cross-examination Prep

Generates a targeted set of questions to ask your employer's witnesses -- designed to expose inconsistencies in their account, challenge their credibility, and make the admissions you need. Organised by witness and by issue, with guidance on how to handle difficult responses.

Helps you prepare your hearing bundle -- the single, jointly agreed, paginated set of documents both sides refer to at the hearing. The Bundle Organiser pulls from your Document Vault, lets you arrange documents in order, and generates a properly formatted index. Your opponent will usually prepare the physical bundle -- this tool ensures you know exactly what should be in it and can challenge omissions.

Settlement Negotiator

A tactical tool for the negotiation phase -- tracking offers and counter-offers, modelling settlement scenarios, and giving guidance on when and at what figure to settle. Most cases settle at some point; this tool helps you negotiate from a position of knowledge rather than pressure.

A comprehensive briefing for the hearing itself -- what to bring, how to address the Tribunal, how to give oral evidence-in-chief, what to expect during cross-examination, how to make closing submissions, and what happens after the decision. Reduces the anxiety of the unknown and helps you focus on the substance rather than the procedure.

in the Document Vault. You can upload PDFs, images, Word documents, and other common formats. Give each document a meaningful name and a brief description of why it is relevant to your claim. Good naming now saves significant time later.

Documents are organised into categories:

. The generated documents section automatically stores every document Start My Claim creates for you -- your ET1, witness statement, grievance letters, etc.

Any document in the Vault can be sent to the

tool, which reads it and explains its legal significance, identifies anything unusual, and flags anything that could be used as evidence. Particularly useful for HR letters, disciplinary outcomes, and employer correspondence.

What the feed covers

The Legal Updates feed is filtered to show updates relevant to your specific claim type -- so an unfair dismissal claimant sees different updates to a discrimination claimant. If a new case decision strengthens or weakens your position, the Case Companion can help you understand what it means for your claim specifically.

Post-Judgment Toolkit

A Tribunal award is not automatically paid -- you may need to enforce it. If your employer does not pay within 42 days of the written judgment, you can apply to the County Court to enforce the award. The Post-Judgment Toolkit guides you through enforcement options: County Court enforcement, charging orders, attachment of earnings, and winding-up petitions for insolvent employers.

You have limited grounds to appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) -- only errors of law, not findings of fact you disagree with. The Toolkit explains the grounds for appeal, the tight time limits (42 days from the sealed judgment), and how to assess whether you have arguable grounds before incurring the costs of an appeal.

In many cases, a separate remedy hearing is listed after a finding of liability. This is where compensation is determined. The Toolkit helps you prepare an updated Schedule of Loss for the remedy hearing, accounting for any income received since the original Schedule was submitted.

Getting started — small claims

Confirm you are eligible

from the dashboard. Five quick questions cover claim value, jurisdiction, defendant address, claim type, and limitation period. If you answer YES to all five, your dispute belongs on the small claims track.

Check your limitation period

Most contract and consumer claims have a

6-year limitation period

from the date the cause of action arose. Negligence and personal injury have 3 years. Use the

Limitation period checker

to confirm you are still in time.

Calculate your court fee

Court filing fees range from £35 to £455 depending on claim value. The

Court fee calculator

shows the exact MCOL fee plus interest you can add. If you win, the court usually orders the defendant to repay them.

Letter Before Action (LBA)

Open the LBA generator

Answer the structured questions about who owes what, what was promised, what went wrong, what you want, and your deadline. The generator drafts a compliant LBA you can review, edit, and send.

Set the right deadline

Standard practice is

14 days for individuals and 30 days for businesses

. The protocol expects a reasonable period — too short and the court will criticise you, too long and you waste time. The generator picks the right window automatically.

Send by recorded delivery

Send the LBA by recorded or signed-for delivery and keep proof of postage. Email is fine as a courtesy follow-up but the formal letter goes by post. If they ignore the LBA you can file your N1 immediately after the deadline.

A trained HMCTS mediator phones each side separately and shuttles between you. Sessions usually last about an hour. Anything said is without prejudice — it cannot be used at a hearing. Free, confidential, and you control whether to settle.

Prepare your bottom line

Decide before the call: your

you would accept. The prep tool helps you anchor each one to your evidence and the cost/risk of a hearing.

Get the agreement in writing

If you settle, the mediator records the terms in a Settlement Agreement that becomes legally binding once signed. If they default on payment, you can apply for judgment in the original claim.

N1 Claim Form & Money Claim Online

Use MCOL where possible

MCOL is the HMCTS online portal at money.claims.justice.gov.uk. It is faster, cheaper, and avoids the paper N1. Some claims (multiple defendants, non-money relief) require paper — the builder tells you which path to use.

Particulars of claim

This is the heart of your N1 — the legally-structured story of what happened. The

generates wording for each common claim type (faulty goods, unpaid invoice, deposit dispute, breach of contract, professional negligence) using the right legal foundations.

Add interest and costs

You can claim 8% statutory interest on debts under the Late Payment Act, plus court fees. The

8% interest calculator

works out the daily rate and total to add. Add it before filing — you cannot easily increase it later.

Defending a claim against you

Acknowledge service first

Within 14 days, file an acknowledgment of service to extend your deadline to 28 days. This buys you time to take advice, gather evidence, and decide your strategy without losing by default.

The defence must respond to

each numbered paragraph

of the particulars — admit, deny, or require the claimant to prove. Vague denials are struck out. The Defence Analyser highlights paragraphs that need a specific response.

Counterclaim if you have one

If the claimant owes you money on a related matter, file a counterclaim with your defence using N211. The court hears both together. There is a court fee scaled to the counterclaim value.

Hearing day & enforcement

Take three copies of your bundle (yours, the judge\'s, the defendant\'s). Read the witness statements. Plan a 2–3 minute opening summary. Hearings are held in chambers (a meeting room) not a courtroom — no wigs, no formal robes.

Five enforcement methods

All enforcement fees are added to the debt and recovered from the defendant. So a £83 warrant is recovered as £83 + the original judgment + interest. The

matches the right method to what you know about the defendant.

Stage 1 — Check eligibility

Confirm your dispute belongs on the small claims track and you are still in time.

Stage 2 — Try to settle first

The pre-action protocol expects you to give the other side a chance to pay.

Stage 3 — File the claim

Build the N1 form and particulars of claim.

Stage 4 — Defend or counterclaim

Respond to a claim against you within 14 days — and counterclaim if they owe you.

Stage 5 — Hearing & enforcement

Prepare for hearing and enforce judgment when they will not pay.

Stage 1 -- Know your rights

Understand your legal position and get your case set up.

Stage 2 -- Try to resolve it at work

Tribunals expect you to attempt internal resolution first.

Stage 3 -- Build your claim documents

File your ET1 and prepare the core legal documents.

Stage 4 -- Assess your chances

Get an honest picture of what your claim is worth.

Stage 5 -- Prepare for your hearing

Everything you need from ET1 filed to the day of your hearing.

How Start My Claim works

Everything you need to know about every tool — what it does, when to use it, and how to get the most from it. Organised by the

You start on Free. Upgrade only when you need the next stage.

Takes 2 minutes. No credit card. You'll know exactly where you stand.

Start My Claim provides legal information and document tools only -- not legal advice.

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