Can workplace disputes be resolved without going to an Employment Tribunal?

In reality, that might not need much imagination. In some areas ordinary cases are being listed 12 to 18 months out and, for more complex cases, between 24 and 36 months.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

But there is a suspicion — and I stress it is a suspicion drawn from what I have read rather than anything formally stated — that there is another factor at play.

That some Employment Tribunals may, in effect, be holding off listing new hearings, setting case management orders instead, and then revisiting matters later to see whether a hearing is still required.

So if access to a Tribunal hearing is significantly delayed, what is the alternative?

In a minority of cases — where the stakes are high and potentially significant compensation is in play — the parties will wait for a Tribunal decision.

But in most cases, I think parties will look for something that closes the matter out quickly, rather than waiting years for a formal determination by either an ET or some other type of ADR.

Conventionally, if a party's prospects (a lawyer's term) fall below around 45%, you negotiate. But that is a rule of thumb, not a formula.

For employers, you also factor in what the award might be if you lost, together with the cost of representation.

For employees, the position is different they don't run a risk of an award, or in reality for costs and their representation might be free or near enough.

None of that is an encouragement to employers to be careless in either process or substance.

The better you are on both, the stronger your negotiating position.

But the financial liability risk sits with the employer. Combined with the uncertainty of long-running proceedings, the incentive to resolve early is obvious.

Which brings you to a more practical question. Not what is the precise value of the claim after full legal analysis is, but what is the total cost — in time, management resource and distraction — of continuing to carry it.

In many cases that leads to a 'commercial' settlement. Not as a reflection of legal merits in any refined sense, but as a business decision to dispose of the issue.

My general advice to employers, considered after all the factors are taken into account, remains this: if a matter can be resolved early for somewhere in the region of £3k–£6k, do it.

Because that is often the most pragmatic course.

That would also be my advice to employees

Whether that is justice though is a different question.