Pinsent Masons unveils enhanced employment tribunal service to address mounting claims volumes

The offering combines the firm’s employment law expertise with proprietary generative AI workflows and its legal services delivery capabilities to create a flexible, scalable model.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice, there were 64,000 outstanding employment tribunal claims at the end of March. This represents a 55 per cent increase when compared to the same period last year. One of the reasons behind the backlog is employees increasingly turning to generative AI to draft formal grievances and employment tribunal claims. These can be lengthy, complex and poorly structured, generating significant volumes of correspondence.

Due to the backlog, claims are taking longer to resolve and becoming more expensive to fight. The implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025 is likely to exacerbate the situation, with measures such as the reduction of the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal potentially leading to more disputes between employers and employees.

Pinsent Masons’ service addresses this challenge in two ways. Firstly, the Employment & Incentives team has developed proprietary AI workflows that automate repeatable parts of the claim process; these workflows will always be supervised by lawyers from the Employment & Incentives team.

For example, case handlers will be able to draw on Pinsent Masons’ unique dataset, based on thousands of employment tribunal claims, to source actionable insights for client risk assessments and identify the practical steps needed to address key risk areas. As a result, lawyers will be able to focus on the parts of claims that matter the most to clients and delivering better client outcomes.

Secondly, while all claims will continue to be overseen by dedicated client teams, the proposition will triage claims by complexity. Less complicated cases will be managed by specialist Managed Legal Services lawyers and paralegals from Pinsent Masons Vario, the firm’s legal delivery services arm.

Lawyers from the Pinsent Masons’ Employment & Incentives team will manage the more complex matters, supported by Managed Legal Services paralegals, and retain ultimate responsibility for quality assurance and client relationships.

Employment partner Jon Fisher commented, “By taking a strategic approach to our clients’ litigation and investing heavily in our technology, processes and resourcing, we’re helping our clients to efficiently process and resolve the increased volume of claims. We’re also ensuring our experienced lawyers can focus on the parts of a claim which have the most value for our clients.”

Partner & Head of Pinsent Masons Vario, Matthew Kay added, “By combining our employment law expertise with our Managed Legal Services offering and deploying generative AI tools, we’re providing a sophisticated, high-quality service which ensures our clients receive our best work, in the right way. Our hybrid delivery model ensures legal and HR expertise are focussed where they’re most needed. This is especially important in employment tribunal cases where so much is at stake for individuals and their employers.”