This article describes commonly reported tactics used by employers and their representatives once litigation is underway. Using a tactic doesn't automatically mean bad faith — some of what's described here also happens for entirely legitimate reasons. What matters is recognising the pattern so it doesn't catch you off guard, and knowing how to respond calmly and in writing.
Our companion article, Signs Your Employer Is Building a Case to Dismiss You, covers what happens before a claim exists — the paper trail built in the background. Once an ET1 is actually filed, the game changes. Now there's a professional representative involved on the other side in most cases, formal procedure to exploit, and a live incentive to make the process as slow, confusing, and expensive for you as possible, in the hope you'll settle cheaply or give up. The tactics below are what tends to show up at that stage.
Letters written in dense legal language, listing every possible weakness in your case, sometimes threatening costs consequences that are unlikely ever to materialise. This is often written to unsettle a litigant in person rather than to reflect a genuine legal risk. Read it for its substance, not its tone.
Being sent an enormous volume of documents, much of it irrelevant, especially close to a deadline, can be a way of making it harder for you to find what actually matters. Work through it systematically and flag anything that looks incomplete.
Being told a document doesn't exist, particularly one you know should exist, is worth noting precisely and following up on in writing — including reminding them of their ongoing disclosure obligations.
Warnings that you'll be ordered to pay the employer's costs if you lose are common, and frequently overstated. See the dedicated section below on how costs orders actually work in an employment tribunal.
An offer significantly below what your Schedule of Loss supports, paired with pressure to accept "by Friday" or lose it — the artificial urgency is the tactic. You're entitled to reasonable time to consider any offer and take advice.
A formal settlement offer marked this way is designed to be shown to the tribunal later, after judgment, when costs are decided — see the FAQ below for how limited its actual effect usually is in an employment tribunal specifically.
Repeated requests for extensions, late instructing of counsel, or last-minute adjournment applications can genuinely happen for good reason, but can also be used to wear you down over time, increase your costs, and push a hearing further into the future.
A change of solicitor or counsel shortly before a key deadline sometimes resets timelines in the other side's favour. Object in writing if a change is used to justify delay that prejudices you.
Raising minor procedural points — formatting, service technicalities, arguable non-compliance with directions — can be legitimate case management, or can be an attempt to bury a litigant in person in unfamiliar process. If you're unsure whether an objection has real substance, ask the tribunal directly.
Making you formally prove things that aren't genuinely in dispute — your dates of employment, your salary, basic chronology — increases your workload and costs for no real benefit to the tribunal's understanding of the case.
Witness statements or cross-examination that focus on attacking your credibility, character, or motives rather than engaging with the facts of what happened, can be a sign the substantive case is weak.
A represented employer often has more resources, familiarity with procedure, and confidence in the room than a litigant in person. This imbalance is real, but the tribunal's role is to make sure the process is fair regardless of who is or isn't represented — you can and should ask the tribunal for clarification or accommodation if you're struggling to follow what's happening.
This is worth its own section because it's one of the most effective intimidation tactics precisely because it's misunderstood. Unlike most civil courts, where the losing side commonly pays the winner's costs, employment tribunals work the other way round: each side normally pays its own costs, win or lose. A costs order against you is the exception, not the default, and is generally only made where your conduct (or your claim itself) has been vexatious, abusive, disruptive, or unreasonable, or where your claim had no reasonable prospect of success from the outset. Simply losing a genuinely arguable claim is not, by itself, grounds for a costs order. That doesn't mean costs risk is zero — a weak claim pursued unreasonably, or conduct that's genuinely disruptive, can still attract an order — but a cost threat sent early in the case, before any of that has been tested, is very often more pressure tactic than accurate legal risk.
Almost everything on this list works by making the process feel bigger, faster, and riskier than it actually is. Slowing down, checking each tactic against how the tribunal actually works, and responding in writing rather than reacting in the moment, takes most of the power out of it.
See also our companion piece on signs your employer is building a case to dismiss you, our Complete Process & Time Limits Guide for the full timeline and tracker, or browse our other articles.