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Acas early conciliation is the mandatory first step in Great Britain in the sense that you must notify Acas before making a claim; taking part in the conciliation itself is voluntary for both sides. An Acas conciliator tries to help you and your employer reach a settlement, which avoids the tribunal entirely. You normally need an early conciliation certificate for each respondent before you can lodge.

Acas is impartial. It does not give legal advice, does not represent you and does not assess whether your case is any good. That is the gap a solicitor fills, and it is worth filling before the conciliation window closes, because a settlement agreed through Acas is binding.

Tribunals also expect you to have tried to sort the problem out at work first, through a grievance or informally. GOV.UK notes that raising the problem with your employer does not extend the time limit, so do both at once rather than in sequence.

The general rule on GOV.UK is that you usually have to make a claim within three months of your employment ending or the problem happening. For unfair dismissal that runs from the end of the employment; for discrimination or a pay dispute it runs from the incident.

Notifying Acas pauses the deadline: GOV.UK states that the time limit for making a claim is put on hold while Acas helps you resolve your dispute. It does not reset it. Extensions beyond the limit are discretionary and are not granted simply because you were waiting to hear back from your employer.

Some claims have much shorter deadlines. Interim relief, which is an application to keep being paid pending the hearing, must be made within seven days of dismissal, and Acas notification is not required for it unless you are also bringing other claims.

A settlement agreement that waives statutory employment claims is only valid if the employee has received advice from a relevant independent adviser, who must be identified in the agreement and be covered by insurance. That is why employers usually contribute towards the employee's legal fees for reviewing one: without the advice the waiver does not work.

The adviser's job is not to rubber-stamp it. It is to explain what claims are being given up, check the tax treatment of the payments, look at restrictive covenants and references, and say whether the terms look reasonable against the alternative. If the deadline in the letter is uncomfortably tight, an extension is usually negotiable.

Employment claims in Northern Ireland go to the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal rather than to the employment tribunal system used in England, Wales and Scotland. Early conciliation arrived there in January 2020, run not by Acas but by the Labour Relations Agency.

The pattern is familiar but the details are not. A claimant must notify the Labour Relations Agency and discuss early conciliation before lodging, and needs an early conciliation certificate number or an exemption to proceed. The Agency also provides free, confidential and impartial advice on employment rights to people in Northern Ireland.