Employment appeal tribunal rules against junior solicitor in £7,800 unpaid commission case
A newly qualified solicitor has lost his claim for unpaid commission worth just over £7,800 after the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled that it was unrealistic for him to have met the performance threshold required under his contract. The case, brought by first-year solicitor Billy Rashbrook against Raymond Saul & Co LLP, was overturned following the firm’s successful appeal.
The EAT, presided over by Deputy High Court Judge Andrew Burns KC, found that the original Employment Tribunal had misinterpreted the terms of Rashbrook’s contract when it concluded that the London firm had unlawfully deducted wages by withholding commission. The judge ruled that the Employment Tribunal’s interpretation of the relevant clause was “erroneous” and that it was “fanciful” to think a first-year solicitor could have exceeded the commission threshold so early in his career.
Rashbrook, who joined Raymond Saul & Co as a trainee in 2019 and qualified in 2021, was employed on a salary of £38,000 per year. Under his employment contract, he was entitled to a commission of 20 per cent of profit costs invoiced by him, provided those costs exceeded three times his annual salary. During his first commission year, he worked on a large project with other members of the firm, and he was informed that any commission would be apportioned to reflect the contributions of multiple fee earners.
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Although Rashbrook initially disputed this approach, pointing out that his contract made no reference to apportionment, he later accepted that 60 per cent of the invoices he billed on the project would be allocated to him. When he left the firm in November 2022, the calculation of his commission was still being reviewed. Two weeks later, he was informed that after deductions for the work of partners, trainees and supervisors, his billings did not exceed the threshold — meaning he was not entitled to any commission.
Rashbrook brought a claim before the Employment Tribunal, which initially found in his favour, concluding that the firm had failed to pay commission due under his contract. The Tribunal held that the firm had not conducted a proper apportionment exercise and had failed to send monthly statements as required by the contract. It also ruled that the firm could not deduct profit costs for work carried out by others.
However, the EAT rejected that interpretation. Judge Burns accepted the firm’s argument that commission was only payable for work invoiced and carried out by Rashbrook personally, not for files where senior colleagues had also contributed. He said the Tribunal’s ruling ignored the commercial reality of City practice, where multiple solicitors commonly collaborate on complex transactions. The judge observed that it would have been clear to both parties at the time the contract was signed that profit costs would often be shared between team members.
In his written judgment, Judge Burns criticised the earlier tribunal’s reasoning, calling its conclusions “perverse”. He said it had wrongly claimed there was no evidence of record-keeping, despite undisputed evidence that the firm maintained a time-recording system used to track fee-earner contributions. He concluded that there had never been any commission payable under the contract and that the solicitor’s expectation of crossing the threshold was unrealistic.
“It is fanciful to think that the claimant would be able to satisfy any reasonable tribunal that he did sufficient work during the commission year to cross the commission threshold,” the judge wrote. “When the supervision and contribution of partners, other fee earners and trainees are taken into account, there is no reasonable prospect of him showing that he did the vast majority of the work on these files in the first year of his practice.”
As a result, the Employment Appeal Tribunal allowed the firm’s appeal and dismissed the claim in full. The ruling — [2025] EAT 129 — serves as a reminder that contractual commission clauses for junior lawyers must be read in light of the practical realities of teamwork and supervision in City firms, where first-year solicitors are rarely sole fee earners.