London firm escapes £8k commission payout to NQ solicitor after appeal

Employment appeal tribunal dismisses £7,866 bonus claim brought by NQ solicitor against London firm

A London law firm has successfully overturned a tribunal ruling that it must pay a newly qualified solicitor almost £8,000 in commission. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), presided over by Andrew Burns KC sitting as a deputy High Court judge, allowed the firm’s appeal and dismissed the claim, finding that the lower tribunal had misinterpreted the key clause in the solicitor’s employment contract.

The case centred on Billy Rashbrook, who qualified as a solicitor at Raymond Saul & Co in September 2021. He earned a salary of £38,000 and claimed that under the firm’s bonus scheme he was entitled to £7,866 in commission. The London Central Employment Tribunal had originally agreed with Rashbrook in March 2023, holding that he had met the conditions required by the scheme and was due payment.

Rashbrook’s contract stated that he would be entitled to commission if he billed more than three times his salary in the year ending 31 August and the invoices were paid by clients. The commission was set at 20% of the amount above the threshold, which in his case was £114,000. The dispute arose over the interpretation of what counted towards that threshold.

On appeal, Raymond Saul & Co argued that the scheme had to be interpreted in a way that tied the commission directly to work carried out by Rashbrook himself, not simply to invoices that bore his name or were attributed to him within the firm’s billing system. The firm maintained that the tribunal had failed to apply the clause using its “natural and ordinary meaning” and that it had erred in finding that the contractual wording allowed Rashbrook to benefit from work performed by others.

Burns accepted the firm’s arguments, holding that for Rashbrook to receive commission three conditions had to be satisfied: the invoices had to be in his name, they had to be paid by clients, and they had to relate to work actually undertaken by him. The judge ruled that the tribunal’s interpretation had been flawed and that it was not enough to show that Rashbrook’s name appeared on files or bills if the substantive work had been carried out by colleagues.

Burns was critical of the tribunal’s reasoning, noting that it had dismissed the relevance of the firm’s time recording system despite undisputed evidence that such a system was in place. He said it was “perverse” for the tribunal to suggest there was no evidence of records when in fact they existed and could have clarified who had performed the work on the relevant matters.

The judge went further in his analysis, describing it as “fanciful” to suggest that Rashbrook, in his first year of qualified practice, could have generated sufficient personal work to cross the commission threshold. Burns pointed out that in practice, the contribution of partners, senior fee earners and trainees would have been significant on the files in question. He said there was no reasonable prospect of Rashbrook being able to demonstrate that he had carried out the vast majority of the work necessary to exceed the threshold.

On that basis, the EAT overturned the earlier decision and dismissed the claim in its entirety. The ruling brings the case to an end and removes any liability on the part of Raymond Saul & Co to pay the commission Rashbrook had sought.

The decision highlights the importance of clear contractual drafting in bonus and commission schemes, particularly in the legal profession where collaborative work is common. It also underscores the weight courts place on contemporaneous time recording systems as evidence of who performed work on client files. Rashbrook, who had relied on the tribunal’s earlier interpretation of the scheme, now faces the outcome that he is not entitled to the payment claimed.