A digital legal service platform which promises to ‘democratise’ legal advice for small businesses has been ordered to pay almost £22,000 to a former employee who sued over unpaid wages.

Lawbit Ltd is the company behind the subscription service LawBite, set up in 2014 by barrister Clive Rich. LawBite offers four tiers of subscription services to small and medium-sized businesses. Rich told the Gazette in October 2022 that the service aimed to ‘declutter law for SMEs’.

But Lawbit Ltd appointed administrators from Antony Batty & Co LLP on 24 September and the new-model firm set up to offer legal advice through the platform, Lawbriefs Ltd, was closed down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in October.

A judgment from the Central London Employment Tribunal (pictured above), published on 14 November, shows that a former employee named as Helen Brown had claimed against the company for unpaid wages, accrued holiday entitlement and non-allocated pension contributions. Employment Judge Nicolle stated Lawbit had failed to file a grounds of resistance and the judgment notes the company did not appear at the hearing on 12 September.

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After considering contractual and other documentation evidencing the claimant’s pay and her giving evidence before him, Employment Judge Nicolle ordered the respondent company to pay the claimant £21,925.74 gross.

The judge said: ‘The respondent has unlawfully failed to pay wages to the claimant for the period between 1 January 2024 and 15 March 2024 in the gross sum of £13,541.68.

‘The claimant is entitled to a gross sum of £2,000 respect of her accrued holiday entitlement for her employment between 1 May 2023 and 15 March 2024, on the basis of an annual holiday entitlement of 20 days plus bank holidays, and the claimant having prorated accrued unused holiday entitlement of 8 days which gives a daily rate at 1/260 per day of £250.’

The judge added that Lawbit deducted monthly employer pension contributions of £110.07, which together with employee engine contributions of £36.69, were not allocated to Brown’s pension scheme for the period from 7 October 2022 until the termination of her employment on 15 March 2024. Brown was entitled to the gross sum of £6,384.06 in respect of sums deducted from her pay but not assigned to the pension scheme, the judge ruled.