At some point in many working lives, the document arrives: the settlement agreement — sometimes called a severance, compromise or exit agreement — with a package on one page and a waiver on the next, and a line requiring you to obtain independent legal advice before signing. This page is the map: what the document actually does, why Irish law builds advice into the process, and what happens when you send it here.
The Trade at the Centre — and the Law That Polices It
Every settlement agreement is one trade wearing many clauses: the package for the waiver. The employer provides value — notice or payment in lieu, an ex gratia sum, accrued entitlements, an agreed reference, agreed announcements — and buys finality: the employee’s specified claims (unfair dismissal, WRC claims, contractual claims) settled in full and final terms. Irish law polices that trade hard, and in the employee’s favour: waivers of statutory rights are void except in genuine settlement, and the courts — Hurley v Royal Yacht Club being the touchstone — require informed consent: you must know what you hold and what you’re surrendering, with appropriate advice, before the waiver sticks. That doctrine is why the advice requirement exists, why the employer customarily pays a contribution toward it, and why the review is never a formality: it’s the moment the trade becomes visible. Some things sit beneath the trade entirely — the statutory redundancy floor, accrued wages and holidays, the personal-injury and pension carve-outs that need conscious handling — and part of every review is auditing what the waiver validly reaches. The clause-by-clause detail lives on the anatomy page.
Two Tiers of Help — and the Honest Sorting
Most people need the review: independent legal advice on the document as drafted — 48 hours, remote if preferred, employer contribution confirmed before work begins — ending in a plain recommendation: sign, ask, or think again, with realistic negotiation of the improvable items where that’s right. Senior people often need the prior question answered first: should the agreement be better? — the territory of executive severance negotiation, where notice value, bonus, vesting timing, covenants and announcements are levers worked before any certificate is signed. The sorting between tiers is done honestly in the first conversation, and the third chair — the employer drafting the agreement — is served with the same candour, because finality done properly protects everyone who signed.
The Document Has Arrived?
Send it today - every page, schedules included - with your contract and the story in ten lines. Reviewed within 48 hours, remote if you prefer, contribution confirmed before any work begins.
Call 01 5827148