COMMUNICATION SKILLS WITH CLIENTS IN LABOUR DISPUTE CASES

In recent years, labour dispute cases have been increasingly arisen with complex in nature. In such labour dispute cases, the involvement of lawyers is crucial to best protect the rights and interests of the parties involved in the dispute, as well as to ensure proper procedural compliance according to legal regulations. For protect the rights of the involving parties in the disputes, who are also clients in the labor dispute case, in addition to knowledge and professional experience, lawyers need to enhance their practical skills to gather information, study cases, and propose appropriate solutions. One of the crucial skills for lawyers in labour dispute cases is communication skills with clients in labour dispute cases.

1. Communication skills with clients regarding the facts of the labour dispute cases:

According to Article 32 of the Civil Procedure Code 2015, labour disputes fall under the court’s jurisdiction include: individual labour disputes, labour-related disputes, disputes related to compensation for damages caused by illegal strikes, and other labour-related disputes. It can be seen that the scope of labour disputes within the court’s jurisdiction is quite wide. Therefore, when contacting and communicating with clients, lawyers need to grasp the details of the case and the client’s desires in order to clearly determine the nature of the dispute and lay the foundation for providing the best guidance and protection of the client’s interests. This skill set requires specific qualifications such as:

• Clearly understanding the facts of the case:

Understanding the facts of the case can be achieved through listening to the clients’ statement and reviewing, assessing relevant legal documents. Typically, during the initial contact with the clients, the lawyers need to listen to the clients when they provide information about the case. The skill of listening involves not only receiving information from the clients but also selecting, taking notes to avoid omitting or memorising unnecessary information.

In addition to listening skills, asking the clients for clarification and supplementary information should be conducted concurrently when discussing the case’s content. Clients often share a substantial amount of information about the case, but they may overlook important details or provide unclear information. Therefore, lawyers need to have good analytical skills to ask appropriate questions that help synthesise a comprehensive picture of the client’s labour dispute case.

• Clearly understanding the specific requirements of the client:

Through listening, discussing, asking questions and recording the information of disputes between the parties, the lawyers will acknowledge the client’s wishes and frustrations. For each labour dispute case, clients may request for negotiation, mediation at the labour mediators, dispute resolution at the labour arbitrators or filing a lawsuit at the competent court. Therefore, lawyers need to clearly understand about the client’s requests to provide appropriate advice.

2. Skills in collecting relevant documents and evidence and researching relevant legal regulations in labour dispute cases:

The lawyer should request the client to provide relevant documents for assessing the case, such as labour contracts, internal labour regulations, internal rules or policies of the employers, decisions of competent authorities related to the dispute, evidence proving the infrigement of the involving parties’ rights, evidence proving the clients’ requests, documents related to pre-litigation mediation stage at the labour mediator, etc. Based on the provided evidence, the lawyer will research the case file, identify the facts of the cases, then check legal provisions to determine a strategy for protecting the rights and interests of the clients.

When researching and analysing, assessing case files and legal provisions, the lawyer should pay attention to the conditions for filing a lawsuit, identify the competent court, the statute of limitations, and relevant litigation procedures. Besides, given the substantial volume of documentation in the case, skills of comprehensive reading, analysing, selecting, and summarising the information are crucial skills for the lawyer.

3. Preliminary consultation skills to provide clients feasible solutions in labour dispute resolution

This skill requires the lawyer to have persuasive speaking abilities, fluent presentation skills, and a firmly grasp the client’s issues as well as the relevant legal regulations. At this stage, interact and communicate with clients are crucial. The lawyer will rely on legal tools to provide the client with dispute resolution options and advice. Therefore, the lawyer must be confident and assertive in delivering solutions and recommendations, aiming to build trust with the client and demonstrate professionalism. This skill also demonstrates the lawyer’s ability to persuade clients through legal perspectives and analytical thinking.

For labour dispute cases, the lawyer is required to provide preliminary legal advice to clients on important matters such as (i) statute of limitations for requesting labour dispute resolution, method of calculating such statute of limitations, whether such time has expired and what steps will be taken if it was expired; (ii) jurisdiction for dispute resolution; (iii) validity of the documents and evidence provided by clients; (iv) the strengths and weaknesses of the clients in the cases; (v) feasible options.

The above is an overview of our legal perspective on Communication skills with clients in labour dispute cases that Phuoc & Partners share with readers. If you have difficulties in finding a Law Firm to advise and support in the relevant legal field, please contact us. Phuoc & Partners is a professional consulting firm established in Vietnam and currently has nearly 100 members working in three offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Danang. Phuoc & Partners is also rated as one of the leading consulting firms specialising in business law in Vietnam that has leading practice areas in the legal market such as Labour and Employment, Taxation, Merger and acquisition, Litigation. We are confident in providing Clients with optimal and effective service.