If you’ve been dismissed, you have 21 days. That’s the whole picture at the start: a short, strict deadline, and a choice between two very different claims that most people don’t know they’re making. We’ll tell you which one fits, what it’s realistically worth, and whether it’s worth running. We act for employees and for employers, in the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Circuit and Family Court.
Dismissed this week? Call today. The clock has already started.
Every one of these runs on a deadline, and two of them are the same 21 days. Tap the one that's yours.
You have 21 days from the day the dismissal took effect. Not from when you were told, and not from your final pay.
A redundancy has to be genuine. If the role still exists, or nobody consulted you, it may not be.
Employers get 7 days to respond on a Form F3. Under 15 staff? The Small Business Fair Dismissal Code may be a complete defence.
Non-competes and client restraints only bite so far as they're reasonable. Know before you resign, not after.
Acting for employees and for employers, in the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Circuit and Family Court.
Most employment matters are decided in the first three weeks, before anyone files anything. The employee who waits for a reference before getting advice, or the employer who dismisses on a Friday without a process, has usually already decided the outcome. We act for both, which is the practical reason we’re useful to either: knowing how the other side builds a case is how you take one apart, and knowing what a tribunal actually does with a thin process is how you avoid running one.
Applications in the Fair Work Commission, conciliation, jurisdictional objections and hearings.
Dismissal and non-dismissal claims, workplace rights, and the reverse onus that makes these claims different.
Whether the redundancy was genuine, consultation obligations, redeployment and what you're owed on exit.
Stop bullying orders, sexual harassment claims, and discrimination on protected attributes.
Award and enterprise agreement coverage, unpaid wages, leave and superannuation.
Negotiated departures, deeds of release, and the terms that matter after you sign.
Form F3 responses, jurisdictional objections, conciliation and hearings, including the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code.
Conducting them properly, and representing employees who are the subject of one.
Drafting, reviewing and negotiating contracts, executive agreements and workplace policies.
Enforcing and resisting non-competes, client and staff restraints, and misuse of confidential information.
Getting the process right: genuine redundancy, consultation obligations and redeployment before anyone is told.
Warnings, show-cause processes and lawful termination, so the file supports the decision if it's challenged.
Deadlines run from the date on the notice, not the date you opened the envelope.
Two of the most important deadlines are the same 21 days, and the Commission extends them only in exceptional circumstances.
Employment law runs on short, strict clocks, and the two that matter most are identical. Twenty-one days for an unfair dismissal application, and twenty-one days for a general protections claim, which is a different claim with different rules and a different ceiling. Most people don’t know they were choosing between them until the choice is gone. Miss either and the Fair Work Commission will only let you in late in exceptional circumstances, and not knowing about the deadline has never been one.
From the day the dismissal took effect, to lodge with the Fair Work Commission. Not from the day you were told, not from your last day in the office if you were paid in lieu, and not from your final pay.
The same clock, for a completely different claim. Uncapped compensation, no minimum service period, and the employer carries the onus. Most people never realise they were choosing.
From service of the application, to file a Form F3. Under 15 staff, the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code may be a complete defence, but only if it was actually followed at the time.
For unpaid wages, entitlements and superannuation. Far longer than the others, and far more often missed, because nobody feels urgency about a clock that runs for six years.
The 21 days runs from the day the dismissal took effect, not the day you were told. If you are near the end of it, call rather than email.
Every clock on this page runs from the date on your notice, not the day you open it. Twenty minutes, no charge.
Same deadline, same tribunal, very different claims. You generally have to pick one.
Both claims start with the same 21-day deadline and both begin at the Fair Work Commission, which is why most people assume they’re the same thing. They aren’t. One is capped, gated by a minimum service period and closed to higher earners. The other is uncapped, open from your first day, and shifts the burden of proof onto your employer. You generally have to elect one. Choosing wrong, or not realising you were choosing at all, is the most expensive mistake in this area of law.
Figures apply to dismissals on or after 1 July 2026. The high income threshold and the compensation cap are indexed every 1 July.
General information only. This page describes the law in New South Wales in general terms and is not legal advice for your situation. Reviewed September 2026. Thresholds are indexed every 1 July.
Neither claim is automatically better. A straightforward dismissal with a weak process is often an unfair dismissal claim and nothing more.
A dismissal that followed a complaint, a workers compensation claim, a pregnancy announcement or a request for flexible work is a different conversation entirely, and the cap may be the least relevant thing about it. That assessment takes one conversation. Have it inside the 21 days.
Which claim fits your situation
Twenty minutes, no charge. Tell us what happened and we’ll tell you which claim is open to you, what it’s realistically worth, and how many days you have left.
Same 21 days, different tribunal, different claims. If you work for a department, a hospital, a school or a council, most of what you have read about unfair dismissal does not apply to you.
Private sector employees in New South Wales. Everything else on this page is written for you.
NSW public sector and local government employees. A different tribunal, different claims and a different remedy.
The clock is the same length in both systems, but an application lodged at the Fair Work Commission by someone who belongs at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission does not stop it. By the time the jurisdictional objection is dealt with, the time to file properly has usually gone.
The uncapped claim with the reverse onus sits in Part 3-1 of the Fair Work Act, and Part 3-1 does not reach state system employees. If you were dismissed after a complaint, an injury or a pregnancy announcement, the strategy that would apply in the private sector is unavailable, and something else has to carry the case.
Under s 89 the Commission orders reinstatement or re-employment first, and only turns to compensation where reinstatement would be impracticable. Compensation is capped at your remuneration for the six months before the dismissal. There is no dollar ceiling and no indexed figure, which means the number is your own salary, not a national maximum.
Public sector disciplinary appeals, police misconduct and removal order reviews, hurt on duty leave appeals, victimisation, workplace bullying, sexual harassment and unfair contracts all sit with the IRC. Several of these have no federal equivalent, and a dismissal is often not the only application worth making.
Usually in the state system
Not every state-owned body sits in the state system, and some employers that look public are constitutional corporations covered by the Fair Work Act instead. Who employs you on paper decides it, not who you feel you work for. That is a first-call question, and it is quicker to answer than to unwind.
General information only. This page describes the law in New South Wales in general terms and is not legal advice for your situation. Reviewed September 2026.
Employment matters turn on detail: what was said in the meeting, what the policy actually required, what date the dismissal took effect. That detail gets lost when a file is handed down a chain. At BOS Legal the person you speak to first is the person who runs the matter, reads the evidence and appears at conciliation.
We act for employees and for employers, which is not a marketing line so much as a working method. Preparing an employer’s response teaches you where an application is weak. Running an application teaches you what a thin process looks like from the other side.
The first conversation is always the same two questions. How many days do you have left, and which claim actually fits? Everything else follows from the answers.
Dismissals inside the 21 days and Form F3 responses are answered the day they come in.
Both sides of the Commission, which is how you learn what a Commissioner actually does with a case.
Grosvenor Place, 225 George Street. Most Fair Work matters run by phone and video.
Built for the fight you’d rather not have
We act for employees and for employers. Knowing what actually persuades a Commissioner comes from arguing it both ways.
You will know your deadline and which claim fits before anything else is discussed. Everything after that is easier.
A realistic view of what the claim is worth, including when the answer is that it is not worth running.
Grosvenor Place. Most Fair Work matters run by phone and video, wherever you are in New South Wales.
Get the paperwork right first
Employment contracts, restraints and workplace policies are drafting jobs long before they are disputes. If you are an employer who would rather not end up here, that is the advisory side of the practice.
No charge for the first conversation. Confidential.
Employment & Fair Work
21 days from the day the dismissal took effect. Not from the day you were told, not from your last day in the office if you were paid in lieu, and not from your final pay. The Fair Work Commission will only extend it in exceptional circumstances, and being unaware of the deadline is not one of them. If you're in the last week of it, call rather than email.
Unfair dismissal asks whether the dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable. General protections asks whether the employer took action against you because you exercised a workplace right or because of a protected attribute. General protections has no minimum employment period, no income threshold, uncapped compensation, and puts the onus on the employer to prove the reason wasn't the prohibited one. Both have the same 21-day limit and you generally have to elect one. Which fits depends on why you were dismissed, not on which sounds better.
For dismissals on or after 1 July 2026 the cap is the lesser of 26 weeks' pay or $95,050. In practice most awards are well below the cap, because compensation is for lost earnings rather than for hurt feelings, and the Commission deducts what you've earned since. Unfair dismissal compensation does not include damages for distress. General protections claims are uncapped and can include damages for hurt and penalties, which is one reason the choice of claim matters.
You need to have completed the minimum employment period: six months, or twelve months if your employer has fewer than 15 employees. You also need to earn under the high income threshold, which is $190,100 from 1 July 2026, unless you're covered by a modern award or enterprise agreement, in which case the threshold doesn't stop you. If you fail either test, general protections may still be open to you, because neither requirement applies to it.
Yes. A genuine redundancy requires that the employer no longer needs the job done by anyone, that any consultation obligations in an award or agreement were followed, and that redeployment within the business or a related entity was reasonably considered. If your role was advertised again a month later, or if the consultation was an email on the day, the redundancy may not be genuine, and a dismissal that isn't a genuine redundancy can be an unfair dismissal.
You have 7 days from service to file a Form F3 response, which is short, and the response frames everything that follows at conciliation. If you employ fewer than 15 people, compliance with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code can be a complete defence, but only if you actually followed it, which usually turns on the records you kept at the time. Get advice before you file rather than after.
Only so far as it's reasonable. NSW courts will enforce a restraint that protects a legitimate business interest, such as client connections, confidential information or goodwill, for no longer and no wider than necessary. NSW also has the Restraints of Trade Act 1976, which lets a court read a restraint down rather than strike it out entirely, so a wide restraint isn't automatically worthless here the way it might be elsewhere. Whether yours bites depends on your role, your client contact and the wording. Get it checked before you resign, not after you've signed with the competitor.
Often not. NSW public sector and local government employees are generally covered by the New South Wales industrial relations system rather than the federal Fair Work system, which means a different tribunal, different claims and different time limits. This catches a lot of people in Sydney. Tell us who you work for at the first call and we'll tell you which system you're in.
Bring the termination letter, your contract, and any warnings or emails about the process.
Unfair dismissal or general protections, what it's realistically worth, and how many days are left.
A written estimate before any work begins. No open accounts.
Sydney and regional NSW court appearances for interstate and out-of-town solicitors. Fixed fee, same-day confirmation, court-by-court pricing.
Contract, shareholder, debt and business disputes in every NSW court. A written view on prospects and cost before you commit to a fight.
Unfair dismissal, general protections, redundancy and restraints of trade. Acting for employees and employers. Strict 21-day deadlines apply.
Separation, property settlement, parenting arrangements and de facto claims. Clear advice at a difficult time, without inflaming it.
Wills, powers of attorney, probate and estate administration, and contesting a will in NSW. Structured properly the first time, so your family isn't left arguing.
Company structures, shareholders agreements, contracts and business sales. Set up properly now, so the dispute never starts.
Leave your name and number. A lawyer calls you back, tells you where you stand and what happens next. No charge, no obligation.
Twenty minutes with a lawyer. You'll leave the call knowing where you stand, what your options are, and what the first step costs.
