Unfair Dismissal Lawyers in Melbourne

The deadline is 21 days. Read this first.

If you have been sacked and you think it was unfair, you have 21 days from your last day of employment to lodge a claim with the Fair Work Commission. Those are calendar days rather than business days, so weekends and public holidays are counted in.

The Commission rarely accepts late applications. The legal test for an extension is “exceptional circumstances”, and “I didn’t know about the deadline” is not one of them. Every year people lose otherwise winnable cases because they waited too long to talk to a lawyer.

If you are inside the 21-day window, call MK Law on 1800 130 120 today, Sunday included. The first call is free.

Are you eligible to claim?

Most Melbourne employees are. To bring an unfair dismissal claim, you need to:

• Have worked for the same employer for at least 6 months (12 months if your employer has fewer than 15 staff)
• Earn under the high income threshold ($190,100 a year from 1 July 2026), or be covered by a modern award or enterprise agreement
• Be covered by the national workplace system, which nearly every private-sector Victorian is, since employment law in Victoria leaves industrial relations to the federal regime

You are NOT eligible if you resigned, if your fixed-term contract ended on schedule, if you were a genuine independent contractor, or if you were dismissed for a genuine redundancy that followed the right process.

We can confirm eligibility in one phone call. If you do not qualify for unfair dismissal, you may still have a general protections claim, a discrimination claim, or a contract claim, and each of those has its own time limit running in the background. Our employment lawyers run all of them, so the call that rules one claim out usually finds another.

What “unfair” actually means

The Fair Work Commission asks whether your dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable. That is a wider test than most employers assume, and a Commissioner works through it in stages.

Was there a valid reason?

Serious misconduct, sustained underperformance and genuine restructuring can all be valid reasons. “The boss didn’t like you” or “you took sick leave” usually are not.

Were you told, and given a chance to respond?

Most employers who lose unfair dismissal claims lose on process rather than on the substance of the allegation. If you were dismissed without warning, without a meeting, or without a support person in the room, you have leverage.

Was the dismissal proportionate?

Even where a reason exists, dismissal may be too harsh given your years of service, your prior record, or your personal circumstances. The Commission has wide discretion here, and that discretion often runs in the employee’s favour for long-serving staff with clean records.

What you can recover

Compensation is capped at the lesser of six months of your salary or the statutory cap ($95,050 for dismissals on or after 1 July 2026, indexed each year). Awards cover lost wages and superannuation. Stress and hurt feelings do not get a line in that calculation.

Reinstatement is technically the law’s first-choice remedy, though in practice most matters settle for a payment and a deed of release. We negotiate for the things that actually help you afterwards: the payout, and a clean reference with an agreed reason for leaving, so your next employer never sees this on your record.

How we run an unfair dismissal file

The first call is a free, confidential review of what happened. We ask for your contract, your termination letter, and any emails or recordings you have. You get our honest read during that call, including when the answer is that the claim is not worth running. We will not talk you into a file we do not believe in.

If we take the matter on, we scope the filing and conciliation stage with you before any work begins. Most files settle at conciliation, which usually takes place by phone within four to six weeks of filing. If you would rather see the whole sequence before you ring anyone, the unfair dismissal process guide follows a claim from lodgement through to settlement. If your matter goes further, we sit down with you and scope the next stage first, so nothing ever happens without your say-so.

What if my matter is borderline?

Borderline is normal, and it is not something you can settle by reading more pages. Fifteen minutes on the phone will sort it out. Call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page. We answer evenings and weekends for new claims because we know how the deadline works.