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His consultancy has experienced a doubling in the number of employers seeking help with tribunal claims, from 250 in the first quarter of last year to more than 500 this year.

He said that the rise in work meant longer delays. Tribunal claims that would have come to a hearing in about six to ten weeks are now taking at least three months, with many not being booked in until late this year or early next.

Mr Smith warned that "any errors in the redundancy or dismisal process will leave a company vulnerable to tribunal cases - where the costs are increasing.

"Consistency is the key: companies cannot use the poor economic climate to dismiss people on conduct or capability issues that were acceptable two years ago," he said. "The redundancy process must also be rigorous and transparent with no room for question."

Another employment consultancy, RedundancyManager.co.uk, run by Tollers Solicitors, said that the majority of tribunal claims still related to equal pay and working time regulations but redundancy claims feature highly.

Gary Tait, an employment solicitor with the firm, said: "More than 11,700 claims relate to redundancy in these latest figures. That's a stunning number, when you consider that a redundancy should be a fairly straightforward procedure with clear rules to follow."

Of the 189,303 claims made in 2007/08, 7,313 were over redundancy and 4,480 over a a failure to inform and consult over redundancy.

There are currently an estimated 50,000 equal pay cases being brought by local council workers and the Equality and Human Rights Commission has estimated that without radical action, the Tribunals Service will go under.

The commission estimates that the numbers will rise three-fold to 150,000 this year. Councils have already paid out billions: a report by the Local Government Employers predicted that the total bill could reach £5 billion.

Among proposals being floated to tackle the rise in claims is a fee for lodging tribunals claims; another is to introduce a filter to weed out claims that have little chance of success.

The explosion comes as Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, plans to crack down on a handful of "irrresponsible" employment lawyers who, he said, exploited vulnerable clients by taking a large slice of their tribunal damages in fees.

People bringing tribunal claims over unfair dismisal, bullying or equal pay, for instance, cannot recover their costs from the other side in tribunal claims as they would do in other court cases.

So some lawyers act for them on a "no-win, no-fee" basis and take their costs as a slice of the damages won - anything from 10 to 40 per cent.

Jack Straw wants a "cap" on the level of damages that lawyers can recover in tribunals. where they often act on a "no-win, no-fee" basis.

He will also legislate to make them transparent about their charging arrangements and to give information about other sources of funding, such as trades unions.

Mr Straw has criticised "unregulated contingency fee arrangements that have been stretched to breaking point by some no-win, no-fee lawyers who have exploited vulnerable clients by taking huge slices out of their damages, failed to provide them with proper information and imposed unfair terms and conditions that have locked them into unreasonable deals".

But Stefan Cross, the Newcastle lawyer who has made his name bringing tens of thousands of equal pay claims for low-paid women in the public sector, said the move was a direct attack on lawyers such as him who had widened access to justice.

Mr Cross said: "This is a nasty piece of work designed to drive us out of business." The Government, he said, had "yielded to pressure from trades unions who wanted to boost their own recruitment" and work in advising on such claims.

Mr Straw now plans to move ahead with an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill which is at present going through Parliament, even though there already is a big review of civil litigation being conducted by the Court of Appeal judge, Lord Justice Jackson.

This review, to report by the end of the year, is looking at funding problems across civil courts and will include tribunals.

But cracking down on apparently greedy lawyers always makes for good headlines. And if tribunal work is set to boom, the time could not be better.

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