Well – with a good No Win No Fee like ours, it certainly isn’t too good to be true!
There are so many different types of No Win No Fee agreements – you could get lost in a sea of them if you pass your details to more than a few solicitors. For the most part, they do what they say on the tin. But the little variations can mean the difference between a lawyer with the power to charge, and lawyer without the power to charge.
Normally, the No Win No Fee aspect of it is the same. If you lose your case, you don’t have to pay your lawyers costs. But this needs to be checked, as there are on some occasions little catches. Make sure that, if your claim loses, nothing – not a single penny – is paid to your lawyer. Make sure you aren’t paying anything up front, or entering in to a loan agreement or anything similar.
The key difference is in what happens if you win your claim!
If your claim is successful, under English / Welsh law, you are entitled to recover all of your legal fees (your lawyers costs) from the party at fault – normally through their insurers. So in reality, you should never have to pay anything to your lawyer for a winning case.
However – the terms as to how the legal fees are recovered is where you can end up in trouble. Most No Win No Fee lawyers nowadays will tell you right from the start, and put in their agreement, that they will recover the fees on your behalf at the end of the claim – so you don’t need to worry about it. But what happens if your lawyers are unable to get any or all of their costs back from the other side?
Normally, the No Win No Fee agreement will say that your lawyers will “seek to recover your fees from the other side at the end of a successful claim.”
Seek, means try. So – if they try to get their fees back, but can’t – what then?
Here’s where some No Win No Fees will fall short and let you down! Some are rather explicit, and will say in writing that the remainder of the fees will be recovered directly from you. Some just say the above – which means they are quite within their rights at the end of the claim to recover the remainder from you as they tried, and failed to recover all of their fees.
Worried? You should be – you could be about to get caught out with a solicitors bill because of some daft technicality.
But fear not! Don’t panic! There is another way you know…
We, The Injury Lawyers, decided that this technicality was unfair. In fact, we decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t be willing to recover any remainder fees from our clients – we just don’t feel right about charging our victims, and we think it’s unfair to take some of your compensation away from you. We simply don’t want to charge you!
So – we decided to change things! We coined, what we call, our Genuine No Win No Fee. In all honesty, other firms have coined the same phrase – but ours really is genuinely genuine! We’ve kind of “spiked” our own agreement with a line that stops us from charging our client if we fail to get our fees back.
That’s right – our own agreement stops us from doing it! We actually, physically cannot charge you any outstanding fees, because our agreement states that we will seek recovery of our costs directly from the other side, BUT, if we fail to recover any or all of them, we will NOT seek to recover any from you – the client.
We have even put the “NOT” bit in capitals for effect! It’s quite clear – it’s in black and white that we will NOT seek to recovery anything from you. Heck, the insurers could pay us nothing more than a penny and we could not get anything from you. Because our agreement says we won’t.
Sound more encouraging? I should hope so! It’s a daunting thing having to sign up with a solicitor. We’re not always the most trusted bunch of guys – a lot of people believe we’re all greedy, lacking in heart and soul. Well, our client friendly agreement guarantees that there really are no costs to pay at all. It’s in writing – hard, black and white on paper. We’re more than happy with it – because we actually care about our clients and their claims.
My best advice is to always ask your lawyers plenty of questions, and make sure you get a straight answer every time. Read your paperwork thoroughly before agreeing to it, and make sure you get the genuinely Genuine No Win No Fee agreement!