Legal aid for most personal injury claims was abolished in 2000 and a different way of funding these claims was introduced – the no win, no fee agreement.
This is an agreement that means that, if your claim is not successful, you will not have to pay a penny to your solicitor for their fees. Under this agreement, if the claim is unsuccessful your solicitor will do the work for your claim without any payment from you for their fees;. The way that claims are now funded means that solicitors can charge an additional fee to the defendant – a ‘success fee’ – when they win. This extra amount is used to pay for those claims that aren’t successful. This means that there is no reason for a solicitor to charge you for their costs whether you win or lose and you should always avoid using a solicitor that will take any money out of your compensation.
However, there is still the matter of the other side’s costs. If they win, they will want to claim back their costs, just as your solicitor would if they had won. There are also other expenses, such as the cost of getting medical reports, and sometimes medical treatment which are known as ‘disbursements’.
When we take on claims, we don’t just take those that we are sure will win. We also want to give people a chance to make a claim where the outcome is less than certain. As long as we think that there is more chance than not that the claim will succeed, we will do everything to make it successful.
To protect our clients from any costs if the claim does not succeed, we arrange insurance called ‘after the event’ insurance if you don’t already have insurance to cover such costs. This covers the opponent’s costs and any other expenses that have to be paid if your claim is unsuccessful. We do this at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever.
All of this means that when you make a claim through The Injury Lawyers you can be confident that you will never have to pay us a penny, whether you win or lose.