Sadly, the term No Win, No Fee doesn’t quite give you the full heads up now does it? But fear not – here’s a guide as to how it all works.
There are MANY Forms of No Win, No Fee
The majority of firms probably have different terms and conditions surrounding their No Win, No fee agreement. So, what you think you may know about the No Win, No Fee actually depends entirely on the lawyer.
Most lawyers use the standard No Win, No Fee agreement. The wording of this agreement generally means that, if your lawyer takes on your case on a No Win, No Fee basis, you will not have to pay any fees if the case is not successful however you do still have a liability to pay the fees until the claim is unsuccessful.
It should basically do exactly what it says on the tin – you lose the case, you lose no money. However, it’s wise to check out the terms of the agreement as there are lawyers out there who are not too keen on taking financial hits when they don’t win cases. Generally speaking, the point of the No Win, No Fee is that your lawyers will only take your case on if they think they have a good enough chance of winning it. Most lawyers simply ask themselves the question – is your case worth taking the risk of it on?
If we didn’t think we could win your case, we wouldn’t take it on; it’s as simple as that. However, like I said earlier, there are some lawyers with clauses in their agreements that could leave you responsible for paying insurance fees, or having to enter in to loan agreements. My advice here is simple – avoid them at all costs!
Make sure that the agreement you sign up to does exactly what it says on the tin – if you lose the case, you pay nothing whatsoever.
What Happens if You WIN
This is the less obvious part; No Win, No Fee doesn’t actually let you know what happens if you win the case. Again, most lawyers use the standard wording of the agreement. For the majority of cases, if your claim is successful you will be entitled to recover your reasonable legal fees from your opponent as well as your compensation. So, as well as getting your compensation from the other side, the fees necessary for your lawyers to get you your compensation are also covered. It wouldn’t be fair if you had to pay a huge solicitor fee leaving you undercompensated and potentially out of pocket.
Most lawyers using the standard wording have a duty to try, endeavour, or perhaps only seek to recover these legal fees from the other side. If you take this literally, your lawyer just has to “have a go” at trying to get the legal fees back from the other side. Anything they can’t get back they can simply charge to you. In reality, many reputable firms wouldn’t use this power they have to charge you; but the fact remains that they still could charge you.
That’s where we come…
We operate a Genuine No Win, No Fee agreement. Our agreement is unique – we add an extra part in ours to say that we will restrict our legal fees to the amount we recover from the other side. This means that we cannot charge you any legal fees over and above those fees we recover from your opponent.
In theory, they could pay us nothing more than a penny, and we couldn’t physically charge you!
So, whilst most other law firms could charge you, we CANT charge you. Our unique agreement stops us from charging you. It makes sense to us – we don’t want to charge you, so we figured we might as well put it in our agreement to say that we can’t. That way you don’t just have to take our word for it – it’s backed up in the agreement.
For more info on our unique and Genuine No Win, No Fee agreement, call our friendly and efficient team on 0800 634 75 75 today.