When it comes to personal injury claims, No Win, No Fee seems pretty self-explanatory, but when firms are regularly using the term along with other promises of their services, it can become confusing as to what it really means. Generally speaking, No Win, No Fee means that if your case loses, then you should not be charged for the Solicitors legal fees.
I’ve also heard of the term ‘100% No Win, No Fee’ – What does this mean?
If a firm advertises ‘100% No Win, No Fee’ then its understandable how this can seem confusing as to what it really means. Although the terms separately mean different things, put together, if you win your case, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to keep 100% of your compensation. It may be used as a bit of a misleading tag like to suggest that you keep 100% of your payout which most lawyers won’t let you do because of recent law changes.
Can firms afford to offer you 100% compensation agreements?
The unfortunate truth is that a lot of firms can’t afford to offer such things like this. Although No Win No Fee should really mean exactly what it says, unfortunately the same doesn’t apply to 100% compensation. With regards to No Win, No Fee, the reason why firms can afford to offer such a thing is because lawyers will normally only take on a claim if they feel they can win it. So it’s a risk that the lawyer takes in to account.
On the other hand, 100% compensation is somewhat of a thing of the past. The reason for this is because on the 1st of April 2013 the Government brought in new legislation changes to the way in which Solicitors claim their fees for personal injury claims. Basically before these changes were put into place, Solicitors were able to claim all of their reasonable legal fees and costs from the Defendant which included an ‘After the Event Insurance premium,’ (also known as ATE and is used to protect against the Defendants costs if the case is lost). They were also able to previously recover the success fee, which used to be taken from cases which were won to cover any losses from a lost case as part of access to justice rules. However, from the 1st of April, Solicitors can no longer recover the success fee and ATE from the other side.
How would the No Win, No Fee changes affect me?
As Solicitors can no longer recover the success fee and ATE from the other side, as of the 1st of April 2013, this means that although Claimant’s should not pay any costs if their case lost on a No Win, No Fee, if the case is won, many Solicitors firms are now deducting a success fee out of the Claimant’s compensation. This means that you would only get to keep 75% of your compensation, meaning that 25% of it would be deducted as the success fee.
However at The Injury Lawyers, we work on a 100% compensation and No Win, No Fee basis. Because we win the majority of the claims we take on and we take on a high volume of them, we don’t take out an ATE insurance premium as we can afford to self insure your case, and we also don’t charge for the success fee, meaning you really do get to keep 100% of your compensation!
Basically, we take the hit instead of you!
So give us a call today to find out how you can benefit from our services!
