Thanks to government law changes that happened in April 2013, law firms are no longer allowed to recover all of their legal fees from your opponent. For years, most accident victims have been able to keep all 100% of their payout for pain, suffering, and financial loss thanks to access to justice rules that made the culprits, not the victims, pay for claims.
But unfortunately, the giant insurance industry reared its ugly head and convinced the government to change the law – probably because of how much money they plough in to political parties. But I’ll spare you the politics lesson and give you the info you need to know about how much lawyers are now charging their clients.
What will it cost me now?
The changes have stopped lawyers being able to recover their Success Fee from the other side. Lawyers are now recovering this from their client but it is capped by law to a maximum of 25%. As such, most law firms appear to have settled on 25% as a market rate – so you’re likely to face that as your deduction.
On top of that, we can’t recover the cost of an After The Insurance premium as well – so if a law firm chooses to take this insurance out for your case, the costs of it can be in the region of a few hundred pounds and you may be asked to pay this upfront.
Do I have a choice?
Well, you could speak to several law firms and find out if there are firms out there who offer a more competitive deduction and do not take the full 25% from you.
Or – you could just call us on our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 because for most claims, like work accident and public liability claims, we actually offer 100% compensation agreements and we do not charge you for any insurance premiums.
So wait, I can still get 100% compensation with The Injury Lawyers!?
Yes, you can! We agree to waive the Success Fee charge and self insure the case, meaning we don’t take a percentage from your payout, and you don’t pay for an insurance premium yet you still have the benefit of being covered by us.
And before you ask, there are no other charges or costs that take the place of us not taking a Success Fee from you. Lawyers still get paid by the other side; we just don’t get as much anymore due to the changes. So all we are doing is getting less fees.
Why would The Injury Lawyers want to get less money so I get more?
It’s a very good question – especially since lawyers are often stereotyped as being greedy! But that kind of assumption is an outdated inaccuracy, because there is a lot of regulations and a lot going on behind the scenes when it comes to legal costs for claims.
But we offer to do this because we can afford to do it and we don’t believe that it’s fair for the victim to have to pay to claim. We take on and win a high volume of cases, and we only deal with personal injury claims, so we’re very efficient at what we do and the lower fees work just fine for us.
To be honest, we’ve known it was coming for years.
So what do I do?
Well, if you want to save yourself potentially thousands of pounds, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 and start a claim! We can normally get the ball rolling right from the first call.
