If we think we can win a claim, we might be able to offer you a no win, no fee agreement. The principle of this means that, if the claim doesn’t win, we do not charge you any fees we have incurred.
This allows people to make a claim with the safety of not having to pay a huge legal bill if it doesn’t win. After all, we cannot accurately predict from the outset whether a claim will win or not in many cases. So how does it actually work?
Prospects of success
We can assess the prospects of success for your claim at the outset and make a decision as to whether we think we have a good enough shot of winning it. If we think we have a decent chance, we can offer you a no win, no fee guarantee.
If we didn’t think you could win, we probably wouldn’t offer you a no win, no fee guarantee. Different law firms can risk assess claims in different ways so it’s about our estimate as to whether we think it’s worth taking on and risk not getting paid.
Do we lose money if we don’t win?
Yes – If we don’t win, we don’t get paid; so we do lose money on claims we cannot win. But that’s why, as I said earlier, we assess the risks of the case and make a commercial decision as to whether we’re willing to fund the claim with the risk of not getting anything for it.
To be fair, for many cases, it doesn’t cost us too much to get a claim submitted and assess the response. Once we have a liability decision from the other side together with their evidence, we are in a much better position to decide whether there is a good claim or not and confirm whether we can continue funding the case on a no win, no fee basis. But to get that information and evidence, we normally need to actually put a claim in!
Is there a catch?
With us, no – with some lawyers, there may be. We cannot speak for all firms, but our clients can rest assured that our no win, no fee agreement does exactly what it says on the tin. Who would risk having to pay a massive legal bill if the claim didn’t win?
What happens if I win?
Well, that’s a different matter really. Although the no win, no fee agreement is often the term used for the whole of the agreement, which normally does encompass the terms of what you need to pay if a claim wins, the principle of the ‘no win, no fee’ is about what happens when we don’t win.
Want to know if we can offer you a no win, no fee agreement? Call 0800 634 7575 and we’ll let you know!