The big question!
If only things were far more simple like they used to be when we were able to offer no win, no fee agreements and practically all of our clients would receive 100% of their compensation claim. But thanks to some insane law changes back in April 2013 things are way more complicated now.
The charges can be vastly different from law firm to law firm, so how do we answer your question about what percentage do personal injury lawyers take?
I’ll explain how things work which may help you to understand how things work now.
What changed?
In a nutshell the government have stopped you from recovering all of your legal fees from the opponent. This means that there are fees you cannot get back from the other side responsible for paying you. It isn’t fair – but it’s sadly out of our hands…
You can no longer recover:
The Success Fee – which is a percentage of your lawyers costs for the risk of funding a case on a no win, no fee basis.
The cost of After The Event insurance – which is typically insurance taken out to cover you for certain costs that may arise during a case.
On top of that the amount of general legal fees was slashed to almost unworkable amounts, meaning it isn’t normally possible for law firms to bite the bullet and bear the extra cost of the fees we can no longer recover. If we did, we couldn’t afford to run a case for you (yes, it really is that bad!)
So how much ‘could’ I be charged?
Well the Success Fee has a cap meaning that only a maximum of 25% can be taken from your payout to cover it. So 25% is a fairly common figure. The insurance can then be on top of that as an additional percentage or as a fixed amount.
In reality though a lot of law firms have got round the cap by charging additional percentages to cover general legal fees. We are aware that some are taking up to 50% in some cases!
So what is the ‘least’ I could be charged?
I think most lawyers do the standard 25% plus insurance. But we don’t have to take 25% from you and we don’t charge any additional percentages on top of the success fee.
We can normally offer better deals which can allow you to keep more of your compensation depending on the nature of the claim and your instructions fort the case.
To find out more, just call 0800 634 7575 today.
