Given there are so many lawyers out there who can represent you for a claim for personal injury compensation choosing the right one can be a mission in itself. Competition has been extreme in the personal injury industry, which is why some firms have thought of clever ways of reeling you in to using their services.
Cash up-front and a free iPad have been two of the most popular hooks used by firms to get you to sign up to their legal services. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to look at the free iPad offer and why you probably no longer see it, and why you shouldn’t really trust it…
iPad’s cost in the region of £200 – £500. So a law firm offering you a free iPad is paying £200 – £500 for your claim. So let’s start on why this is a bad thing. Well the money they are spending on you isn’t something they can recover from the other side. We can’t claim back for a free iPad as part of the legal fees that we are entitled to recover from your opponent. So how can they afford to spend this money on you?
Well, I would have thought that the money comes right out of the running costs for your claim. You see, we here at The Injury Lawyers focus all of our attention and money on you – that’s providing you with a great service, and fighting for the highest payout possible. Rather than throwing a free iPad your way, we’d rather spend the money on getting you extra money for your claim.
Why isn’t anyone offering a free iPad anymore?
Well I can’t guarantee that literally no one is doing it anymore. There still may be some firms offering it, but the volume of them will have dropped.
Recent legal reforms mean that lawyers cannot actually recover all legal fees from the other side. So now, most clients are being charged up to 25% of their compensation and are being asked to pay for an insurance premium.
For most road accidents, our fees are fixed and set at around £500. So buying you an iPad could eat through the entire fees for the claim. Not really feasible to be honest!
Further legal fee reforms that are coming in to force for the end of July 2013 mean that most other types of claims, like accidents at work, slips and trips, etc, are also being subject to fixed fees of around £900. In comparison to the amount of work we often have to do in these sorts of claims, that is still nowhere near enough to be able to throw a free iPad at you for instructing us.
Now, it’s more about the deduction competition. Most law firms have settled on the ‘market rate’ of charging the full 25% (full, because this is the limit a lawyer can charge a client for a Success Fee in a case) and asking for payment of the insurance. However, we can still offer 100% compensation in some cases, and for those that we don’t, we are charging a lower rate than 25%.
For many legal firms, offering 100% compensation is a thing of the past, as with hooks like receiving a free iPad or getting cash upfront for pursuing an injury claim.
Trust THE Injury Lawyers, there’s no gimmicks with us, just our guarantee to get you the maximum compensation you deserve. Call us 0800 634 7575 to get your claim started today.
