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According to sources from the Manchester Evening News, seven people have been injured after a 10mx5m section of plasterboard fell from the roof on to club goers heads on the dance floor at Manchester’s Factory 251 nightclub on Princess St in the city centre.

Paramedics attended the scene of the incident, which happened at around 2:30am this morning, and seven injured victims were said to be treated for minor injuries and were taken to hospital as a precaution. Thankfully reports suggest so far that none of the injuries appear to be serious.

Police, who were also in attendance, have said that around 150 people were on the second floor of the city centre nightclub when the incident occurred, and around 850 people were evacuated from the premises.

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PLEASE NOTE: This is only for general guidance only, and you should always seek proper advice from a qualified personal injury lawyer to accurately calculate your limitation to claim period.

For the majority of cases in England and Wales, you have three years from the date of an accident in which to make your claim for personal injury compensation. What this normally means is that you must either have settled your claim or issued court proceedings before the three year anniversary of the accident.

Three years may seem like a long time, and can even feel like ages away. But it isn’t…

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You might think that I’m going to discuss with you about the pitfalls of potentially instructing a lawyer with a 100% compensation agreement that may not be all that it seems – in actual fact, this article is about making sure you come to a firm like us that offer 100% payouts and making sure you don’t fall for the tricks of a 25% compensation solicitor.

A lot of people will speak to us and we’ll explain about how our 100% compensation offer works. We’ll send you out some paperwork and in the meantime you’ll probably speak to other solicitors as well.

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In the past, for most accident claims, lawyers would not take a percentage from your payout and 100% compensation was a common thing. But you’re probably reading this as you have noticed that lawyers now want to take a cut of up to 25% from your compensation if you claim with them!

So what happened to 100% Compensation? Why are lawyers now wanting to take 25% from you payout?

Simply put – the government changed the law.

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It’s an easy thing to happen – especially after a stressful shopping trip or if visibility isn’t too great. But if you are correctly driving along or you are stationary and another vehicle reverses in to you from a parked space and hits you, what are your rights for making a claim for personal injury compensation?

Normally the other driver will be held fully liable for the accident by failing to keep a proper lookout when reversing. It’s similar to a driver pulling out of a junction in to a correctly proceeding car. The duty is primarily on the driver coming out of the space and in to the traffic way to manoeuvre slowly and with great care – constantly checking for pedestrians and vehicles.

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Firstly I would like to address the difference between 100% compensation and 100% No Win No Fee as unfortunately at the moment, a lot of firms are using the latter when they don’t actually offer the former. Confused? I’m not surprised!

100% No Win No Fee probably means that, should you lose the case, there will be no fees (as it says on the tin!) – but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will receive 100% compensation should the claim be successful. 100% compensation on the other hand means that should the case be successful you would receive 100% of the settlement – a subtle difference on paper but a potentially a big difference in reality.
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Some people are under the impression that the famous No Win, No Fee has been abolished. This isn’t true; but I will explain why some people may be under the impression that it has been stopped.

April 2013 saw the biggest shakeup in years of the personal injury world as the recoverability of certain legal fees has been stopped. This means that most law firms are no longer offering 100% compensation. Before the changes, most law firms for the majority of cases had 100% agreements because lawyers were entitled to recover all reasonable fees directly from the other side.  Since the changes, this is no longer the case.

From April 2013, any agreements entered in to mean that the lawyer for the majority of cases cannot recover a Success Fee of an After The Event insurance premium. The Success Fee is part of our costs that helps us to fund No Win, No Fee claims – as we cannot win them all. The insurance premium (abbreviation ATE) is to protect you against having to pay for certain costs, like the opponents costs if something goes south for example.
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I will keep the content of this article general, because different firms work in different ways. So generally speaking, a No Win, No Fee agreement is a contract between a solicitor and a client that normally means the client is not charged in the event their case loses.

So how can we offer to do this? Who pays us if we lose? Well, nobody pays us if we lose. It’s No Win, No Fee, so we won’t be looking to come to you for fees. But it’s not some big secret or trick as to how we can offer the No Win, No Fee agreement. Really it’s all about our perception of the risk of your case.

We will assess your claim and we will make an informed decision as to whether we think we can win the case or not. If we feel there are good prospects that the case will win, we might be able to offer the No Win, No Fee guarantee. If we feel the risks of the case outweigh the benefits of trying to pursue it, we may not offer a No Win, No Fee agreement.
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To set the scene, I’m going to briefly explain about the legal changes that came in to force on April 1^st 2013. The gist is that for people making a claim after this date, it’s likely that their lawyer will not be able to recover all of their legal fees from the other side. Before April, all reasonable legal fees were recoverable. After April, the government banned the recovery of some of the lawyer’s fees.

The two things that can no longer be recovered are:

1. Success Fee – which is usually a percentage of our fees that helps us to fund no win, no fee claims.
2. After The Event insurance premium – insurance we take out that we can claim adverse costs or unrecoverable disbursements from.

As a result, the vast majority of law firms are now charging clients. The ‘market rate’ appears to be 25% because that’s the maximum the government have allowed a lawyer to charge a client for the unrecoverable success fee, and many law firms are also asking for payment of the insurance premium.
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With our claims line ringing off the hook with people wanting our expert legal representation and quality claims advice, we are often asked what I call one of the big questions when it comes to personal injury claiming: will I win my claim?

In the majority of cases it’s not so easy to answer this question with a straightforward Yes or No. What we can normally say to you is that we are either confident that we can win your claim, confident there is a chance of winning the claim, or not so confident at all. If we take a claim on a No Win, No Fee basis that means we are confident there is a chance of success. I’ll explain how it works to give you the best insight I can:
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