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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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A common question when making a claim is:

“How much will I have to pay?”

Generally, the answer should be nothing! No Win, No Fee should mean exactly what it says; If you lose the claim, you don’t pay any legal fees!
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Compensation is based upon the severity of your injuries and how long the injuries will affect your everyday life. As such, there is not really such a thing as a “standard” payout for any particular injury as everyone can be affected differently.

In law the defendant has to take the claimant as they find them – for example if your injury is an exacerbation of an existing injury this doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to claim as, of-course, if it wasn’t for the injury, your condition would not have been aggravated!

So how is a payout assessed? Well, put simply a payout is always assessed on the particular facts of each individual case. There is no such thing as one payout for this injury and another for something else – each case will have its own individual payout.
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This is a phrase that is batted around A LOT – so it is important to understand the difference between firms and make sure that you instruct the best lawyer for you.

So to begin with, what is a No Win No Fee?

This means that you should not have to pay the fees to run your case if the claim doesn’t win! You should receive 100% of the compensation awarded to if you win as the legal fees for most injury claims are recovered from the defendant.

So what should you now look for in an Injury Lawyer to make sure they’re the best? Here are a few examples.

1. Communication
2. Expertise
3. Accessiblity
4. Friendly

This is a very basic checklist however there is a lot more too each heading and here at The Injury Lawyers we pride ourselves on ensuring we have focused individually on each one and ensure you as the client get the best service level possible!
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