Insurance injury claim help

philipio

My partner was recently involved in a road traffic accident. After an intial dispute over liability the other party agreed to admit liability and settled. My partner now has an ongoing injury claim. The solicitors who were instructed by the insurance company have recently written to asking her to switch her claim to a CFA claim (also known as no win no fee).
Although it is obviously encouraging to know the solicitors are pretty confident of success in this case, they state the switch to a CFA claim would be advatangeous for my partner as it will encourage the other party to settle quicker.
My partner and I are unable to see any advantages to changing the claim or why the other party would settle quicker under CFA and seem very uniformed by the solicitors on the matter. It is my opinion that if it was better for us, they would have explained it better than they have.
I was wondering if there would be any experts able to advise on the matter.
All help gratefully recieved.

Quentin

Their reasoning seems dubious.

Reputable solicitors would be billing the third party for their fees on top of the damages your partner will be receiving.

Your partner shouldn't now agree to paying any fees to the solicitor in this matter.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Conditional Fee Arrangements are also known as "no win no fee" arrangements. It means that the solicitor is able to increase their fees to cover the cases that they do not win and in the case of your claim, appears to be a way for them to make more money - I see no reason why an insurer would settle any quicker if the case was under a CFA, but it will help to drive up the price of insurance (the money to pay the increased solicitor fee has to come from somewhere).

Now, CFA's do have their place and they have allowed people to have greater access to legal representation, but they should not be a tactic for claims negotiation.

If I were in your position, I would be phoning the solicitor and saying that I was not sure whether their suggestion was ethical and asking them for the name of someone within The Law Society that I could discuss it with. Either that or I would be telling them exactly what I think of their suggestion and where they can shove it before looking for a new solicitor.

philipio

Thanks for the responses, you've both just backed up pretty much what I was thinking.
I did try and speak to the law society, however I got the following response:

"The Legal Complaints Service considers the service which solicitors provide to their clients if the complaint is raised by the client in question. We are unable to give legal advice, or to provide a second opinion on any advice provided by your solicitors"

No help there then!